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Juror speaks out as Conn. family's killer gets death penalty
NY Post ^ | November 9, 2010 | LAURA ITALIANO REUVEN FENTON, ERIN CALABRESE and PERRY CHIARAMONTE,

Posted on 11/09/2010 1:54:59 AM PST by Scanian

NEW HAVEN, Conn. -- It's trash removal on a global scale, jurors said yesterday of their vote to put home-invasion monster Steven Hayes to death.

"The earth will be a better place if Hayes is removed from it," said juror Herbert Gram, of Madison, Conn., speaking of the murderer of a Connecticut nurse and her two daughters.

"I'm not a particularly religious person, but Satan comes to mind" when it comes to the heinous killer, he said.

Gram was one of 12 jurors who recommended yesterday that Hayes be sent to the death chamber for raping and strangling beloved nurse Jennifer Hawke-Petit and for helping to burn her daughters -- Hayley, 17, and Michaela, 11 -- alive in their beds during the horrific 2007 break-in robbery in the wealthy suburb of Cheshire 14 miles north of New Haven.

Gram, a retired scientist, said that after the verdict, the exhausted and emotional jurors met with the sole survivor of the senseless attack -- Dr. William Petit, Jennifer's husband and the girls' father -- in the courthouse.

"I'm 77, and I haven't cried in a long, long time. But seeing this man, what he went through -- just close your eyes and imagine you're a dad and you come home and your wife and daughters are gone. How would you respond?" Gram told The Post from his home last night.

"It is just so horrific. It doesn't fit any caliber or ruler. There is no dimension you can put to it.

"This is the condition where the death penalty was meant to be applied.

(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Government; News/Current Events; US: Connecticut
KEYWORDS: jenniferhawkepetit; jury; satan; stevenhayes
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1 posted on 11/09/2010 1:55:05 AM PST by Scanian
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To: Scanian

Liberals supporting the death penalty? I’ll be amazed if the scumbag IS ever executed there!


2 posted on 11/09/2010 1:56:09 AM PST by goldstategop (In Memory Of A Dearly Beloved Friend Who Lives In My Heart Forever)
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To: goldstategop

Seems like I heard on the radio news that nobody has been fried there in 50 years.


3 posted on 11/09/2010 2:02:23 AM PST by Scanian
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To: Scanian

Yup.... I kept thinking of Wesley Cook, the Philly cop killer of police officer Daniel Faulkner as I penned that line - when it takes 30 years to execute a murderer, its not justice in my book. I feel for Dr. William Petit - there is nothing any one on earth can do to make him whole again for his loss. I have my doubts Stephen Hayes will meet with the swift death he deserves.

I hope I am wrong. This however, is the Northeast after all.


4 posted on 11/09/2010 2:06:17 AM PST by goldstategop (In Memory Of A Dearly Beloved Friend Who Lives In My Heart Forever)
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To: Scanian

There really is a big difference between northeastern culture and that further south. Three days to conclude that this scum needs to meet his maker?

I don’t expect that it would take a Virginia jury long at all to recommend death in a case such as this. Go to the deep south and it would take them about a half an hour. 20 minutes of which would be spent getting coffee and donuts and talking football.


5 posted on 11/09/2010 2:31:39 AM PST by RKBA Democrat (Palin 2012: Renew, Revive, and Restore)
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To: RKBA Democrat

The jurors know their liberal friends will turn them every way but loose if they vote to fry somebody.

This dude is so bad that apparently he is the very rare exception.

I spoke to a very liberal government employee from near Hartford about this the other day and he wanted this guy dead.


6 posted on 11/09/2010 3:05:17 AM PST by Scanian
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To: Scanian

Now, we will be in for 20 years of appeals.


7 posted on 11/09/2010 3:33:38 AM PST by chainsaw ( 'You know that your landing gear is up and locked when it takes full power to taxi to the terminal)
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To: chainsaw

Maybe 40 years. You will owe me that $40 if I’m still around. That’s $1 this year plus $1 interest every year.


8 posted on 11/09/2010 3:38:07 AM PST by goldstategop (In Memory Of A Dearly Beloved Friend Who Lives In My Heart Forever)
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To: Scanian

In the aftermath of these murders Gov. Rell vetoed legislation that would have banned the death penalty.

If not for this crime there would be no death penalty in CT.

We shall see what the new dem governor does.


9 posted on 11/09/2010 3:44:43 AM PST by Carley (WE SAW NOVEMBER FROM OUR HOUSE)
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To: Scanian

I remember driving to Olympia one afternoon to do some work and hearing on the radio about a bank robbery.

Two tellers, IIRC, were shot dead. The husband of one of the tellers had got there to take her to lunch and she died in his arms.

Mitchell Rupe was found and convicted of the MURDERS, and sentenced to death. Washington state at that time approved hanging as a capital punishment.

Rupe, VIA HIS ATTORNEY, appealed, because he was TOO FAT, and thought there was a chance his head might come off!

Ya think??

Went to the SC, it was said it would be “cruel and unusual”, he went on and blew out his liver and got a free couple hundred K’s worth of free liver transplants, and after 20 years or so, passed in prison.

SO NOW YOU HAVE AN IDEA ABOUT THE AMERICAN JUSTICE SYSTEM!

Every few months I am reminded of a man who goes to take his wife to lunch, maybe talk about the kids, and ends up holding her while she dies...


10 posted on 11/09/2010 3:46:39 AM PST by djf (The word "concise" is too big!)
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To: Carley

Wasn’t the last execution in CT one of the “Mad Dog” killers in the ‘50’s?

This guy will rot for years on Death Row at taxpayer expense’


11 posted on 11/09/2010 4:10:28 AM PST by Scanian
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To: Scanian

This is a great reason for the US to have a new institution: the Second Court of the United States.

The Second Court of the United States is not a federal court, but consists of 100 State judges appointed by their respective State legislatures.

The Second Court of the United States is inferior to the Supreme Court of the United States, but it is superior to the federal District Courts.

The Second Court of the United States does *not* determine if a law is constitutional. Instead, its primary purpose is to decide if a State court case, that has been usurped by a federal judge, is in fact worthy of federal involvement, or should be returned to the State of origin to be decided.

The death penalty is a big part of this. When a State sentences some murderer to die, a whole slate of federal judges assume that they have profound constitutional issues in what should instead be a simple matter of execution. Even by hanging, if a State chooses to do so.

And this whimsical nit picking by federal judges means that justice is unconscionably delayed or even denied.

But other, superior federal judges have refused to discipline them for their nit picky ways. So it is right and proper that the States have some means of doing so.

As things stand, the federal District Courts are now annually forwarding some 8,000 cases to the Supreme Court every year. And since they can only hear a few, the vast majority are stuck with whatever decision was made by the District Court. And these decisions often stink.

So with a Second Court of the United States, many of these 8,000 cases would be returned to the States, leaving a far more manageable number for the SCOTUS. Otherwise the cases would revert to first the default of the Second Court’s decision, returning it to the State or not. Then, only if that was not an issue, would the case be remanded to the District Court for decision.

And the bottom line? America’s death rows would be emptied, and kept at low occupancy, as many villains met their fate.


12 posted on 11/09/2010 4:28:16 AM PST by yefragetuwrabrumuy
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To: goldstategop

“Liberals supporting the death penalty?”... yes, when it happens to them... when its someone else, the death penalty is “inhumane”. Michael Savage has it right, “Liberalism is a mental disorder”.


13 posted on 11/09/2010 4:39:09 AM PST by dps.inspect (the system is rigged...)
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To: Scanian

The headline in my local paper is already soft-soaping the viscious crime. I expect in a while we’ll see the usual cadre of muderer-loving lefties (for example Tookie Williams fans) carrying protest signs outside the prison.

*spit* Dayum, I despise lefties.


14 posted on 11/09/2010 4:47:14 AM PST by Peet (Leftists think personal liberty is so important it must be carefully rationed.)
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To: Scanian

This crime was so horrific that the “no cruel and unusual punishment” death penalty isn’t good enough.

The guy should be strapped to an electric chair, shocked for a second or two, then stop, then repeat, over and over and over again.

That would be the equivalent of what he did to his victims—and that would be justice.


15 posted on 11/09/2010 4:55:07 AM PST by cgbg (No bailouts for New York and California. Let them eat debt.)
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To: Scanian
Wasn’t the last execution in CT one of the “Mad Dog” killers in the ‘50’s?

No. The last execution in CT was in 2005, by lethal injection, of Michael Ross. CT is unlike many states in that the Governor cannot commute a death sentence, or pardon a death row inmate.

16 posted on 11/09/2010 5:05:07 AM PST by Ol' Sox
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To: RKBA Democrat
There really is a big difference between northeastern culture and that further south. Three days to conclude that this scum needs to meet his maker?

In Texas, it would probably take 3 hours.

17 posted on 11/09/2010 5:12:35 AM PST by Paleo Conservative
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To: RKBA Democrat
Don't forget 5 minutes to elect a foreman.

Shortest jury verdict I ever saw WAS 20 minutes. Plea of insanity in a murder case. Took them more time to get to the jury room and back than it took to reach a verdict.

18 posted on 11/09/2010 5:14:29 AM PST by AnAmericanMother (Ministrix of ye Chasse, TTGC Ladies' Auxiliary (recess appointment))
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To: Scanian

Yep, if you let the bad guys walk for serious murders, they up the ante. There’s always somebody who thinks he can get away with this sort of heinous crime because there has been no penalty for ‘lesser’ murders . . . .


19 posted on 11/09/2010 5:16:55 AM PST by AnAmericanMother (Ministrix of ye Chasse, TTGC Ladies' Auxiliary (recess appointment))
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To: yefragetuwrabrumuy

I got a better idea.........instead of creating a whole new beaurocracy, let’s get the house to do it’s job and start impeaching these rogue judges....


20 posted on 11/09/2010 5:17:46 AM PST by joe fonebone (The House has oversight of the Judiciary...why are the rogue judges not being impeached?)
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