The Allentown Morning Call reports, "Will Michael Ballard go ahead with wish to be executed?" by Riley Yates.
To Northampton County's top prosecutor, mass murderer Michael Eric Ballard is a "mad dog" and a "poster boy" for the death penalty.
To Ballard, District Attorney John Morganelli is a "little Napoleon" who has used his crime to score political points.
Yet on Friday in a county courtroom in Easton, Morganelli and the killer he sent to death row could sit as unlikely allies.
That's because they now share a common goal: the execution of Ballard, who has said he does not want any further appeals of his sentence for massacring four people in a Northampton home in 2010.
That could produce strange bedfellows as Morganelli asks Ballard to repeat in court what he has already told his lawyers, the U.S. Supreme Court and a Morning Call reporter — that he is willing to be put to death and does not want any more legal efforts on his behalf.
Friday's hearing is an extraordinary one, considering that in the modern era of the death penalty Pennsylvania has only executed inmates when they volunteered for it by abandoning their appeals.
Earlier coverage of the case begins at the link. Related posts are in the volunteer category index. It's the term used for death row inmates who waive their appeals. Earlier coverage from Pennsylvania begins at the link.
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