Justice Flemming L. Norcott Jr. of the Supreme Court of Connecticut dis­sent­ed from the Court’s refusal to stay the exe­cu­tion of Michael Ross, the first per­son to be exe­cut­ed in New England in over 40 years: 

This case illus­trates, how­ev­er, the sheer irra­tional­i­ty of the cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment sys­tem because this defen­dan­t’s elec­tion to for­go fur­ther appeals or col­lat­er­al relief, a deci­sion that in any oth­er con­text would lend some econ­o­my to the pro­ceed­ings, has in fact spawned seem­ing­ly end­less lit­i­ga­tion over his fate.

I do not dis­pute the need for an abun­dance of cau­tion giv­en the tremen­dous stakes of this case; indeed, after the exe­cu­tion has tak­en place, no court will have the option of recon­sid­er­a­tion. These pro­ceed­ings have, how­ev­er, been cru­el and trau­mat­ic for the vic­tims’ fam­i­lies and a sig­nif­i­cant part of the pun­ish­ment for the defen­dant him­self, and also have come at great finan­cial cost for all par­ties involved, as well as the courts. And yet, at the end of the day, the ques­tion remains: After the exe­cu­tion, what will the state of Connecticut have gained from all of this? The answer seems to be that, min­i­mal­ly, the state has secured the prover­bial pound of flesh for the crimes of this one out­ra­geous­ly cru­el man. But now, what is to be? Has our thirst for this ulti­mate penal­ty now been slaked, or do we, the peo­ple of Connecticut, con­tin­ue down this increas­ing­ly lonesome road?

I opened this opin­ion by men­tion­ing that my oppo­si­tion to the death penal­ty has often been set forth in the Connecticut Reports. I close with my belief that the total­i­ty of the costs that are atten­dant to cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment vast­ly out­weigh its marginal benefits.

Hopefully, the death penal­ty jurispru­dence report­ed in those vol­umes soon will become noth­ing more than legal arti­facts of inter­est and import not to the active bench and bar, but only to his­to­ri­ans. Until such time, how­ev­er, I respectfully dissent. 

(Hartford Courant, May 10, 2005). See New Voices.

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