By Rebekah Rast
After raping and murdering eight women — six of them teenagers — the “Roadside Strangler” was convicted and sentenced to Death Row. He sat there for nearly two decades until his case caught the eye of a judge.
This judge worked to prove the “Roadside Strangler,” Michael Ross, didn’t deserve the death penalty. Instead Judge Robert Chatigny felt Michael Ross’ sexual sadism was a mitigating factor in his crimes and he should be let off the hook for that reason alone.
This should raise the eyebrows and drop the jaws of any America family with a teenage girl — any American family at all.
After threatening to revoke Ross’ attorney’s license when Ross decided not to appeal his death sentence any more, and only after Ross proved he had a full understanding of what he had done and owed up to his crimes, did he finally receive the punishment he was due.
Why does this one federal judge mean so much? Because Obama hopes Chatigny will be confirmed to serve on the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals — one of the highest federal courts in America.
This is a nomination to not take lightly. If confirmed, Judge Chatigny, a District Court judge in Connecticut, would serve for the rest of his life as a federal judge at this high level.
Judge Chatigny’s involvement in the Ross case is peculiar, his wanting a more lenient sentence for a sex offender who was fully aware and obviously enjoyed raping and killing these women is inexcusable.
Unfortunately, Ross is not the only sex offender/pedophile Judge Chatigny has favored. He once ruled a Connecticut “Megan’s Law,” which created the sex-offender registry, to be illegal. Chatigny is a judge known for doling out lighter sentences for sex crimes than the federal sentencing guidelines prescribe.
When Obama’s first nomination of Chatigny was debunked before it made it to the full Senate for a vote, Republican Senators used a procedural rule to revoke his nomination, Obama and the Democrats in the Senate are trying again.
This week, the Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to vote on whether this man — a sympathizer towards murderers, rapists and pedophiles — should be moved forward for consideration by the entire Senate to serve in the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals.
In a letter to the U.S. Senate in opposition to Chatigny’s nomination, Americans for Limited Government’s (ALG) president Bill Wilson wrote, “Ross had confessed to all eight rape/murders. Of course he should have been convicted. There was no question of his malice and cruelty, either, and yet for Chatigny, this was a mitigating factor that should have blocked the death penalty sentence. That is outrageous enough.”
ALG ran ads in Nevada and Vermont opposing Judge Chatigny’s nomination in July. Ads were again run in September in Wisconsin encouraging Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) not to support such an erroneous judge.
“Chatigny is nothing more than an apologist for sex offenders,” says ALG’s Wilson. “It’s his claim to fame, and is why he is being promoted. Chatigny’s conduct is so deeply disturbing to the American people that the Senate has an obligation to defeat this offensive nomination.”
America’s justice system should be blind to any bias, and rule based on the truths found in the U.S. Constitution.
Chatigny is judge who rules his own way. That should strike fear in all Americans. If the nation’s judicial system can’t rule fairly or accurately, then the foundation on which America was built will crumble and all sense of right and wrong will falter.
If a man who commits such heinous crimes as Ross receives pity by the judicial system, what other crimes and criminals will soon be favored as well?
Rebekah Rast is a contributing editor for Americans for Limited Government (ALG) News Bureau.
