Posted on 12/04/2010 3:51:58 PM PST by Graybeard58
"I have seriously considered suicide many times. I have no wife, no children, no home and no interest in life in general." "I used to have trust and faith in humanity and you have taken that from me."
"You destroyed our family."
"He does not deserve life."
Those are just a few of the statements made by members of the Petit and Hawke families when Steven Hayes, who was convicted of murdering Jennifer Hawke-Petit and her daughters Hayley and Michaela during a savage July 2007 home invasion in Cheshire, was formally sentenced to death Thursday by New Haven Superior Court Judge Jon Blue.
Hayes has a criminal record dating to 1980, when he was in his teens. Among his crimes were forgery, disorderly conduct, burglary and larceny.
During Hayes' trial, prosecutors presented a three-year old letter the defendant's younger brother, Matthew Hayes, wrote to the state police. He painted a picture of Steven Hayes as someone who exhibited sociopathic tendencies at a young age.
Matthew Hayes described having had his hand placed on a hot stove burner by his brother while they were in their teens. He also described having a gun placed to his head by his brother, and how Steven Hayes stole from and struck their mother.
During the penalty phase of the trial, a retired prison official, Frederick Levesque, testified that while in prison, Hayes threatened to kill corrections officers on two separate occasions: once in 1986, when Hayes was upset about needing permission to make a phone call; and the other last March. According to a published report, Hayes has received 23 disciplinary citations in the 30 years he has spent in the Connecticut correctional system. The most serious of these citations followed a June 1992 incident in which a homemade blowgun and dart were found in his cell.
Then there is the invasion of the Petit family home. Hayes was found guilty of six capital felonies stemming from the massacre. They included 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 death during a kidnapping.
During sentencing Thursday, Hayes apologized for and accepted responsibility for his actions. This apology, while extensive, will do nothing to erase the pain his actions have caused these families.
Even the most cursory analysis of Hayes' background reveals a man with a long history of anti-social behavior who has perpetrated or threatened to perpetrate unspeakable acts of violence. Connecticut courts correctly reserve death row for the worst of the worst, and Hayes has more than earned his place in line for execution.
Dollars ti donuts that he will not be execured. He will go to death row and stay there for a few years. A future Democrat Governor will give him clenency, release him, and later pardon him. Why? Well... It wasn’t his fault that he did this. Society is to blame. Somewhere out there is a gun that is to blame and a suv. The gun and suv joined forces with society and this poor guy was their victim. As far as tying the girls to a bed, pouring gasoline on them and setting them on fire while they were still alive, well, we don’t know that he intended to kill them. He probably thought that they were cold and was trying to warm them up. As for the other...Boys will be boys.
The above is the Democrat and Liberal’s rendition of Mr.[To use the term losely] Haynes deed[s] on that day.
On a personal note, the only objection that I have to publically hanging him is that I can’ be there to tie the knot and put the noose over the sobs head. Any resembleance between this creature and a human being is purely coincidental.
“I’m OK with that as long as it’s one of the several usual methods we’ve already employed. I’m not into the boiling oil, chipper shredder or any of the other creative methods some here advocate. In the case of life sentencing, I wouldn’t be in favor of torture any more than I would coddling with special meal or priveledges - just work, work, work, work, work, work, work, work, work, work . . .”
Sure, I meant presently valid methods of execution.
I confess, though, that a method which approximates the vicitim’s suffering would be appropriate to me. But we must be sparing of the innocent executioner & guards, and keep things “civilised.”
Yeah, that’s the thing; some people needing to do the actual execution might be more than a little disturbed by some methods. That said, I’m all for using the good old fashioned electric chair or gas chamber since those hold a lot of fear for those perps sentenced to them. I think they did a good, clean job, too, movies and handwringers notwithstanding. For the sake of the family/legal representative/executioner, he/she could be isolated in another room to throw the switch in isolation if they so chose. Some folks would just want the job done and wouldn’t want to revel in it for revenge sake. I’m pretty sure that there are some that would like to watch the perp die, though and this method would allow for that, too. In any event, the job would get done.
Your points are well taken, and I disapprove strongly of the (great deal less common than it used to be) practice of picking out one of the “usual suspects,” framing him, beating out a “confession,” and then closing the case.
My point is that while this practice has highly negative side effects, as you point out, it is not really an “injustice” to the chosen perp, in a cosmic justice sense.
Prison guards and other prisoners are at serious risk from lifers with no conscience and no potential DP -- if he's sentenced to life without parole, there is no deterrent to his killing whenever he feels like it.
Plus there's always the chance that some lily-livered parole board or governor will let him out. Don't laugh, it happens.
The Innocence Project and other anti DP organizations have a vested interest in proclaiming many of these folks as "innocent" when they are nothing of the kind.
Usually it's a problem with a reversal on a technicality years after the offense, when memories have faded and witnesses have died or disappeared. The DA can't prosecute because he can't prove his case 10 or 15 or 20 years after the fact, and that's proclaimed as "innocence" when it's really lost evidence.
The DNA is not the be-all-and-end-all that it's proclaimed to be, either. All that proves is that somebody else was around to leave DNA at the crime scene . . . you can't prove a negative.
This is not to defend in any way the crooked cops and prosecutors and crime labs that cook up fake evidence. Prosecute them all until their ears ring, they contaminate the system. If a few of them went to prison that sort of nonsense would stop immediately.
Actually, the Innocence Project (IP) has confirmed the guilt of more people than they've exonerated, it's just that when they demonstrate the likelihood of a wrongful conviction it tends to be newsworthy. I'm not against IP. As I posted earlier, when the wrong person is convicted of a crime --even when this person is otherwise a scumbag, it still means that somebody else got away with it.
IP has an uphill battle. For one, every single person in prison is, in their own words, innocent. IP receives thousands of petitions a year, the vast majority from folks who are truly guilty of their crimes but are hoping that IP might be able to work some magic and let them out. IP has to sift through all these petitions trying to separate the truly guilty from the small few who might not be. It's a rare and newsworthy event when IP actually finds a wrongful conviction and this is a testament to the integrity of our sometimes imperfect criminal justice system.
If IP was getting people released every week, I'd be worried. Fortunately, IP "victories" are rare -and this is a good thing.
These two perps were arrested while fleeing in a vehicle from the immediate scene of the crime. No doubt they did it.
Which is almost all of them, as you say . . . .
The only one I ever met who cheerfully acknowledged his guilt was one of "my" Mariel Boatlift prisoners that I interviewed as part of a local bar association project. He had a rap sheet long as your arm, and he seemed proud of it rather than otherwise.
I think IP does itself and the system a disservice by trumpeting their successes as though that is the norm.
I am opposed to havign the death penaly on the books in states where there is a tacit conspiracy NOT to enforce it. California is the best example of this travesty. Millions upon millions are spent in endless appals, enriching defense attys. I'd rather see the $$$ given to the victims families, instead of going to defense attys. Indeed, in has gotten so bad in California that some convicts actually prefer being sentenced to death, and thus on death row. They know that the likelihood of the sentence ever being carried out is almost ZERO, and conditions on death row, because of court imposed mandates, are far better than in the general population, especially in max-security prisons. It's not quite as good as Gitmo, but close..
He was found not guilty, but a few years later the family who'd purchased his house (had to be sold to pay for his defense) found some undeveloped film hidden in an air vent. They knew about the case, so they took the film to the Louisville PD, who discovered that the film and discovered that it was actual photographic evidence of the rape, torture, and murder.
Since Ignatow had already been found not guilty, the prosecution was stymied by the double jeopardy clause, and he only served fourteen years for perjury.
My dad worked with Brenda Sue's brother at Fort Knox, and he received multiple offers from other prisoners who were serving time with Ignatow to take care of the problem for him, but he declined.
Two years after his release from prison, Ignatow was found dead in his house. He'd apparently fallen onto a glass coffee table, inflicting severe cuts to his head and arms. He bled to death before he could summon help. The LMPD accepted it as an accident, but there are many in the community who wonder if he had assistance in his "accident".
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