The American Spectator was all over this a month ago but not until I watched the clip at Ace’s did I hear of it. Rather than have me blather at you, take five minutes and read the AmSpec piece to see just how far Chatigny went in gaming the system to try to spare this degenerate’s life. Ross, the killer, didn’t even want to appeal. He was ready for death, but the good judge wouldn’t hear of it. Note well this part:

Shockingly, Chatingly cites Ross’s sexual sadism as a mitigating factor. “But looking at the record in a light most favorable to Mr. Ross, he never should have been convicted. Or if convicted, he never should have been sentenced to death because his sexual sadism, which was found by every single person who looked at him, is clearly a mitigating factor… He can sit on his hands and sit mute and he may find not only that the death sentence is set aside, he may find the death penalty has been abolished. He may find that he gets the life sentence that he has repeatedly said he would take in an instant if it was offered to him.”

Get it? The more depraved you are, the less competent you are and therefore the less guilty you are. Or as Ace puts it, “To commit the crime is de facto proof of innocence of the crime.” Oh, did I forget to mention that Chatigny actually worked as part of this guy’s defense team for a brief time as a lawyer? And that one of his rulings in another case related to sex offenders was called “dead wrong and dangerous” by none other than Dick “Khe Sanh” Blumenthal?

But see, it’s Miguel Estrada who’s too controversial to sit on an appellate bench. Kudos to the Eyeblast Blog for putting this together. Content warning.