Posted on 05/13/2005 6:39:11 AM PDT by Pikamax
Connecticut Carries Out Its First Execution in 45 Years By WILLIAM YARDLEY and STACEY STOWE
SOMERS, Conn., May 13 - Connecticut carried out its first execution in 45 years early today, administering a lethal injection to Michael Bruce Ross, a convicted serial killer who abandoned his appeals and died willingly after 18 years on death row.
About 300 death penalty opponents held vigil in the cold and dark outside the rural complex of state prisons where a warden led Mr. Ross to the execution chamber and an unidentified executioner began administering a lethal injection into his arm shortly after the scheduled 2:01 a.m. execution time.
"Death occurred at 2:25 a.m. on this day," Christine Whidden, the warden of one of the prisons, Robinson Correctional Institution, announced five minutes afterwards.
Mr. Ross, 45, had sought that fatal moment for nearly a year.
In defiance of public defenders and others who wanted to save him, he chose to forgo further appeals of his death sentence last year. He said he wanted to ease the pain of the families of the eight teenage girls and young women he strangled in the early 1980's. He raped most of his victims.
A graduate of Cornell University and a former life insurance salesman, Mr. Ross convinced judges he was competent, smirked at psychiatrists who said he was suicidal and often seemed exasperated by his inability to reshape his image.
"I am not an animal," he once wrote.
In the final moments before his execution on Friday morning, however, he did not attempt to explain himself. He kept his eyes closed and never looked through the glass at those witnessing his death.
His execution, at Osborn Correctional Institution, atop a grassy slope about a mile from the Massachusetts border, was witnessed by more than 20 people. Nine family members of Mr. Ross's victims witnessed the execution, as did the two detectives who first arrested him and a victims' advocate. They shared the witness room with four people who were there at Mr. Ross's request, as well as five news media witnesses who were allowed to document the event with notepads and pens. Heavy gray curtains separated each group.
Media witnesses said the curtain blocking the execution chamber opened at 2:08 a.m. and revealed Mr. Ross strapped to a padded table, his arms outstretched. Asked if he wanted to make a final statement, he said, "No, thank you."
A warden then placed a call from the chamber that lasted five minutes. It was unclear why the call lasted that long, though the execution procedure required a final check to see whether any stays of execution had been ordered.
Several media witnesses said the injection began at about 2:13, after the warden hung up the phone. They said Mr. Ross clearly reacted to the flow of chemicals.
"He definitely gasped and shuddered," said Shelly Sindland, a reporter for WTIC-TV. She and others said they did not know whether Mr. Ross felt pain
Ms. Sindland noted that a family member near her said aloud sarcastically, "Uh, feeling some pain?"
After the color appeared to fade from Mr. Ross's face, another family member, a man, said, "It was too peaceful."
Family members expressed a range of emotions after witnessing the execution. Some expressed sympathy for Mr. Ross's family, none of whom witnessed the execution.
"I thought I would feel closure but I felt anger just watching him lay there and sleep after what he did to these women," said Debbie Dupuis, the sister of Robin Stavinsky, who Mr. Ross murdered in 1983 when she was 19.
Lan Manh Tu, whose younger sister Dzung Ngoc Tu, 25, was raped and murdered by Mr. Ross in 1981, traveled to Connecticut from Maryland on Thursday for the execution. Mr. Ross was never prosecuted for her murder, though he confessed to it. Mr. Tu was allowed inside the prison but he was not allowed to witness the execution.
"I'm glad that we will never have to hear about him again," Mr. Tu said.
Lera Shelley, whose daughter Leslie was 14 when Mr. Ross strangled her in 1984, said, "My daughter and the other victims finally have the justice they deserve and now they can all rest in peace."
Outside the prison, in the first moments after the execution, the approximately 300 people who had sung hymns and talked quietly became silent.
"I feel regret that this state has just killed somebody," James Russell, 23, a teacher from Longmeadow, Mass., said shortly after the execution was announced. "It's a barbaric act that shouldn't happen in a democratic society."
Because of his status as a so-called volunteer, Mr. Ross held the right to change his mind up until the moment of the lethal injection and to say he wanted to appeal.
"All he has to do is say so and the machinery of death will stop," Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said during an afternoon news conference at a prison just down from the prison where Mr. Ross was to die.
The execution had seemed imminent before.
In January, Mr. Ross came within hours of death before his lawyer, T.R. Paulding, unexpectedly requested a delay. Mr. Paulding, who has helped Mr. Ross seek execution, cited a potential conflict of interest after a federal judge threatened earlier that day to suspend his law license for not questioning Mr. Ross's competency more thoroughly.
A new six-day evaluation in April led to another finding of competency and a series of court rulings affirming the finding. One expert said this week that he believed that the execution would go forward because the state effectively has had a legal "dress-rehearsal."
"I think last time cleared a lot of the underbrush out of the way," said Michael A. Mello, a professor at Vermont Law School and a former capital defense lawyer.
Before the execution, on the rural two-lane road that runs past the prison complex here, drivers beeped horns or shouted support or disapproval as they passed clusters of correction officers and state police officers. A line of protesters marched before sundown, their anti-death-penalty banners rippling in the strong spring breeze.
"I'm not here because of Mr. Ross," said David Cruz-Uribe, 41, who teaches math at Trinity College in Hartford. "He's not a nice person. I'm here because I oppose the death penalty."
After midnight, Mr. Cruz-Uribe joined hundreds of protesters marching toward Osborn as temperatures dipped toward the low 40's. He recited the Hail Mary prayer as his fingers worked the beads of a rosary.
Lawyers trying to stop the execution argued in court as late as Thursday afternoon. A motion filed by one of Mr. Ross's sisters claimed his decision to be executed was involuntary because he suffered from a combination of mental disorders and psychological coercion after years of confinement. Another suit claimed that Mr. Ross's "suicide" would "cause suicide contagion" among other inmates.
Both claims were rejected in federal court late in the day. A three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit found that Mr. Ross's sister, Donna Dunham, did not have legal standing. In a separate decision, the court said the possible effect of the execution on other prisoners was not clear.
The United States Supreme Court rejected both claims late Thursday night.
Mr. Ross's unlikely case pushed Connecticut toward its 74th execution since it adopted capital punishment in 1893. But it would be the first since the state electrocuted a murderer nicknamed Mad Dog in 1960
While rough edges defined that man, Joseph Taborsky, Mr. Ross was an Ivy League graduate with a sometimes condescending manner and a masterful grasp of the nuances of death penalty law.
He was first arrested on murder charges in 1984, three years after he graduated from Cornell. Six of his victims lived in eastern Connecticut; two lived in New York. He was sentenced to death in 1987 for four of the Connecticut killings.
On Thursday morning, he woke at 5:45 a.m. and "spent part of the morning watching television, reading newspapers," said Brian Garnett, a spokesman for the State Department of Correction.
By 8:10 a.m. he was moved to a holding cell next to what correction officials call "the execution enclosure." He took with him a Bible, a book of Bible verses, a coffee cup and candy. He received communion from a prison chaplain about 9 a.m. and received visits from his lawyer, friends and family, speaking to them through holes in plexiglass covering the cell bars.
His last meal, served at about 3 p.m., was the prison meal of the day.
"That happened to be turkey a la king with rice, mixed vegetables, white bread, fruit and a beverage," Mr. Garnett said.
Mr. Paulding, speaking to reporters after the execution, said his client genuinely wanted to help the families of his victims and had made "a decision that required courage."
"This was not an act of suicide," he said.
"He sought to do what he thought was right," Mr. Paulding added. "He stuck to his principles."
Christopher L. Morano, the chief state's attorney, whose office prosecuted Mr. Ross, said, "It's time to forget about Michael Ross, but we should never forget about his victims."
Gov. M. Jodi Rell, a Republican who declined to grant Mr. Ross a temporary reprieve, said, "Today is a day no one truly looked forward to - but then no one looked forward to the brutal, heinous deaths of those eight young girls. I hope that there is at least some measure of relief and closure for their families."
Theresa C. Lantz, commissioner of the state department of corrections, noted the historic nature of the execution for her department and that it was the state's first by lethal injection.
"We have drilled consistently," she said. "Utilizing every contingency and scenario that we possibly could, 30 times at a minimum."
She said employees involved with the lethal injection had been qualified by a state-licensed physician. All who are participating, she said, "do so voluntarily, confidentially and have full access to counseling and support services if they feel it is needed."
Julia Preston, in Manhattan, and Avi Salzman, in Somers, Conn., contributed reporting for this article.
NEXT !!!
What a waste of oxygen and the taxpayers money ... for the last 18 years.
It's all about you and your feel goodisms. A one watt brain can come out with the same silliness.
Where are these people when a Schiavo is perpetrated or a third trimester abortion is performed. What a bunch of hypocrites who aren't sure where they stand on the Life thing.
Good riddance. Mr. Tu has been on Nancy Grace's show the last few nights. Incredibly articulate man. The family came here from Vietnam and started from scratch. His murdered sister was a Vassar graduate. She won her class's highest award in economics. The pig Ross got to live 20 years on death row. Appalling.
"...It's a barbaric act that shouldn't happen in a democratic society."
***
Never mind the "barbaric acts" Mr. Ross perpetrated on his victims.
*Sigh*
Hi 5......way to go....atta girl guv.
now Northeast, lets keep the conveyer belt rolling!
Is there a suicide watch on now at Ct. prisons? I have popcorn ready!
I'm glad too. I'm only sorry it took 18 years to carry out the sentence. I'm also glad we won't have to worry about Mr. Ross killing anyone else, ever again.
My objection to lethal injection is not that it is too humane but that it is too much like a medical procedure. Medicine should be to save lives. I guess most of America does not see it that way because one state after another have given up the electric chair or the other traditional means of execution such as the rope, the gas chamber, or the firing squad. Those may be more difficult to watch but at least we're not using soft medicine to carry out a death sentence.
I wish CT had as much sympathy for the victims than this murdering thug. Unfortunately, THE VICTIMS don't get appeals or people protesting THEIR death....
Keep killing the sickos. Gotta make up for all the ones we don't kill up north over here.
Help control the imprisoned rapist and pedophile population: gas, hang, electrocute, shoot, or lethally inject your perps.
- hoping eventual new host of 'Price is Right' will say that at the end of each show...
I don't know why but I like Nancy Grace a lot. She's real, southern accent, hairdo and all. Though I doubt her real name is Grace. That's way too easy.
Where were these people? They were climbing over themselves to pull the feeding tube.
You got that right. All the do-gooders care about is their own smug, self-righteous and condescending sense of superiority. They don't really care about "the people", they just care about their own little sense of identity and egos.
>>Help control the imprisoned rapist and pedophile population: gas, hang, electrocute, shoot, or lethally inject your perps.
These days it seems more like lethal injection rather than the Chair (Ol' Sparky). It should be just like the barber shops used to say: Two chairs--no waiting!
It's all true what you say. Back at cha :)
death by starvation........it has been ruled humane by the courts, and is painless (sarcasm)...strap them into a bed, insert a catheter, and close the door
It is a truly sad state of affairs when it takes 18 years to execute a murderer who admits to the crimes and is not fighting the execution.
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