Kathy E <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: Serial killer Michael Ross has literally signed away his life, putting his name at the bottom of an extraordinary 10-page agreement with a prosecutor to go to his execution quietly. The pact between Ross and special prosecutor C. Robert Satti could force Connecticut � a state that has not carried out the death penalty since 1960 � to face an execution soon. Legal experts around the country are calling the deal unprecedented and say it has dangerous implications. A human rights group says it was the product of an "unholy alliance'' of the killer and prosecutor. Even the judge in the case has expressed reservations, holding off accepting the agreement until hearing further arguments on whether it is legal and binding. "I must say this is a unique situation. A person is entitled to waive appeals, but I don't think they're entitled to commit suicide,'' said Richard Dieter, director of the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington, D.C. Ross, a former insurance salesman and Ivy League graduate, strangled at least six girls and young women in the early 1980s. He pleaded guilty to two killings in 1985 and was convicted of four others in 1987. Later that year, he was sentenced to death. In 1994, the state Supreme Court upheld his conviction but overturned his sentence because the judge had excluded part of a psychiatric report that might have helped him escape death. A new penalty hearing was ordered. But Ross dismissed his public defenders and wrote to Satti with the idea that a new penalty hearing could be avoided altogether if they could come to some arrangement. Over the course of three years, the prosecutor and the defendant � acting as his own attorney, with a court-appointed lawyer as an adviser only � worked side by side to create their lethal brief. The document coldly details how he how captured and killed his victims. Most of them were raped and their bodies dumped in the woods. The contract, signed March 11, ends with the declaration that "a sentence of death will be imposed.'' Plenty of other death row inmates around the country have pleaded guilty or waived all appeals after being sentenced to die. Ross' case differs in two major respects. First, he signed an explicit contract with the prosecution that, if found to be binding, seals his fate. And second, the deal would eliminate the penalty hearing altogether. Legal experts say this appears to be improper because under Connecticut law, no one can be sentenced to death without a penalty hearing. They also object because Ross' fate � unlike that of many death row inmates � is far from hopeless. Under the law, Ross would be spared the death penalty if a judge or jury at the penalty hearing found just one mitigating factor, such as a history of child abuse. Ross has a psychiatric report that says he suffers from a mental illness. Stephen Bright, director of the Southern Center for Human Rights in Atlanta, called the relationship between Satti and Ross "an unholy alliance.'' "This agreement is an extraordinary document to come up with. What's different in this case is the contract with the state prosecutors and the keeping-out-evidence aspect of it,'' he said. Loyola University law professor James Carey worries that the adversarial nature of the court system has been abandoned in this case. "The process by which you would induce an accused person to appear to sign his life away I think undermines the apparent structure and neutrality of the process,'' he said. Fordham University law professor Deborah Denno said: "I think there's some sort of death wish on his part. He's taking the more egregious punishment when there's a pretty strong chance that he might not be given death.'' Ross, 38, a graduate of Cornell University with a degree in agricultural economics, denied he is suicidal and said he simply wants to spare the victims' families from having to go through another hearing. "They have been hurt enough by my actions in the past,'' he said during a hearing before Superior Court Judge Thomas Miano. "I don't want them to have to hear the awful details of how I sadistically brutalized and murdered their daughters.'' Satti refused to comment Wednesday. The judge has asked Satti and Ross to submit briefs on the legality their agreement and set a hearing for April 9. Patrick Culligan, chief of the capital defense team for the state Office of the Chief Public Defender, is trying to intervene. "Our Supreme Court has said that in Connecticut, if the death penalty is imposed, it must be the result of a reasoned moral judgment. The parties do not seem to be addressing that interest at all,'' Culligan said. "It comes down to couple of guys trying to come up with their own rules.'' -- Kathy E "I can only please one person a day, today is NOT your day, and tomorrow isn't looking too good for you either" http://members.delphi.com/kathylaw/ Law & Issues Mailing List http://pw1.netcom.com/~kathye/rodeo.html - Cowboy Histories http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Lobby/2990/law.htm Crime photo's Subscribe/Unsubscribe, email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] In the body of the message enter: subscribe/unsubscribe law-issues
