Let him die

As federal and state judges heard arguments Wednesday on last-minute attempts to prevent New England's first execution in 45 years, serial killer Michael Ross told those same courts he is ready to die.

The 45 year-old murderer was sentenced to death for killing four young women in eastern Connecticut in the early 1980s and has confessed to four other murders in Connecticut and New York. Last year, he decided to end his appeals and accept his death sentence.

He was hours away from being put to death in January, when his attorney, incredibly under pressure from a federal judge, asked for a new hearing to examine his competency.

One appeal claimed that Ross' execution amounts to state-assisted suicide and would have such a negative effect on suicidal prisoners that a "suicide contagion" would result among the state's inmates. "These prisoners will try to kill themselves in the hours, days and weeks following Michael's death," the suit states.

The Connecticut Attorney General dismissed the notion the execution amounted to a state-assisted suicide because Ross decided to forgo his appeals. He vowed to fight the suit.

Then things got really silly. One attorney argues that Ross has been coerced into deciding to die by his own narcissism and the harsh conditions of living on death row. "Saying he is competent is not the same as saying he's capable," the attorney said.

An attorney interviewed on Fox News this morning made the statement that because Ross has been on death row for so long, he has been in a condition of sensory deprivation, and thus is not capable of knowing whether or not he wants to die.

So, if I understand this correctly, someone who kills eight innocent women is tried, convicted and sentenced to death for his crimes, and because of the lengthy process of mandatory appeals and such that we have for condemned criminals, that that process renders the criminal of being emotionally/psychologically unfit to die?

All of that notwithstanding, Michael Ross deserves the death penalty. He earned it, and the jury and judge agreed that it was appropriate. Society has paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to keep this subhuman creature alive for well over 20 years.

Enough is enough.