Posted on 01/26/2005 3:53:09 PM PST by SmithL
HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) --
Connecticut prosecutors asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday to override a judge's decision that allowed an admitted serial killer's execution to be delayed.
The high court did not plan on issuing a decision on the matter Wednesday night, the court's clerk told the state public defenders' office.
The prosecutors said U.S. District Judge Robert Chatigny of Hartford was wrong to postpone Michael Ross' execution in order to schedule a competency hearing that would determine if his mental capacity had diminished from nearly two decades on death row.
If prosecutors succeed, Ross will become the first person executed in New England in 45 years.
At issue is whether Ross, who says he wants the execution to proceed, is mentally competent to waive appeals being pursued by public defenders he fired last year.
"Every state court and one federal district court that has considered the matter has found that Michael Ross is competent to elect to forgo further legal challenges to his conviction," the prosecutors wrote.
The prosecution motion was sent to Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Notice what's going on here: the public defender (who the defendant fired but who has continued to appeal his case on the theory that the Pub Def knows better than him [side note: what happened to the idea that attorneys work for the client, not the reverse?])who used to represent a serial killer who now wants to be executed because he says he wants the victims' families to have closure says that that desire constitutes legal grounds to claim he is too crazy to be executed. Loony left alert: if you want to pay for your crime, that is proof that you are crazy. The rest of the story: the defendant is an Ivy League graduate.
Let's review what happened in the Soviet Union: the Soviets used to put dissidents in the nuthouse on the grounds that if they didn't like the government and communism it was proof that they were insane.
A coincidence?????? I think not.
WTF?!?! You want to say that again in English?
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