You never under-litigate your first

The legal wrangling over the pending execution of serial killer (and death penalty “volunteer”) Michael Ross is continuing in Connecticut.  Howard Bashman at How Appealing has a lot of the newspaper coverage and other materials linked here and here, and the blog Kirby’s Reports continues to be the go-to source for legal news and analysis concerning Connecticut’s efforts to go forward with the first execution in the Northeast in 40 years.

With all the rapid happenings, I have not been able to keep up with the legal issues in the Ross case.  But I continue to view all the Ross developments as a remarkable object lesson in the symbolic significance of the death penalty.  The two-bit empiricist in me wishes someone would find a way to quantify all the time, money and energy that has been devoted to determining whether and how Michael Ross, an undisputed murderer, will essentially be allowed kill himself at the state’s behest.