The mass murderer insisted he is sane.
In court Friday, Michael Eric Ballard didn’t just say that he wanted to waive his appeals and accept his death sentence for massacring four people in a Northampton home.
He pushed for that execution to be carried out as quickly as possible.
Though Northampton County Judge Emil Giordano said he wanted Ballard to be evaluated by a psychologist before he gave up on his appeals, the killer surprised the judge by calling it pointless and an unnecessary delay.
“There’s no question of my sanity,” Ballard told Giordano, who ordered the evaluation nonetheless. “At this point, it just stalls the process even further.”
Ballard was brought from death row to the courthouse in Easton for an extraordinary hearing in which he repeated to Giordano what he has already told his lawyers, the U.S. Supreme Court and a reporter for The Morning Call: that he wants his death by lethal injection to be carried out, and will not be fighting it through further legal challenges.
For the hearing, Ballard was shackled to a wheelchair that deputy sheriffs placed him in for security, a folder of legal papers before him. Sitting feet from him were two anti-death penalty attorneys who would like to try to save his life, but for his objections to their involvement.
Ballard openly showed his contempt for those lawyers from the Federal Community Defender Office in Philadelphia, turning to them once and raising his middle finger. When Giordano asked if he wanted to be represented by them, Ballard said “absolutely not” and turned directly toward them.
“You heard that too, right?” he asked Billy Nolas and Shawn Nolan, whose office has managed to reverse scores of death sentences in Pennsylvania.
The stakes were high for the hearing, considering that in the modern era of the death penalty, Pennsylvania has only executed inmates when they volunteered for it by abandoning their appeals. Though Ballard could change his mind as the reality of his death nears, during the proceeding Friday he showed no waver in his resolve, speaking in a loud and clear voice as he explained his wishes to Giordano.
Under state law, Gov. Tom Corbett will sign Ballard’s execution warrant by Oct. 9 and must set an execution date within 60 days of that — or sometime early December.
By Ballard’s own admission, he savagely knifed to death his former girlfriend, Denise Merhi, 39; her father, Dennis Marsh, 62; her grandfather, Alvin Marsh Jr., 87; and Steven Zernhelt, 53, a neighbor who heard screams and tried to help.
At the time of the June 26, 2010, rampage, Ballard had recently been paroled from prison, where he served 17 years for murdering an Allentown man nearly two decades earlier. The state Supreme Court upheld Ballard’s death sentence in November, citing overwhelming evidence in support of it.
Though Ballard objected Friday to further mental-health testing, Giordano said he felt it was needed out of an abundance of caution, given the finality that is death. He issued the order only after Ballard repeatedly said it was unnecessary, considering the extensive medical work-up he underwent before his 2011 trial.
“If I make a mistake, I can’t undo that,” Giordano told Ballard.
Forensic psychologist Frank Dattilio of Salisbury Township will evaluate Ballard, as Dattilio also did before trial, when he and two other doctors hired by the defense concluded the defendant was competent. Giordano said he will schedule a hearing on Dattilio’s findings within 45 days.
“My intent is not to delay this matter,” Giordano said. “I respect the jury’s verdict and Mr. Ballard’s wishes and I respect the victims’ families here.”
In an exclusive death-row interview with The Morning Call last month, Ballard said that given the options before him — to accept his own execution or appeal his sentence for years from the “dehumanizing” walls of solitary confinement — he chooses death.
“The jury made their decision, and I’m not about to spend the next 20 years begging the state of Pennsylvania for a mercy they’re not going to give,” Ballard said July 10.
“There’s no emotionality. There’s no apprehension,” said Ballard, 40. “I’m not afraid to die.”
Friday’s hearing was scheduled at the request of Northampton County District Attorney John Morganelli, who wanted Ballard to state his intentions on the record to a judge, one way or the other. Morganelli called his effort a “pre-emptive strike” that he pursued after Ballard accused anti-capital punishment lawyers of getting involved in his case without his permission.
In June, the U.S. Supreme Court threw out a petition filed in Ballard’s name by Marc Bookman of the Philadelphia-based Atlantic Center for Capital Representation, after Ballard wrote the justices that it was done behind his back. The court has since sent Ballard’s complaint to the state Disciplinary Board, which oversees attorney ethics, for “any investigation or action it finds appropriate.”
Also in June, Nolas, of the federal defenders office, informed Morganelli of plans to represent Ballard at appeal, though Ballard says he has barred the federal defenders from even visiting him on death row.
Nolas attempted to speak in court Friday, but Morganelli objected that he has no standing. Ballard told Giordano that he agreed, and the judge did not allow Nolas to continue.
“Mr. Morganelli has made allegations against our office. This is not the venue to address this,” Nolas told Giordano before he was cut off. He and Nolan declined further comment after the hearing.
In a letter to The Morning Call dated Sunday, Ballard cast the proceeding as his chance to show that the federal defenders and Bookman have acted “deliberately and unethically.” He bristled over published comments this month by one legal analyst, who had defended Bookman as doing “God’s work” in fighting capital punishment.
“Were he really interested in doing God’s work, he’d find a pulpit, or a soup kitchen,” Ballard wrote. “I doubt he’ll pursue that though, it won’t pay nearly as well!”
Bookman, who did not attend Friday’s hearing, declined to comment when reached by phone.
The hearing offered the at-times odd spectacle of Ballard and his trial lawyers, Michael Corriere and James Connell, working in tandem with Morganelli, the man who fought to send him to death row.
Like Ballard, Morganelli argued that a competency evaluation was unnecessary. Like Ballard, Morganelli said the federal defenders had no place in the case.
At the request of Morganelli and Ballard, Giordano barred the federal defenders and Bookman from appearing in the case without the judge’s permission. Giordano appointed Corriere and Connell to continue to represent Ballard, as Ballard asked.
Corriere and Connell each told Giordano that they believe Ballard is competent. Though they remain his lawyers, Connell said Ballard has “instructed us not to file anything” on his behalf.
Publicly, Connell has expressed reservations about Ballard’s seeking his own death. He repeated them Friday after the hearing.
“The only thing I can tell you is what I’ve said before: Every life is worth living,” Connell said. “But that’s not my call in this case.”
Morganelli said afterward that he doubts that Ballard’s execution will be delayed by the psychological evaluation.
“We’re going to be done before any dates are set by the state,” Morganelli said.
In court, Morganelli said he has no doubts about Ballard’s competency, calling him bright, articulate and of above-average intelligence.
“I’ve noticed that already,” Giordano agreed.
“Do I seem irrational?” Ballard asked him at one point. “Is there something that leads you to believe that I need further medical testing?”
Morganelli said he found Ballard’s behavior during the hearing “typical Ballard” and “amusing.” But he said the horror of the crime remained at the forefront of his mind.
“I never lose sight of the fact that this guy is a danger,” Morganelli said. “He was a vicious killer who killed — for no good reason — four people and devastated so many people’s lives.”
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Reporter Pamela Lehman contributed to this story.
