Lets say a man plans out and kidnaps 10 children. He rapes, tortures, mutilates and murders all of them for the sole purpose of his enjoyment. Let us further assume that this is all caught on camera, that the man confesses, and that the man is found to be in full mental facilties (I.E. he knew his actions were wrong and had the ability to not act on them). Would it be more just to kill him or keep him in prison? What if he is severely claustrophobic and the very prison cell would be a constant torture?
May I offer a comment on this?
Something like this happened in Connecticut. Between 1981 and 1984, Michael Ross raped and murdered eight girls between the ages of 14 and 25. He confessed and was sentenced to death in 1987. Ross was a bright guy (Cornell graduate) and knew right from wrong. He also was a sexual sadist.
Ross was on death row for 18 years. But after 17 years of that routine, he’d had enough. He ordered his attorneys to withdraw all appeals and sue for an execution date. At age 44, there was no end in sight. He knew he would die in that cell, so why not just get it over with?
Ross’s lawsuit posed a Catch-22 for the justice system. The State had sentenced Ross to death. But the State cannot execute an insane person. And a person would have to be insane to argue in favor of his own death. What’s more, if the State and Ross now agree that Ross should die, there is no longer an adversarial proceeding.
A new trial got underway with the State now arguing that Ross was insane and should not be executed while Ross argued that he was indeed sane and should be executed at once, in accordance with the 1987 sentence.
Things got complicated. At one point, a federal judge intervened to opine that Ross’s sexual sadism should have been considered a mitigating factor that would have made him ineligible for the death penalty. But, in the end, Ross was judged to be sane and he was dispatched by lethal injection in May 2005.
The question arises, would it be more just to kill him or keep him in prison?
My view is that it would have been more just to sentence him to life without parole and to keep him in prison until he died a natural death. The ‘without parole’ condition would ensure he is housed in maximum-security for the rest of his life, without the possibility eventual of step-down to a dorm-like setting.
Ross was not insane; he just didn’t feel like living on death row any longer. He knew death was to only way he would ever leave prison so why not just cut to the chase?
But living under death row conditions IS the punishment for what he did. Being dead is not a punishment.
The Court should not have allowed Ross to truncate his punishment in this manner.
~Rick