How in the world is it possible that this headshrinker still thinks he was right? Truly mindboggling ...

In A Postscript, Ross To Doctor: `Checkmate'
By LYNNE TUOHY
Courant Staff Writer

June 14 2005

Michael Ross had been dead several days when a psychiatrist who testified against his execution received a brief note from the serial killer.

"Dear Dr. Grassian," Ross wrote in a note to Stuart Grassian dated May 10 - three days before Ross' predawn execution. "Check, and mate. You never had a chance!"

It was signed, "Yours truly, Michael Ross."

Grassian, one of two psychiatrists who testified in April that Ross was not mentally competent to waive further appeals and "volunteer" to be executed, said he was at first stunned and horrified to receive the letter.

"My next reaction was to laugh," Grassian said. "He wanted so much to win and he took such joy in winning, it was sort of funny. Look at the real result.

"I earned a significant sum of money [$32,829] and a lot of folks have called me about similar cases around the country after hearing about it," Grassian said. "So in many ways, it was a positive experience for me. And he's dead. And his experience of it is, he won."

The videotape of Grassian's nearly four-hour interview with Ross became a court exhibit and was made public during the hearings in April on Ross' competence. It shows Grassian and Ross verbally sparring, with Ross refusing to drop his guard and talk about his crimes or his feelings. Grassian tells Ross at one point that it is difficult to get inside his head; Ross replies, "You've got no business there."

The videotape and Grassian's report are rife with references to chess and strategies and Ross' desire to win. Grassian described Ross' note as "short, pithy and to the point."

"I said in my report that he's playing a game of chess," Grassian said. "That's what's funny about the [note] - the humor. He got right back to that metaphor.

"And my report speaks to this issue of his being very narcissistic and this becoming a game he was trying to win," Grassian said. "His letter to me certainly confirms that."

Two other psychiatrists involved in the case - Eric Goldsmith, who also found Ross incompetent, and Michael Norko, who twice found Ross competent - said they have received no letters from Ross. Dr. Suzanne Gentile, who found Ross competent, said she also got no letter.

Ross' lawyer, T.R. Paulding, also received no posthumous mailings from Ross. But he found the note to Grassian amusing.

"It is typical of Michael's sense of humor," Paulding said. "He always had a good sense of humor. It probably also reflects the frustration he felt after listening to what he probably would have termed the `psychobabble' of Dr. Grassian."

Grassian said Ross' girlfriend, Susan Powers, received a letter posthumously, which she shared with Grassian. In it, Grassian said, "he told the truth. He said the real reason he was doing this is because he couldn't stand living like this anymore. He couldn't bear going back to Northern" Correctional Institution, where death row is located.

Ross, the first convict executed in New England in 45 years, spent the last six months of his life at the neighboring Osborn Correctional Institution, where the death chamber is located, while a flurry of court challenges and hearings forced repeated postponements of his execution date. His living conditions there were markedly less restrictive than on death row. Osborn's cells have bars; Northern's have solid steel doors. Ross could speak freely with the guards assigned to him 24 hours a day. He was also given a second cell to house his books and the jigsaw puzzles he did to pass the time.

All four psychiatrists said Ross had a narcissistic personality disorder, but disagreed on its severity and the role it played in his opting to be executed.

Grassian mocked Ross' stated reason that he was seeking to spare the families of his victims the pain of enduring more court proceedings and publicity, saying Ross was incapable of empathy. He also said Ross' mental illness drove him to seek to appear noble and would not let him back down, because the humiliation would be psychologically unbearable.

Grassian said the letters Ross sent to him and Powers bear out his diagnosis.

"He's saying to her, `Grassian was right all along' and he's saying to me, `Ha-ha. You were right and I still beat you.'"

Powers did not respond to requests for a copy of the letter Ross sent her and Grassian said he did not feel comfortable sharing the copy she had sent him. He said he anticipates testifying in capital cases in the future, and the letter to Powers in particular "might someday save someone's life. This issue of volunteerism is not going to go away."

[URL=http://www.courant.com/news/local/hc-ross0614.artjun14,0,7160701.story?coll=hc-headlines-local ](the article)[/URL]

It may not come as a shock to you to discover not that reasonable persons disagree, for that is a truism. More troubling, is that in mental health circles there is oft confusion generated by the firmly held belief that the mere presence of mental illness equates to incompetence or insanity. Many otherwise well-trained clinicians do not appreciate that the legal standard is a far different beast so that both competence and mental illness can co-exist without conflict as far as the courts are concerned.

Finally, I can't imagine that kind of compensation. I should be more sociopathic and maybe...

flj

Shannon it appears he was probably correct in his assessment that Ross was incapable of empathy. High pay for verbal sparring!

Yes, but if lack of empathy = legal incompetency, than based on some of her past comments, I'll be sure to call my wife as defense witness #1 if I ever get charged with a crime!