Six counts carried the potential for death, and death it was on all six. After three and a half days, 19 hours, the jury returned its verdict. The survivor, Dr. William Petit, called it “A verdict for justice.” Someone else called it “absolute justice.” It’s always about justice.
There are a few things in this case that make it both difficult and pure. There’s no doubt that Steven Hayes is guilty. There’s no doubt that the murders of Jennifer Hawke-Petit and daughters, Hayley Petit, 17 years old, and Michaela Petit, 11, were horrible. There is a great deal of support for the jury and its decision. For many, this is a man who needs killing.
When and whether the sentence of death, to be formally imposed on December 2nd, will be carried out remains anyone’s guess. For all I know, Hayes will live longer than I. Some are asking if he can be put to death tomorrow. Some relish in the visceral reaction to horror. If they asked for volunteers to pull the switch, there would be no shortage.
Of the Connecticut blawgers, Gideon struck first
My only hope is that one day, we as a State can look back upon this and other sentences of death with a certain sadness coupled with the knowledge that those days are past us – that we no longer ask our citizens to stake their mental well being on the anguishing task of deciding the fate of another man’s life – that we are no longer in the business of adjudicating worthiness to breathe.
Until then, I mourn. For this morning, Steven Hayes was the only one with blood on his hands. Now it’s on all of ours.
Connecticut doesn’t put people to death regularly. It hasn’t actually done so in 50 years*. New York doesn’t do it at all anymore. Others do. I’ve learned much about it from Ohio’s Jeff Gamso, who has stared at execution as the lawyer for the dead man walking. Each execution causes him anguish. He doesn’t have one to make his cause celebre. But he also taught me that either way, execution or life without parole, it’s the death penalty. The only question is how long it takes to complete.
This is not about revenge. that belongs to The Lord. This was about justice.
For those who believe that capital punishment is inherently wrong, that the state should never put a person to death, then none of this is true. This is the fiction of justice that those who abide capital punishment wrap around themselves to feel comfortable with their decision. But there are a lot of those people who have no issue with capital punishment in the right case. This was such a case. For them, there was never a doubt what the verdict should be.
But do we all have blood on our hands because of this verdict, as Gideon suggests? It’s melodramatic, but so is just about everything surrounding this verdict. To some extent, we have have always had blood on our hands, the blood of children murdered on the streets, starving to death, dying for lack of medical care, dying on drugs, dying in a shoot out with cops when trying to rob a liquor store with their teenage friends. And when they die in the execution chamber.
If we took a vote of the people of Connecticut as to whether the verdict of death for Steven Hayes represents Justice, my guess is that there would be overwhelming support. According to Hayes’ lawyer, Tom Ullman, Hayes sought the death penalty and smiled when the verdict of death was announced. Maybe he thinks this is Justice too?
I can’t say that I care deeply about what happens to Steven Hayes. In fact, I really don’t care at all. My interest is solely focused at the pure question, whether capital punishment is a proper sanction for society to impose. Nothing about this case causes me to change my mind, and believe that capital punishment is the right thing for the state to do.
And so I keep hearing that this is Justice. Lots of people say so today. But it’s not my justice. And there’s no blood on my hands today that wasn’t there before.
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I agree with you. Thank you for having the courage to post this while drums beat for revenge.
Of course it’s melodramatic. But that was the point. All of this could’ve been avoided. And it isn’t about justice, at all. It’s about vengeance.
It’s a sad, sad day.
What Gideon said.
Thanks for posting that, Scott.
FWIW, I disagree with a little of it. Very little. Were it up to me (and, of course, it isn’t) Hayes would not die today, or tomorrow, but after a full appellate review.
If there was some substantive flaw in his trial, sufficient to persuade a reasonable judge (or me, in the hypo) that the jury might not have decided to have him killed (or, obviously, some doubt about him having done it), I would want him not to be killed.
But, yeah, once that whole thing was done, sure, I’d push the button and/or pull the trigger. I wouldn’t want to do it, but I’d be willing to.
I’m generally, as you know, and fwiw, against capital punishment because I believe we far too often kill the wrong guys — the guy who didn’t do it at all or who, upon sober reflection, really didn’t deserve it. And in fuzzy cases, I’d err on the side of not killing the guy.
This isn’t one of them. This is one that goes to which side you’re on: either you believe that no matter how bad the crime and how certain society can be that the accused did it, society cannot properly take the accused’s life, or you think that there is some combination of horribleness of the crime and certainty of the guilt where that is proper.
Justice? I don’t know what that is.
Wondering why you’re not counting the Michael Ross 2005 execution?
I was just working off what I read in the media reports. I should have remembered Ross in 2005, which I believe was the only execution since 1960.
Melodrama is for kids. We’re lawyers, Gid. I’m sad every time I hear about a death. It’s a sad day. There have been sadder.
Remember, there have been plenty of others, less deserving, than Hayes sentenced to death. And put to death. Just because they aren’t from Connecticut doesn’t mean their lives are unimportant. If I was going to pick a person to cry over, it would not be Steven Hayes.
What I said to Gideon.
Yeah, as people to be executed go, Steven Hayes isn’t the worst choice ever. Still, better there was no capital punishment at all.
Well, he (Ross) did have to spend a lot of time begging the state to actually execute him, so I was wondering if you were not counting that.
Sad that five years later the media doesn’t consider his execution worth mentioning.
There are worse fates, you know.
You could find yourself as a registered offender. Or, the way things are going, as a preregistered offender.
So many different flavors of justice. I just don’t know which one to choose.
JDog pretty much sums it up for me – and much more politely that I ever would – including the appellate review.
As with Ortiz and de Jesus being responsible for their own deaths in the Joe Horn shooter case, I choose to think that the bloodied hands for Hayes are his own and no one else shares that responsibility.
I’m shocked to find that you haven’t spent the afternoon crying about this. Shocked.
When they put innocent dogs and cats “to sleep,” it’s a far, far greater injustice than to execute someone like Mr. Hayes. What’s that, you say? The life of a dog or cat is worth more than the life of a human being? Yes, I reply. The life of a dog or cat whose only crime is being not wanted, is worth more than the life of a human being who has chosen to do what Mr. Hayes has done. Go ahead, throw rotten tomatoes at me.
I “think that there is some combination of horribleness of the crime and certainty of the guilt where that [the death penalty] is proper.” The ‘certainty of guilt’ is the more important criteria. The certainty must be no doubt, none whatsoever; not a shred, shadow or scintilla.
Sometimes, when reading about exculpated convicts, the thought crosses my mind that if the prosecutor withheld a shred, shadow or scintilla of exculpatory evidence at the original trial the prosecutor should be subject to capital punishment. I betcha that policy would put some teeth in Brady.
No tomatoes here. While pet overpopulation is certainly a topic for a different post, I’m right there with you.
I was for many years an enthusiastic proponent of the death penalty. “Build more cemeteries, not more prisons,” I proclaimed. But as I’ve befriended a number of lawyers whose opinions I respect, I find myself considering a position change.
The death penalty in Hayes case isn’t justice. What he and his accomplice did is beyond the justice of men. But it is as close as we can get to justice.
While you’re moaning about blood on your hands or how capital punishment isn’t justice, put yourself into the mind of that 11 year old girl, who, after being raped, was tied to a bed and burned to death. Try to imagine the horror she, her sister, and her mother experienced during their last moments on this Earth.
It’s not justice. But it’s as close as we can get with a monster like Hayes.
What has not been addressed in any of the comments on any of the various forums or by the bLAWgers is the culpability of the State itself in the manufacture of these monsters, Hayes and Komisarjevsky. They both had previous encounters (presumably deserved) with law enforcement, the Byzantine judicial system in CT, Corrections and Parole. Shortly after these events three years ago, I posted a comment–or comments–on the possible role of the State itself in the manufacture of these monsters. Those comments were removed in short order by the straight presses in that anal-retentive, repressive state, aka the nutty state of Corrupticut. Only calls for revenge and retribution were permitted for public consumption and entertainment.
Dr. Petit is a pathetic figure, and no one has even raised the obvious 2nd Amendment implications in these cases. That is another topic.
Corrections!?! What did the State correct? They corrected nothing. They made bad situations worse thru well-intentioned motivations. That is my argument. The State is itself Inquisitorial, abusive and in violation of basic human rights spelled out in The Bill of Rights, case history, precedent and due process protections supposedly afforded to us all. It is in fact a bald-assed lie, a fraud upon the citizenry and a sham, as posted by me on a variety of forums for several years. BEEN THERE, DONE THAT, for real!
That is affirmative!
What I find appalling and regretable is the inability of State officials and the public-at-large in recognizing and admitting these possibilities. In other words, if it were not for the abusive, the illegal and unlawful practices of the State itself, these awful tragedies and violations of common decency and fundamental Ten Commandment laws by these monsters might never have occured.
I am serious! The State is itself a promulgator and promoter of lawlessness, as counter-intuitive as it may seem.
The facts are, as previiously posted by me: the State NEEDS criminals. We all need the ability to point the finger of guilt at someone else if for no other reason than to make ourselves feel ‘morally’ and ‘legally’ superior. If those criminals cannot be found and captured by Law Enforcement, they will be manufactured by the State itself in order to keep the ‘wheels of justice’ in motion and all of those petty, two-bit moronic officials feeding at the public trough, busily employed and sucking up our precious tax dollars and scarce resources.
As far as know, I am the only one who has raised the possiblity of this scenario. Amen and godbless.
I’m not american, so I don’t know who is Hayes, how much evidence was there, but I suppose enough. I’m not a lawyer, but humble citizen of post soviet country, and my point of view is way simpler than yours:
This man killed 3 another people? And not because of self defence I suppose? And there wasn’t war or somethink like that? Then he is NOT a human anymore. He is an animal. Plain, dangerous animal. And the most simple and effective way to ensure, that he will not have another possibility to kill someone else – execute him. So what’s the problem?
By the way, he really did not have problem with blood on his arms, so why should someone else care of his blood on someones hands?
Your “humble citizen of post soviet country” concern for human life is endearing. Nonetheless, I would urge you to control the impulse to show others the depth of your ignorance by keeping your thoughts to yourself. There’s a different between simplicity and simple-mindedness.
I’ve always been an opponent of the death penalty, but frankly don’t think I have the disposition for capital work. I already drink too much. But if I ever did get into it, I think I could cobble a winning successful penalty phase argument solely by plagiarizing things Gamso has written on his blog.
Probably not in Texas.