Federal Court In Connecticut A Slur On Marsupials
By Michael Paranzino (02/07/05)
To call Federal District Court Judge Robert N. Chatigny’s chambers a “kangaroo court” would be a slur on marsupials. What is happening in Connecticut thanks to his peculiar affection for a serial killer will reverberate throughout our nation for years to come.
Michael Ross, the object of Judge Chatigny’s affection, confessed to killing 8 girls and women (and assaulting two others who escaped with their lives) almost 21 years ago. He often brutally raped them before he killed them. His victims, all female, were as young as 14. Judge Chatigny is hell-bent on keeping Ross alive. (For more on Ross’ victims and the brutality of Ross’ crimes, which are not in dispute, visit our website at http://www.throwawaythekey.org/ross.php .)
Judge Chatigny is a former criminal defense attorney who was put on the federal bench by former president Bill Clinton. He has no daughters.
The judge has a pattern, some would say proclivity, for giving lenient treatment to men who violently prey on girls and women. Consider:
• In 1997, he gave a slap on the wrist to a man who distributed on the internet pictures of a prepubescent girl being raped on film. Chatigny, according to media reports, was “obviously troubled by sentencing guidelines that prescribed a prison term of 15 to 21 months.” Not troubled because the proposed term was so short, but because he viewed it as draconian. He sentenced the man to 6 months in prison, a sentence so brief the defense attorney actually smiled when Chatigny imposed the sentence.
• In 2001, Chatigny ruled that releasing dangerous child molesters and rapists from prison, but making them register under Megan’s law, was a violation of the molesters’ rights.
And then there is the Ross case. Ross was to be executed last week. In fact, he had agreed to forego further rounds of frivolous appeals. But then Judge Chatigny seized on yet another new, ridiculous theory being pushed by death penalty opponents to keep killers alive. This one is called “death row syndrome.”
“Death row syndrome” (formerly called “death row phenomenon,” but that did not have enough of a pseudo-scientific ring to it) would make even Franz Kafka blush. In a nutshell, according to a recent, fawning Associated Press article about it, death row syndrome occurs when a killer becomes “unhinged from being on death row and is no longer mentally competent to decide his fate.”
Or, as a defense “expert” puts it: “The conditions of confinement are so oppressive, the helplessness endured in the roller coaster of hope and despair so wrenching and exhausting, that ultimately the inmate can no longer bear it, and then it is only in dropping his appeals that he has any sense of control over his fate.”
So an admitted killer of 8 pursues 20 years of frivolous appeals, aided and abetted by left-wing judges, and then at the end of two decades of thwarting justice, the judges and the serial killer declare that the 20 years on death row has made the killer crazy….and we all know we don’t execute crazy people in America.
And so just hours before murder victims Dzung Ngoc Tu, 25; Tammy Williams, 17; Paula Perrera, 16; Debra Smith Taylor, 23; Robin Stavinsky, 19; Leslie Shelley, 14; April Brunais, 14; and Wendy Baribeault, 17, were finally about to receive a small measure of justice for themselves and their families, Judge Chatigny swung into action, berating Ross’ attorney and warning him if he did not pursue the preposterous “death row syndrome,” Judge Chatigny would be gunning for him.
“I see this happening and I can’t live with it myself,” he said to Ross’ attorney, referring to the impending justice. If the attorney did not do Chatigny’s bidding, he continued, “You better be prepared to deal with me … because I'll have your law license.”
Michael Ross’ death sentence has now been postponed indefinitely, and five GOP state lawmakers in Connecticut have urged Congressional leaders to consider impeachment of Judge Chatigny for his outrageous advocacy on behalf of a serial killer.
Our constitutional system is premised upon unelected, life-tenured federal judges applying the laws faithfully. Once judges routinely ignore the laws to suit their own preferences and, indeed, perversions, then the rules must be changed to restore our democracy.
Judge Chatigny’s heart weeps for a serial killer of girls and young women, but he has a heart of stone for the victims themselves. He is a judge gone wild. But will any lawmakers have the courage to rein him in?
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