The tale is getting bizarre. He was supposed to die on Saturday, but Friday afternoon Chief U.S. District Judge Robert N. Chatigny threatened to revoke Ross's attorney's license if it turned out that Ross was executed and evidence later showed that he was incompetent.
In a flurry of activity, Ross's attorney contacted a psychiatrist who had earlier determined that Ross was competent and showed him documents written by Ross in which Ross claimed that he wanted to die to end the pain of living on death row. These documents apparently caused the psychiatrist to file an affidavit saying that his original position might have been wrong.
And, to top it off, Ross has now joined the two public defenders (people he initially fired for trying to prevent his execution) in their attempts to get the court to address Ross's competence. As his attorney put it, "[Ross] does NOT wish to be executed until this court has fully addressed the issue of his competence."
In short, Ross raped and killed 8 women and has been on death row since 1987. Being on death row is, not surprisingly, depressing and since Ross wants to die mainly in order to escape the pain of being on death row, the State is unwilling to execute him.
Presumably, once Ross is no longer depressed by the prospect of being on death row and being executed, the State will then be permitted to put him to death.
I wish Ross a speedy recovery.
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