Inmate Executed by Request

Sept. 13, 2002 -- A South Carolina prisoner had his death wish granted tonight — he was executed at his own request after repeatedly refusing help from his attorney.

Michael Passaro, 40, said he wanted to be with the 2-year-old daughter he killed four years ago, the crime that landed him on death row.

At 6:15 p.m. at the Broad River Correctional Center in Columbia — despite pleas from his attorney and death-penalty opponents who called his execution wish a "state-assisted suicide" — Passaro had his wish realized. He was executed by lethal injection for burning his daughter to death in his own aborted suicide attempt in 1998.

In November of that year, Passaro doused his van with gasoline, strapped his daughter Maggie inside and then sat down in his car before setting it ablaze. However, before the fire could consume him, Passaro jumped out of the car, leaving Maggie to die.

State-Assisted Escape From Punishment?

Passaro pleaded guilty to murder in 2000 and requested — and received — the death penalty. He did not, and never wanted to, appeal his guilty plea, frustrating the appellate attorney who wanted to help him. Joe Savitz was ready to file appeals papers to halt the execution at any time, but Passaro would not let him.

"I could stop it [the scheduled execution] right now if he let me," Savitz said before the execution. "I'm ready to file the appeals right now and stop it, but I have to have his consent to do that. But I don't think he will [give his consent] … It's extremely frustrating as an attorney."

Savitz said Passaro's desire to die may have been rooted in his longtime depression over the death of his first wife 10 years ago. But he also argued that Passaro saw an execution as an escape from true punishment.

"He does not see the death sentence as punishment. He sees it as an escape from punishment," Savitz said before Passaro's death. "He believes that he will be reunited with his first wife and the child that he killed, Maggie. He wants to die and has gotten the state to help him carry it out in what is essentially a state-assisted suicide. He is not doing this because he feels a sense of remorse."

Passaro's first wife died when a car struck her while she was trying to help an accident victim. He subsequently remarried and had his daughter Maggie with his second wife, Karen.

However, the second marriage failed, and Karen Passaro asked for a divorce and filed a restraining order against him. Savitz said Passaro feared his estranged wife would move, trying to take the girl away from him.

When Passaro set his van and daughter on fire, he made sure he was parked in front of his estranged wife's condominium. He admitted that he wanted to kill himself and their daughter to get back at his second wife. In a suicide note recovered by investigators, Passaro wrote, "Whatever anyone does, please make sure that Karen doesn't kill herself over this. I want her to live in pain for the rest of her life."

An Easy Decision for One Prosecutor

In the death chamber, Passaro blew kisses at his watching relatives and told them he loved them before his final breaths. Three relatives on Maggie's mother's side also witnessed Passaro's death through glass and bars. The family said in a statement that they wanted to remember how Maggie lived and not her father's controversial death.

"There are no words that could describe the horror that a mother must feel to see an ambulance take her child away," the statement said.

Despite the nature of the slaying and Passaro's determination to die, a psychiatrist ruled that he was mentally competent to waive his appeals. In July, the South Carolina Supreme Court ruled unanimously that he was competent to waive all his appeals options, clearing the way for his execution.

Against Passaro's wishes, the South Carolina Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and Christian Action Council filed an appeal for clemency to Gov. Jim Hodges. However, the governor turned down the request Thursday.

A lack of remorse is one reason why prosecutors had no doubts about their decision to send Passaro to his death. They believed that his vindictiveness toward his second wife and willingness to kill his own daughter in revenge made him a clearly deserving candidate for the death penalty.

"This is a man filled with spite, hatred and evil," said prosecutor Greg Hembree, after the state Supreme Court ruling in July. "It's always hard to decide to send someone to death, but this was one of the easier decisions I've ever made."

Passaro was the 28th person executed in South Carolina since the state reinstated the death penalty in 1977.