In a recent Hartford Courant opin­ion piece, psy­chi­a­trist Robert C. Goodwin spoke about the men­tal ill­ness afflict­ing Michael Ross, who is sched­uled for exe­cu­tion in Connecticut on January 26. Dr. Goodwin was a psy­chi­atric con­sul­tant to the state of Connecticut from 1983 – 2001 and took part in Michael Ross’ eval­u­a­tion and treat­ment over the years, appear­ing as an expert wit­ness in Ross’ sec­ond tri­al. Dr. Goodwin believes the exe­cu­tion should be stopped:

Although demon­stra­bly sane, Ross suf­fers from a clear-cut, well-doc­u­ment­ed case of the most severe sort of para­phil­ia (sex­u­al devi­a­tion). This is not just my view. It is the con­sid­ered opin­ion of almost every psy­chi­a­trist and men­tal health pro­fes­sion­al who has exam­ined him, includ­ing at least one who cus­tom­ar­i­ly tes­ti­fies for the pros­e­cu­tion. In Ross’ case, the con­di­tion result­ed in intense, con­stant and vir­tu­al­ly irre­sistible vio­lent fan­tasies toward women.

He likened his fan­tasies to a loud, abra­sive col­lege room­mate who plays music at max­i­mum vol­ume all day long. In oth­er words, they weren’t fun.

An indi­ca­tion of the force­ful­ness of his desire to rid him­self of them: Shortly after his first sen­tenc­ing, he began to receive a hor­mon­al prepa­ra­tion called Provera. The drug proved extreme­ly effec­tive in curb­ing his fan­tasies, but it had an insur­mount­able draw­back; it caused abnor­mal liv­er-func­tion tests. If he remained on it, he would almost cer­tain­ly die of liv­er fail­ure. Ross said he want­ed to stay on the drug, even know­ing it might kill him. He was even will­ing to sign a waiv­er absolv­ing the state from respon­si­bil­i­ty for adverse con­se­quences. When his request was denied, he suc­cess­ful­ly brought suit to receive a sim­i­lar but more expen­sive drug called Depot Lupron.

The Ross case brings up a point so obvi­ous that it can eas­i­ly be over­looked: Someone might be absolute­ly sane, yet have an inca­pac­i­tat­ing psy­chi­atric dis­or­der. Consider the busi­ness­man who wash­es his hands 100 times a day and spends the entire morn­ing tak­ing a show­er, or the house­wife too depressed to get out of bed, or the col­lege stu­dent who pan­ics when­ev­er he enters a class­room. They may all be sane (they prob­a­bly are). Still, their symp­toms wreak hav­oc with their lives.

Jurists appre­ci­ate this point, at least in the­o­ry. In most states, and most nations, a crim­i­nal is absolved of respon­si­bil­i­ty for his acts if they result from men­tal ill­ness, whether or not the ill­ness is a psy­chosis. Putting aside the niceties of psy­chi­atric diag­no­sis and crim­i­nal law, how­ev­er, one intu­itive­ly sens­es that a man who rapes and kills half a dozen women, who takes huge chances in doing so (his last crime was com­mit­ted in broad day­light near a busy high­way), and who risks his life and lib­er­ty in the process isn’t think­ing right. By the same token, a man who sub­mits to chem­i­cal cas­tra­tion to rid him­self of his symp­toms is apt to be sig­nif­i­cant­ly impaired, whether or not he meets the cri­te­ria for insan­i­ty.

The many argu­ments against the death penal­ty, how­ev­er con­vinc­ing to some of us, remain abstrac­tions. Michael Ross, what­ev­er else he might be, is no abstrac­tion. He is a pro­found­ly impaired man whose life is made mar­gin­al­ly tol­er­a­ble by potent med­ica­tion that turns him into a eunuch. To exe­cute him would be anal­o­gous to exe­cut­ing a schiz­o­phrenic, a man with an IQ of 50 or a psy­chot­i­cal­ly depressed woman who killed her chil­dren because she thought she was res­cu­ing them from an evil world. I sub­mit that in any or all of these cas­es, includ­ing Ross’, a state-spon­sored killing is unac­cept­able.

(Hartford Courant, January 16, 2005). See Mental Illness and New Voices.

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