Tuesday, November 09, 2010

WHAT EVER TOOK THEM SO LONG?

In POSTER BOYS FOR THE DEATH PENALTY (9-16-10) I wrote about the 2007 home invasion robbery-rape-murders committed by two parolees, Steven Hayes, 47, and Joshua Komisarjevsky, 30. I described these two pieces of shit as poster boys for the death penalty. They had broken into the home of William Petit, a prominent Connecticut physician, and held him, his wife, and their 17 and 11-year-old daughters captive.
 
Petit’s wife was raped and strangled to death. The 11-year-old daughter was also raped. The two pieces of shit set Petit’s house on fire. The doctor, who was tied up in the basement while the rest of his family was being held upstairs, managed to free himself and escaped just in the nick of time. His daughters died of smoke inhalation.

Last month a Connecticut jury of five men and seven women convicted Steven Hayes of killing Jennifer Hawke-Petit and her two daughters, Hayley, 17. and Michaela, 11, in their Cheshire home. (Komisarjevsky will be tried later.)
 
Hayes was convicted of six capital felony counts, three for murder and two for sexually assaulting Hawke-Petit. The capital offenses were for killing two or more people, the killing of a person under 16, murder in the course of a sexual assault and three counts of intentionally causing a death during a kidnapping.
 
Last week the jury returned for the punishment phase of the trial. One or more of the jurors must have had serious reservations about capital punishment because the jury deliberated the better part of four days on whether or not Hayes should be given the death penalty. Yesterday, the jury finally recommended that Hayes be put to death for all six counts.
 
My questions about the jury’s decision are: How can anyone have any reservations about the death penalty for a crime like this? And what the hell ever took them so long?

1 comment:

bob walsh said...

Maybe the free lunches were really good. Or they might have had an under cover anti-death penalty clown. You never know. Its like a couple of people we used to have working at the prison who would, while on tower duty, deliberately sabatoge the ammunition so that the tower cops couldn't shoot anybody, because shooting people is wrong, even if they are actively trying to murder someone at the time. Liberalism is inherently dishonest.