A second inmate on Connecticut's death row has
announced his desire to forgo further appeals and face execution,
possibly setting the stage for another flurry of court action like
the one surrounding serial killer Michael Ross.
Sedrick Cobb, sentenced to death for kidnapping,
raping and killing a 23-year-old woman in 1989, said he wants to drop
his appeals in a letter to Superior Court Judge Stanley T. Fuger Jr.,
the Hartford Courant reported in today's editions. The court received
the letter on April 4. Fuger presided over a lengthy hearing last year
on Cobb's claim that he was not adequately represented by his lawyers
during his trial. "I do this without stress, mental duress, it's just
the right time," Cobb wrote to the judge. "I request a date in your
court to make this official, so that you can ask of me any questions or
concerns that you have."
Ross, on death row for killing four young women in
eastern Connecticut in the early 1980s, faces lethal injection on May
11. He would be the first person executed in New England in 45 years if
the death sentence is carried out as planned.
Ross' case is now tied up in a hearing in New London
Superior Court to determine if he is competent in deciding to forgo his
remaining appeals. Ross decided to drop his appeals last year and his
execution was set for Jan. 26, but the competency issue has delayed the
date several times. The hearing was to resume today.
In his letter to Fuger, Cobb also said that he is no
longer represented by Stamford attorney David Golub, who handled his
complex habeas corpus petition and argued unsuccessfully that Public
Defender Gerard Smyth provided Cobb with substandard legal
representation during his trial.
Golub said Wednesday that Cobb's case is very
different from Ross' case.
"Sedrick Cobb is not Michael Ross," Golub said. "He
has a very strong appeal and the appeal raises very important issues not
only for Mr. Cobb, but for the administration of the death penalty in
general."
Golub, who still is officially Cobb's lawyer, said he
plans to meet with Cobb as soon as he can to discuss the matter.
It's not the first time Cobb has asked to volunteer
for execution. In the summer of 2003, he startled the criminal justice
system by writing a note to Fuger saying he wanted to withdraw his
habeas petition and have an execution date set.
At a hearing July 9 of that year, Fuger urged him to
reconsider, saying the result would be "catastrophic." Cobb later
reneged.
Cobb was convicted of kidnapping Julia Ashe in 1989
while she was Christmas shopping at a Waterbury department store. He
flattened her tire, then offered his help to change it when she returned
from the store. After changing the tire, he asked her for a ride to his
own car. Once in her vehicle, he overpowered her and forced her to drive
to a remote location, taped her mouth, wrists and ankles and raped her.
He then threw her into an icy culvert, and watched as she struggled to
survive. Her body was discovered two weeks later, on Christmas Day.
Fuger no longer has jurisdiction over Cobb's case.
His November ruling against Cobb's habeas petition is on appeal to the
state Supreme Court.
Convicted killer Sedrick Cobb
may have put the state on a fast track to its 1st execution in more than
four decades Wednesday, when he asked to forgo all further appeals and
be put to death.
"I no longer wish to appeal this
sentence of death on this level, the federal level or any other level,"
Cobb told Rockville Superior Court Judge Stanley T. Fuger Jr. "And let
me assure you, Judge, it's not a delaying tactic or any kind of a game."
"I made my peace with God. Let's
go," Cobb stated, according to a transcript of the hearing.
Cobb's abrupt yet emphatic
turnaround could lead to his death by lethal injection within several
months. And it is certain to launch a unique legal debate in this state
- whether the court can, or should, allow a challenge to a death
sentence to proceed over the objections of the condemned man.
In his request, Cobb clearly is
at odds with his widely respected lawyer, David Golub.
Fuger postponed acting on Cobb's
request until July 23 to hear further arguments from Golub on why an
earlier petition, filed by Cobb and seeking to block the sentence,
should proceed. Golub found himself in the awkward position Wednesday of
trying to defend Cobb's rights while contradicting his client's wishes.
Golub claims Cobb did not
receive adequate legal assistance at his trial, and that the
administration of the death penalty in Connecticut is racially biased.
Cobb is black. His victim, 23-year-old Julia Ashe, was white.
Cobb, now 41, told Fuger that he
would not change his position. He also made several references to his
strained relationship with Golub and co-counsel Jonathan Levine.
"There's a continuing hatred
that's being portrayed - 'obb is raising the race issue,"' Cobb told the
court. "Cobb never raised nothing. That was attorneys doing that to
incense the public, you know. 'Kill him, kill him, kill him' and all
this stuff. I'm tired of it, Your Honor. I'm tired of it. Let it be
enough. I'm ready."
Cobb was sentenced to death in
1991 for the December 1989 kidnapping, rape and murder of Ashe. She had
been Christmas shopping at a Waterbury department store when Cobb
flattened a tire on her car, then offered to help change it when she
emerged from the store into the frigid night. When he asked for a ride
to his own car, which he said was parked at a nearby gas station, she
agreed.
Once inside the car, Cobb, who
later confessed, grabbed her by the throat and forced her to drive to a
nearby wooded area. He bound her hands and ankles, and covered her mouth
with packing tape, raped her, then carried her to a dam and dropped her
24 feet into the icy water below.
But Ashe struggled to survive.
She kicked off one sneaker and freed her ankles. She cut the tape around
her wrists on a jagged piece of metal in the junk-strewn culvert. She
struggled to climb up the embankment. Whether Cobb pushed her back in or
she fell backward is unknown. Her body was found 9 days later.
The state Supreme Court upheld
Cobb's death sentence in 1999, completing the only review of his case
that is mandated by state law. Death row inmates cannot opt out of this
appeal. All other appeals are optional. The U.S. Supreme Court in
October 2000 declined to hear Cobb's appeal. His habeas petition, in
which he made claims of ineffective assistance of counsel and racial
disparities in the administration of the death penalty, was filed in
late 2000, but was delayed as defense lawyers awaited completion of
several comprehensive statistical analyses of race and other
demographics in capital punishment.
Cobb was brought to court
Wednesday after refusing to sign a document waiving the confidentiality
of his communications with his trial lawyers - now Chief Public Defender
Gerard Smyth and Public Defender Alan McWhirter - which stymied his
current lawyers' efforts to question them about their trial work.
Cobb gave Fuger a lengthy
written statement, which was not made part of the public file. Cobb
called it "a detailed account of my thoughts, because I might miss
something." He maintained in his statements to Fuger that he believes
the police violated his rights. Although he did not elaborate, he
previously has challenged the searches of his car and apartment, and
circumstances surrounding his confession.
"They violated my rights, I
can't win, and I'm ready to go," Cobb told the judge.
Cobb bristled at Golub's
statements that the habeas petition contained substantial claims, and
that he had expert witnesses prepared to testify about shortcomings in
Cobb's legal representation at trial.
"Please. I don't have anything
personal against these 2 men sitting here with me, but they're not -
they're down-talking to me, or downplaying the situation here," Cobb
said. "Do I have to say I don't want them - I fire you - they don't
speak for me?"
Fuger told Cobb he could take
those "drastic" steps but urged him not to.
"I want you to understand this
and believe it's the truth," Fuger told him. "The only thing that is
standing between you and the death chamber right now is this habeas
corpus petition."
Fuger also told Cobb that after
the U.S. Supreme Court's rulings in 1976 that permitted states to resume
using the death penalty, Gary Gilmore was the 1st to be executed. He was
put to death in Utah in 1977.
Since Gilmore, Fuger told Cobb,
"close to 900 individuals have been executed in this country.
"Now I don't know whether that
effect would be the same here in Connecticut," Fuger said. "But right
now there are seven men sitting on death row and you have the
unfortunate position of being the leading person. If you withdraw your
petition, you not only hasten your own death, you may well hasten the
deaths of other people. And I don't say that to talk you out of this. I
say that because I want you to understand the import, the weight, of
what you're doing."
To which Cobb replied, "Well,
Your Honor, I hear you. I hear you clear. And I have thought about those
things and heard those things on the row over the years, and read those
things in journals and on the news and the media from around the state,
even around the world in some cases. So I'm fully aware of that."
Cobb then said it was the
attorneys, not he, preparing the appeals.
"Let the officers of the court
and false witnesses, as such, come develop a conscience before the court,
whatever procedure that is, and admit their wrongdoing and how they have
made this carry on and carry on over the years, and me sitting in that
pit up there, being told this and that and lies by various attorneys.
... All I'm saying, Your Honor, is I've had enough. No more lies, no
more games. I've had enough."
Waterbury State's Attorney John
Connelly, who prosecuted Cobb 12 years ago, would not comment after
Wednesday's hearing. In court, when asked by Fuger for his reaction to
Cobb's request, Connelly said, "I guess Mr. Cobb and I have been in this
case from the beginning, and the only ones who have been in it from the
beginning, and I've always found Mr. Cobb, in the courtroom anyway, to
be highly intelligent and aware of the proceedings that have been going
on these many years. Your Honor, I think he understands what's at stake
here, clearly better than any of us. I mean, it's his case, it's not Mr.
Golub's case."
Members of Ashe's family did not
return a phone call seeking comment; Cobb's parents declined to comment.
Golub in court emphasized that Cobb's family was not there, and
suggested that Fuger should allow some time for Cobb to seek family
support. Cobb cut him off.
"Your Honor, I don't want a tit
for a tat here, but I had a two-hour visit with my family yesterday, and
they're aware. I mean, am I not speaking English here?"
Golub persisted, arguing that to
permit Cobb to withdraw his habeas petition would lead to irrevocable
consequences.
"As you well know," Fuger told
Golub, "the right of the inmate will trump the arguments of the lawyer."
If Fuger grants Cobb's request
to withdraw his petition, the next step would be for Cobb to return to
Waterbury Superior Court, where an execution date would be set for
sometime between 1 and 6 months from the date of that hearing. Cobb's
only recourse then would be to ask the state Board of Pardons to commute
his sentence to life in prison without parole.
Golub later Wednesday said he
understands Cobb's exasperation.
"No one can understand how hard
it is to live in the situation he's under," Golub said. "But he didn't
get a fair trial. We have two experts who have done substantial criminal
work, including death penalty work in Connecticut, who are prepared to
come to court and testify he did not receive effective assistance of
counsel. This is a man who deserves a hearing."
The last person executed in
Connecticut was Joseph "Mad Dog" Taborsky in May 1960.
