SIDING WITH THE 10%:

Connecticut Debates a Death Wish: A convicted serial killer has his execution postponed against his will. The delays anger many in the state. (Elizabeth Mehren, February 3, 2005, LA Times)

Five times in six days, Michael Bruce Ross was minutes away from death by lethal injection. Execution postponements are routine while death row inmates appeal their fates.

But Ross stands out because he refused to pursue legal avenues that might prolong his life. The 45-year-old serial killer has said — over and over — that he wants to die.

The delays have roiled this state, where polls show most residents support capital punishment.

"If they put this to a vote of the people of Connecticut, 80% to 90% would say: 'Execute him now,' " said Gene Smith, owner of Judy's Country Store in Stafford.

"He killed people. He killed eight people," Smith said. "I think what they should do is put it out to bid on who would like to give him the lethal injection. I'd be right up there."

Most of Ross' victims, who ranged in age from 14 to 25, had been raped before they were killed.

Ross, a Cornell University graduate who confessed to murdering eight young women in Connecticut and New York in the early 1980s, fired the public defense lawyers who wanted to fight his death sentence. He bypassed appeals that might have kept him alive another 10 years or more. He even planned his funeral, hoping it would take place in the spring, when the weather would be better for mourners.

But a federal judge Monday stopped the clock on what was scheduled to be New England's first execution in 45 years.

Among the many foolhardy corners the Democrats have painted themselves into, being the defenders of judicial activism is one of the most dangerous, because so clearly anti-democratic and anti-republican.

Posted by Orrin Judd at February 3, 2005 7:36 AM