A lawyer for serial killer Michael Ross asks for a postponement so that new evidence about his client's competency can be examined.

10:45 AM EST on Tuesday, February 1, 2005

BY KAREN LEE ZINER
Journal Staff Writer

HARTFORD, Conn. -- Serial killer Michael Bruce Ross yesterday halted the execution he has pleaded for -- and come within a hair's breadth of -- by agreeing to another competency exam.

The Connecticut Supreme Court granted motions for a stay of execution filed by Ross' lawyer, T.R. Paulding, and prosecutors, just hours shy of Ross' scheduled 9 p.m. death by lethal injection. The execution would have marked New England's first in nearly 45 years.

Paulding yesterday acknowledged the emergence of new evidence and the need to explore a phenomenon known as "death row syndrome."

Though Ross has claimed he wants the execution to go forward to spare his victims' families further emotional pain, public defenders have argued that years of harsh conditions on death row have swayed Ross to drop his appeals.

A death warrant that would have allowed the execution to go forward expired last night at 11:59; the state will now have to petition for another. Lawyers predicted that process could take months.

State law prohibits the execution from being rescheduled for at least a month after a new warrant is issued.

Ross' execution has now been postponed three times, including early Saturday morning, one hour before Ross was to be put to death. It was originally scheduled for 2:01 a.m. on Jan. 26.

"This has been an excruciating ordeal for a lot of people, particularly the families of the victims," said Gov. M. Jodi Rell. "I can only imagine the emotional roller coaster it has been over the last week for these [families of the] victims. My heart goes out to them."

Yesterday's postponement, and the stay issued early Saturday morning, followed a blistering phone lecture Friday afternoon during which U.S. Chief District Judge Robert Chatigny accused Paulding of not fully investigating new evidence that he said puts Ross' competency in question.

"The last 48 hours have reinforced my belief that the execution of Michael Ross should be delayed to determine whether he is competent. New and significant evidence has come to light that I simply cannot ignore," Paulding said yesterday.

Journal photo / John Freidah

Connecticut state Senators David Cappiello, right, and Larry Cafero listen to testimony on the death penalty in Hartford yesterday.

"Michael Ross' decision to forgo any additional appeals remains unchanged, but he has pledged his cooperation," Paulding said. "He recognizes that serious questions have been raised regarding previous examinations and has decided to allow a more thorough evaluation of his competence."

Prolonged applause broke out when the postponement was announced yesterday afternoon during a joint House-Senate Judiciary public hearing on bills to amend or abolish the death penalty in Connecticut.

Several hundred people -- most of whom wore red "Stop the Death Penalty" badges -- listened to hours of public testimony, during which the Ross case stood center stage.

Ross, a 45-year-old Ivy League graduate, has been convicted of killing six young Connecticut women and girls in the early 1980s. He was sentenced to death for four of those murders, and received life sentences for the deaths of the two other girls. Ross has also confessed to killing two other women in 1981, when he was a student at Cornell University in New York.

According to Paulding's motion, the new evidence includes "a letter to the court from an inmate by the name of Ramon Lopez, and an affidavit from an ex-employee of the Department of Correction."

In that letter, Lopez says he believes state mental-health workers may have coerced Ross to drop his appeals.

In the affidavit, former deputy warden John Tokarz states, "I can best describe Northern [correctional facility] as living in a submarine or a cave. On many occasions, it was suggested that department staff assigned to Northern should be rotated every two years because of the effect the conditions of Northern could have on their mental health."

Paulding states in the motion that he conferred Sunday with "a longtime acquaintance of Mr. Ross who has frequent contact with him."

The acquaintance, Martha Elliott, "would testify that, although Michael Ross does not feel qualified to know, he has previously expressed the belief that he may, in fact, suffer from the phenomenon known as 'Death Row Syndrome.' "

In letters Ross has written that are part of court records, according to the Associated Press, Ross said that life on death row was increasingly unbearable.

In a June 2003 letter, Ross called the delays in his execution "a never-ending merry-go-round, a horrible ride that never ever stops."

In a 1998 letter, Ross wrote that he had other motives than ending the families' suffering.

" . . . The truth is I was driven more by a desire to end my own pain than out of a noble cause. However, I knew that I couldn't say that publicly, so I denied my own desire to leave this world and played on the noble cause of protecting the families of my victims."

Public defenders have sought to explore expert opinion on death row syndrome with regard to Ross' competency; state officials have rejected those claims.

"Certainly, we would very vigorously contest that there is a death row syndrome or a segregated housing syndrome that affects all death row prisoners and makes them incompetent to voluntarily, knowingly, intelligently waive their rights," said Attorney General Richard Blumenthal.

The motion also states that Ross met Sunday with Dr. Michael Norko, the psychiatrist who performed Ross' most recent court-ordered competency exam.

Norko's findings prompted New London Superior Court Judge Patrick Clifford to rule in December that Ross was competent to decide he wanted to die.

But a blizzard of motions and appeals that twice have taken the case to the U.S. Supreme Court delayed the execution.

"Dr. Norko indicated that his investigation techniques, conclusions and ultimate opinion about Mr. Ross' competence may indeed have been different, had he been privy to these materials" while conducting the exam, according to Paulding's motion.

"At a minimum, it is clear that Dr. Norko cannot say at this time that his original opinion is correct."

Paulding states that he and Ross "would assert that this element, standing alone, gives compelling grounds to stay the execution of Mr. Ross and return the matter to Judge Clifford for further investigation and presentation of evidence on the issue of Mr. Ross' competence."

Meanwhile, yesterday's hearing on bills to abolish or amend Connecticut's death penalty statute including compelling testimony from a Massachusetts man who spent 32 years at Walpole state prison.

The man, Laurence Adams, was exonerated and released nine months ago after serving a sentence that included 10 years on death row.

"I did 32 years before I was finally exonerated," said Laurence. He said the abolition of the death penalty in Massachusetts 20 years ago saved his life by giving his lawyer time to discover evidence that exonerated him.

"I think it's important that when you talk about the death sentence, you have to talk about human error," said Laurence. He said he will remain against the death penalty until the possibility of human error can be eliminated.

Laurence, who testified that there were on average three murders a week during his earlier years at Walpole, said he is still suffering the effects of decades of confinement.

Helen Williams, whose police officer son was slain in the line of duty in 1992, was among the dozens of people who testified.

Williams, of Wolcott, Conn., said, "I am for the death penalty, because I don't believe one should take someone's life. It's not murder when the state does it. I don't consider that murder -- I consider that justice."

With reports from The Associated Press.