Posted on 05/12/2005 9:01:11 PM PDT by nutmeg
(Somers-AP, May 12, 2005 Update 11:28 PM ) _ A serial killer who struggled to hasten his own death -- and was forced to prove he wasn't out of his mind -- awaited lethal injection early Friday in New England's first execution in 45 years.
Michael Ross, 45, was scheduled to be put to death at 2:01 a.m. after fighting off attempts by public defenders, death penalty foes and his own family to save his life.
The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York rejected two last-minute appeals from Ross' relatives late Thursday afternoon, and the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the appeals Thursday night.
Both courts rebuffed a lawsuit brought on behalf of Ross' father that claimed the execution would lead to a wave of suicide attempts among Connecticut inmates. They also rejected an attempt by Ross' sister intervene in his case and stop the execution.
Death penalty opponents warned that Ross' execution could break down a political and psychological barrier against capital punishment in New England and start a domino effect in the region.
The Ivy League-educated Ross was sent to death row for the murders of four young women and girls in Connecticut in the 1980s, and confessed to four more such slayings in Connecticut and New York. He also raped most of the women.
Last fall, he announced he was abandoning all remaining appeals -- which could have kept him alive for many years -- because his victims' families had suffered enough.
"I owe these people. I killed their daughters. If I could stop the pain, I have to do that. This is my right," the former insurance agent and Cornell University graduate said last year. "I don't think there's anything crazy or incompetent about that."
Desperate to save his life, public defenders and Ross' family argued that Ross suffered from "death row syndrome" -- that is, he had become deranged from living most of the past 18 years under a death sentence.
Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said Ross had the right to give up his appeals.
"What we've seen in the last weeks and months are intermeddlers, and third parties seeking to delay or derail the lawful process," Blumenthal said.
Ross' family, friends and attorneys visited with him through the day and late into the night after he was moved in the morning to a holding cell near the death chamber at Osborn Correctional Institution in Somers. He had with him a Bible, a book of Bible verses, a coffee cup and some candy.
"He seemed fine. He's still resolute. I didn't detect any change in him at all," T.R. Paulding, Ross' lawyer, said Thursday night.
Ross was hours from death in January when a federal judge scolded Ross' attorney and threatened to lift his law license for trying to hasten Ross' execution. The lawyer agreed to a new round of hearings on whether Ross was mentally competent.
At the hearing, two psychiatrists testified that he was mentally incompetent. They said he has a personality disorder that compels him to choose death to avoid looking cowardly. Two other experts disputed the finding of incompetence and said he was genuinely remorseful.
Last month, a judge again found Ross competent to decide his fate.
The last execution in New England was in 1960, when Joseph "Mad Dog" Taborsky went to the electric chair in Connecticut. Of the six New England states, only Connecticut and New Hampshire have the death penalty. New Hampshire has no one on death row and has not executed anyone since 1939.
Edwin Shelley, whose 14-year-old daughter Leslie was Ross' seventh victim, said he planned to watch Ross die.
"It's going to be nice to come home and realize that the case is finished and that he has received his just rewards," Shelley said. "I think I will be very relaxed and at ease with myself."
Please Freepmail me if you want on or off my infrequent Connecticut ping list.
We can only pray that this is true.
They did NOTHING for Terri Schiavo, did they?
OK, now I understand.
One less vote for the Democrats.
"It's going to be nice to come home and realize that the case is finished and that he has received his just rewards," Shelley said. "I think I will be very relaxed and at ease with myself."
It is called "closure", and one can only hope that when evil such as the evil of this serial killer Michael Ross strikes again - - and unfortunately it likely will - - it strikes the families of these scumbag death penalty opponents.
"It's going to be nice to come home and realize that the case is finished and that he has received his just rewards," Shelley said. "I think I will be very relaxed and at ease with myself."
It is called "closure", and one can only hope that when evil such as the evil of this serial killer Michael Ross strikes again - - and unfortunately it likely will - - it strikes the families of these scumbag death penalty opponents.
"It's going to be nice to come home and realize that the case is finished and that he has received his just rewards," Shelley said. "I think I will be very relaxed and at ease with myself."
It is called "closure", and one can only hope that when evil such as the evil of this serial killer Michael Ross strikes again - - and unfortunately it likely will - - it strikes the families of these scumbag death penalty opponents.
The news break said that the execution is going on as planned, in less than 90 minutes.
I say good riddance.
I say good riddance.
I say good riddance to him as well!
Another benifit of capital punishment.
Lethal injections start with a large injection of sodium pentathol followed by pancuronium bromide, and finally potassium Chloride.
If those charged with doing the lethal injection start the pancuronium bromide into the IV with out flushing the IV the remaining sodium pentathol reacts with the pancuronium Bromide to form a solid. That results in a very painful death over as much as a half our to an hour. Executioners often claim to have made a mistake, but it seems likely to me that they want to make the death as painful as possible under the circumstances. There have been "problems" with the lethal injections of several serial killers. "Problems" injecting the chemicals result in it taking an intensively painful half our to a full hour for the convicted killer to die from the "problem plagued" injection.
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
Is he dead yet?
LMAO!!!
Prior to living on death row, Ross was not deranged.
Okay....
This punk was scheduled to die at 2:00 but I can't find anything on the news wires to confirm he's dead. I got a cold one ready to be cracked, so if anybody hears the good news, please ping me. Thanks.
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