August 10, 2007

Connecticut

Death Is Sometimes Too Easy A Sentence

By Kenton Robinson, The Day

I HAD THE DUBIOUS HONOR of being one of the five reporters chosen to watch
the state put Michael Ross to sleep.

I phrase it that way because it was that way. It was, weirdly, like taking
Spot in for his final visit to the vet. Without, of course, the sorrow.

He closed his eyes. They injected him. He shuffled off this mortal coil.

For the taxpayers, the execution of southeastern Connecticut's most
notorious serial killer ended a 20-year horror show involving endless legal
appeals and costing them - by some estimates - roughly $2 million.

For the families of the eight young women he raped and strangled, it was
"too peaceful," a sad anticlimax after years of having to see his face again
and again in newspapers and on TV.

And for Ross, it was the sweet release he long had wished for, his escape
from the hell of life in prison without a prayer of parole.

Now we are about to take another run at capital punishment.

If Joshua Komisarjevsky and Steven Hayes are convicted of murdering the
family of Dr. William Petit, New Haven State's Attorney Michael Dearington
says he will seek the death penalty.

It is hard to conceive of anyone more deserving.

Allegedly, these two men broke into the family's Cheshire home, beat Petit
unconscious, raped and strangled his wife, raped his 11-year-old daughter,
tied her and her 17-year-old sister to their beds, and set their room on
fire.

We would not be human if we did not, in the darkness of our hearts, want to
see these men, these "monsters," put down.

Life in prison? No way, our correspondents say. Prison is a "country club."
We want them to suffer.

Obviously, these correspondents have never been to prison.

Ross had spent almost half his 45 years locked in a subterranean cage
7-by-14 feet in size. He had nothing to look forward to but - if he lived to
be 70 - another 25 years in that cage.

When he announced he wanted to die, the court appointed a psychiatrist to
interview him. His mission: to determine whether Ross was sane. After all,
what sane man wants to be put to death?

Those interviews, which were taped, were nothing less than the eerie
spectacle of an animal trapped, gnawing off its leg to escape.

Sane enough, the court concluded.

Ross was executed just two years ago in May. If he had chosen to pursue all
the appeals available to him, he would still be with us today, his death,
perhaps, another 10 years off.

"The proceedings in death penalty cases are interminable," said Chief Public
Defender Gerard Smyth, testifying a few months before Ross' execution. "It
is impossible to change that. It will never change. It ... will always take
15 to 20 years or more to execute someone in the state of Connecticut."

And so it will be with Hayes and Komisarjevsky. If they are sentenced to
death, we and Dr. Petit will be treated to countless newspaper stories,
countless TV newscasts about them for the next 15 to 20 years.

Like Ross, they will enjoy a perverse kind of fame.

You want them to suffer? Make them live forever, until they draw their final
breaths, forgotten in a cage.

---

Source : The Day (This is the opinion of Kenton Robinson)

http://www.theday.com/re.aspx?re=89171c ... 696e6d0bd6