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Thread: Steven Hayes - Connecticut

  1. #11
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    March 10, 2010

    Psychiatrist: Hayes Says He's Waiting To Die

    NEW HAVEN — Steven Hayes, charged in the Cheshire home-invasion murders, says he is without hope and awaiting death, a prison psychiatrist testified Wednesday.

    But the psychiatrist, Dr. Suzanne Ducate, said in Superior Court that Hayes is able to participate in his own defense in his trial, and Judge Jon C. Blue ordered jury selection to resume Monday.

    Jury selection was suspended after Hayes attempted suicide Jan. 30. Four jurors have already been chosen.

    Ducate, called to testify on Hayes' confinement at a prison infirmary, said Hayes was still a high risk for suicide.

    "Do you have any concerns about his ability to participate in the process?" prosecutor Gary Nicholson asked Ducate.

    "No, I do not," Ducate said.

    Hayes and co-defendant Joshua Komisarjevsky face the death penalty if convicted of killing Jennifer Hawke-Petit and her two daughters, Hayley, 17, and Michaela, 11, during a break-in, robbery and arson at the Petits' Cheshire home on July 23, 2007.

    Hayes' life in the infirmary at the MacDougall-Walker Correctional Institution in Suffield became an issue after attorneys complained that he was being treated inhumanely since the suicide attempt.

    They said that 24-hour lighting prevented him from sleeping, and that precautions the prison was taking have kept Hayes from eating properly, maintaining his hygiene and getting the medication he needs.

    Jury selection, Hayes' defense said, could not continue as long as Hayes was jailed under those conditions.

    Ducate, who testified on Hayes' condition at a similar hearing March 2, said Wednesday that Hayes has improved his communication since then and is cooperating more when asked questions. Last week she said Hayes was not communicating well with officials.

    Under cross-examination by defense attorneys, Ducate said she recommends that Hayes stay in a safe cell in an infirmary.

    http://www.courant.com/news/connecticut/hc-hayes-hearing0311mar11,0,2612464.story

  2. #12
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    Cheshire Home Invasion Suspect Joshua Komisarjevsky Would Plead Guilty If Spared The Death Penalty

    NEW HAVEN, Conn. - An attorney for one of two men charged in the home invasion killings of a Connecticut mother and her two daughters says his client would plead guilty to the charges if he is spared the death penalty.

    Jeremiah Donovan, attorney for Joshua Komisarjevsky (koh-mih-sar-JEV'-skee), told The Associated Press on Friday his client has no plans to change his not guilty plea unless the state agrees not to pursue a death sentence. He noted that he's offered that deal from the beginning of the case.

    Donovan's comments came a day after the other man charged in the crime, Steven Hayes, said he wants to plead guilty. Hayes' attorneys are opposing that move, which is not part of a plea deal.

    A telephone message was left Friday with New Haven State's Attorney Michael Dearington.

    http://www.courant.com/news/connecticut/hc-joshua-komisarjevsky-cheshire-slaying-0402,0,1170657.story

  3. #13
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    April 3, 2010

    Experts Say Hayes' Lawyers May Lose Fight To Keep Him Off Death Row

    NEW HAVEN — Veteran defense lawyers Patrick J. Culligan and Thomas J. Ullmann are well-known for their vehement opposition to the death penalty.

    And now they represent a client who seems willing to take a seat on death row.

    Next week, the two attorneys plan to vigorously fight Steven Hayes' decision to plead guilty to the 2007 Cheshire home invasion killings, but can they go against their client's wishes?

    As a general rule, in a criminal case, "the lawyer shall abide by the client's decision, after consultation with the lawyer, as to a plea to be entered and whether to waive jury trial," under the Connecticut Rules of Professional Conduct.

    Jeffrey A. Meyer, a former federal prosecutor who teaches at the Quinnipiac University School of Law, said that means a lawyer must act on behalf of his client, "even if the lawyer does not personally or philosophically agree with the client's wishes."

    The exception is if the client is acting with "diminished capacity," according to the rules, though "diminished capacity" is never defined.

    "It is not clear how they could make a persuasive showing of diminished capacity under the rule," Meyer said.

    Hayes' revelation to Judge Jon C. Blue on Thursday about his wish to plead guilty came shortly after Blue said from the bench that a report issued by a team of experts showed Hayes was competent to stand trial. The report prompted Hayes' attorneys to waive a competency hearing they had requested for Hayes.

    By waiving the hearing, veteran New Haven attorney Hugh Keefe said, Hayes' attorneys conceded that Hayes was mentally competent.

    "At that point, there's nothing to stand in the way of him making that decision," Keefe said.

    "Some people do choose death over life in prison," Keefe said. He noted the May 13, 2005, execution of serial killer Michael Ross, the first person to be put to death in New England in 45 years. The execution occurred after Ross waged a legal fight to have his sentence imposed.

    "It's perfectly possible for a criminal defendant to rationally and competently make that decision," Keefe said. "But the question is if the person is making that decision rationally and competently."

    If Hayes' lawyers can't talk him out of pleading guilty without a plea bargain, and a judge accepts Hayes' guilty pleas to multiple charges of murder, kidnapping, sexual assault, burglary, larceny and arson, Hayes could end up with new lawyers. The rules state that if "the client insists upon taking action that the lawyer considers repugnant or with which the lawyer has a fundamental disagreement," then a lawyer can withdraw from a case.

    Legal experts with knowledge of Culligan, who heads the state's capital defense unit, and Ullmann, who leads New Haven's public defenders office, say both lawyers oppose the death penalty and would adamantly fight a client's execution.

    "Assuming your client is competent to make the decision, there is no reason not to advocate what your client's position is. That's your job," Keefe said. "Whether the lawyer wants to still be the lawyer in that case, that's another question."

    Hayes and co-defendant Joshua Komisarjevsky are accused of killing Jennifer Hawke-Petit and her two daughters, Hayley, 17, and Michaela, 11, during a break-in, robbery and arson at the Petits' Cheshire home on July 23, 2007. Hawke-Petit's husband and the girls' father, Dr. William Petit Jr., was badly beaten but survived.

    Both Hayes and Komisarjevksy face the death penalty if convicted of the triple slaying and have offered repeatedly — and unsuccessfully — to plead guilty in exchange for a punishment of life in prison without the possibility of release.

    Hayes' attorneys have until Monday afternoon to file a motion opposing a change in plea. A hearing is scheduled for Tuesday on Hayes' request.

    http://www.ctnow.com/news/connecticut/hc-steven-hayes-lawyers0403.artapr03,0,4069308.story

  4. #14
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    April 6, 2010

    Hayes' Lawyers Oppose Guilty Plea

    NEW HAVEN — Saying they could not participate in the "sordid process that greases the wheels of the machinery of death," defense attorneys for one of two men charged in the 2007 Cheshire home-invasion killings are threatening to withdraw from the case if their client is allowed to plead guilty without a deal that would spare his life.

    "This would be a solemn and devastating decision for counsel to make and of great potential harm to Steven Hayes," attorneys Thomas J. Ullmann and Patrick J. Culligan wrote in strongly worded court papers filed Monday.

    "We do not think that we can partake in such a stained and sordid process that greases the wheels of the machinery of death for such a diminished, tortured and suffering human being. We do not relish abandoning this client under such circumstances nor have we ever done so in our lengthy professional careers.

    "However, when the dignity and respect of the proceedings are controlled by a defendant operating under such an obvious diminished mental capacity ... we fear that we may not have any other choice," they wrote.

    Hayes' attorneys plan to argue their point this morning during a hearing in Superior Court. They will ask the judge for a two-week delay in the case, time they say they need to gather evidence for a court hearing that would show Hayes has "diminished capacity" or "mental impairment." They said they may put Hayes on the witness stand.

    In making their argument, Ullmann and Culligan referenced the case of serial killer Michael Ross, the first person to be put to death in New England in 45 years. The execution occurred in 2005, but only after Ross waged a legal fight to have the sentence imposed.

    In that case, Ross' original attorneys were allowed to withdraw from the case because they disagreed with Ross' decision to be put to death. Ullmann and Culligan said state Supreme Court rulings in the Ross case show that the lawyers were "uncomfortable with" Ross' being able to "negotiate with the state to obtain a death sentence."

    Prosecutor Michael Dearington declined to comment.

    Hayes is one of two men accused of killing Jennifer Hawke-Petit and her two daughters, Hayley, 17, and Michaela, 11, during a break-in, robbery and arson at the Petits' Cheshire home on July 23, 2007. Hawke-Petit's husband and the girls' father, Dr. William Petit Jr., was badly beaten but survived.

    Hayes stunned the court last week when he told Judge Jon C. Blue that he wanted to change his "not guilty" pleas to "guilty."

    Hayes and co-defendant Joshua Komisarjevsky both face the death penalty if convicted of the triple slaying. Like Komisarjevsky, Hayes has offered repeatedly to plead guilty to the long list of criminal charges he faces in exchange for a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of release. Their offers were rejected by prosecutors.

    If the judge allows Hayes to plead guilty without a deal worked out with prosecutors, Hayes would not get to decide his own punishment. A jury or panel of judges would decide if Hayes goes to prison for the rest of his life or is executed.

    Hayes' offer came after his attorneys waived a competency hearing Thursday that cleared the way for resumption of jury selection in his trial.

    Blue had scheduled the competency hearing after Hayes' attorneys said they were concerned about Hayes' mental state.

    Hayes, 46, tried to kill himself with an overdose of prescription drugs Jan. 30 and has said that he does not want to participate in jury selection. He has lost a significant amount of weight, sleeps erratically, and has told prison counselors that he is waiting for the state to execute him.

    Blue told the court last week that a report completed by a psychologist, a psychiatrist and a social worker who examined Hayes concluded that Hayes was competent to stand trial.

    In addition to the competency report, a psychiatrist for the Department of Correction has testified that Hayes was capable of participating in jury selection, a process that began Jan. 19 but is currently on hold.

    In the court papers filed Monday, Hayes' lawyers argue that Hayes may be competent to stand trial but is not competent to change his plea, a move his attorneys say is "driven completely and exclusively by his desire to die."

    They said "every decision he makes is focused on accelerating the process to impose the sentence of death, what he has been described as calling 'suicide by state.'" Hayes is motivated by "his depression, his despondency and his desire to end his life," according to the court papers.

    Ullmann and Culligan also argue that Hayes' decision to plead guilty is a "strategy decision" that cannot take place without their consent under state death penalty statutes.

    As a general rule, in a criminal case, "the lawyer shall abide by the client's decision, after consultation with the lawyer, as to a plea to be entered and whether to waive jury trial," under the Connecticut Rules of Professional Conduct. The exception is if the client is acting with "diminished capacity," according to the rules.

    Culligan, who heads the state's capital defense unit, and Ullmann, the lead public defender in New Haven, are well-known for their vehement opposition to the death penalty.

    "We as his lawyers are committed to protecting his rights and saving his life. Our obligations are no less," the attorneys wrote in Monday's filing.

    Six jurors have been selected for Hayes' trial. A total of 20 would have to be picked before the evidence portion of the trial, scheduled for September, could start. The panel would consist of 12 jurors, six alternates and two substitute alternates.

    http://www.courant.com/news/connecticut/hc-cheshire-home-invasion-0406.artapr06,0,1532797.story?track=rss

  5. #15
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    April 6, 2010

    Conn. triple murder suspect nixes guilty plea

    NEW HAVEN, Conn. – Jury selection resumed Tuesday in a Connecticut triple-murder case after the defendant told a judge he no longer wishes to change his plea to guilty.

    Steven Hayes, 46, and a co-defendant, 29-year-old Joshua Komisarjevsky, are charged with capital felony, murder and sexual assault in the 2007 killings of Jennifer Hawke-Petit and her two daughters at their Cheshire home. Both face the possibility of the death penalty.

    Last week, Hayes said he wanted to change his plea to guilty, and Superior Court Judge Jon Blue scheduled a hearing to discuss the plea.

    But after a meeting with lawyers, Hayes paused and answered "yes" in court Tuesday when Blue asked if he was satisfied with his attorneys' advice to proceed to trial. His attorneys had argued that Hayes was not competent to change his plea and was seeking "suicide by state."

    Defense attorney Thomas Ullmann said it was not an easy decision for Hayes or the lawyers. Ullmann had threatened to withdraw from the case if Hayes was allowed to change his plea.

    "Counsel's obligation should be obvious," Ullmann said. "We are not here to assist Mr. Hayes in committing suicide, either by his own hands or by the state of Connecticut. Suicidal behavior is pathological and not rational."

    Defense lawyers have been concerned about Hayes' mental state since he tried to kill himself in prison on Jan. 30. But state experts who evaluated Hayes issued a report last week concluding he was competent to stand trial.

    Hayes and Komisarjevsky are accused of breaking into the Petit home, beating Dr. William Petit and holding the family hostage for hours before strangling his wife and setting the house on fire. Eleven-year-old Michaela and 17-year-old Hayley, who had been tied to their beds, died of smoke inhalation.

    Shortly after Hayes indicated he would not be pleading guilty, he changed from a prison jumpsuit into civilian clothes and jury selection resumed.

    William Petit, who survived the attack, last week called Hayes' request to change his plea a "moment of honesty" and said he would feel some relief if it sped up the process of justice. Petit was not in court Tuesday.

    http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100406/ap_on_re_us/us_home_invasion_9

  6. #16
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    April 19, 2010

    Hayes Denied Request To Skip Jury Selection

    A judge has denied Steven Hayes' request to skip the rest of jury selection in the 2007 Cheshire home-invasion case.

    Hayes' attorneys last week filed a motion asking Superior Court Judge Jon C. Blue to waive Hayes' right to be present while attorneys choose the rest of the jury panel. The prosecutor objected to the request.

    In an eight-page written ruling released Monday, Blue deni3ed the request. He said that despite an "obvious general detachment, Hayes does show flashes of alertness from time to time and has, when addressed, intelligently, answered questions put to him by the court. He is no automaton."

    Blue also cited the testimony of Dr. Suzanne Ducate, a state Department of Correction psychiatrist responsible for Hayes' treatment. Ducate testified March 2 that she had no concerns about Hayes' participation in jury selection.

    Blue said he also considered that Hayes was found competent to stand trial and that his lawyers waived a hearing and "effectively admitted competency."

    Blue said 11 of 20 jurors have been picked in 19 days of individual voir dire, a legal term for jury selection.

    "The court does not mean to minimize the emotional burden of this process, but it has every expectation that, under those circumstances, the remainder of the process can be endured," Blue wrote.

    Hayes and Joshua Komisarjevsky are accused of killing Jennifer Hawke-Petit and her daughters, Hayley, 17, and Michaela, 11, in their Cheshire home in 2007. The house was also set on fire. Hawke-Petit's husband and the girls' father, Dr. William Petit Jr., was badly beaten during the attack but survived. Both Hayes and Komisarjevsky face the death penalty if convicted.

    http://www.courant.com/news/connecticut/hc-hayes-denied-request-0419,0,2843638

  7. #17
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    June 9, 2010

    Book Could Be An Issue In Cheshire Case

    A library book Steven Hayes was reading in the months before the Cheshire home-invasion killings could be used as evidence by prosecutors at his trial.

    Hayes' defense team, however, is prepared to fight the use of the book to prosecute Hayes for the July 2007 killings of Jennifer Hawke-Petit and her two daughters, Hayley, 17, and Michaela, 11, inside their Cheshire home.

    The name of the book and its author were not disclosed during a brief hearing Tuesday in Superior Court, where Judge Jon C. Blue set a schedule for the filing and arguing of possible pre-trial motions in the case. Testimony is scheduled to start Sept. 13, and attorneys are expected to file pre-trial motions by the end of the month.

    Most of the motions Blue discussed Tuesday, including motions to sequester witnesses and to suppress physical evidence, are filed routinely before criminal cases. While discussing motions, Blue made a reference to "a library book" that could be an issue in the case.

    Citing a court-imposed gag order preventing parties from talking publicly about the Hayes case, neither prosecutors nor defense attorneys would comment on the library book.

    Brian Garnett, a spokesman for the state Department of Correction, also cited the gag order when asked about reading materials Hayes may have signed out from prison libraries.

    Hayes, whose long criminal record dates back to when he was a teenager in the 1980s, was serving a five-year prison sentence following a burglary conviction in October 2003 when he was granted community release in June 2006. He returned to prison five months later and remained there until May 2007 when he was granted supervised parole.

    Hayes, 47, of Winsted, is the first suspect to be tried in the deadly break-in at the Petit family home on July 23, 2007. Hawke-Petit was raped and strangled. Her daughters were left bound in their beds and the house was doused with gasoline and set on fire. Before the killings, Hawke-Petit was forced to go to her bank with one of the suspects and withdraw money. Dr. William Petit Jr. was brutally beaten during the break-in but escaped the burning home.

    Jury selection in the trial for the other suspect, Joshua Komisarjevsky, is supposed to start early next year.

    Both men face the death penalty if convicted of the killings.

    http://www.courant.com/news/connecticut/hc-hayes-book-0609-20100608,0,5046161.story?track=rss

  8. #18
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    July 15, 2010

    Cop: Cheshire murder defendant, Steven Hayes, implicated himself in killings


    A police detective testified Wednesday that a suspect in the killings of a mother and her two daughters during a home invasion three years ago told him that “things just got out of control.”

    Cheshire Detective Joseph Vitello’s comments came during a hearing in New Haven Superior Court on whether Steven Hayes’ alleged self-incriminating statements should be admitted as evidence during his trial, which is set to begin in September.

    Vitello also testified Hayes was wearing a Miss Porter’s School cap when he and a second man charged in the case were arrested while trying to flee the home on July 23, 2007. One of the victims, 17-year-old Hayley Petit, attended the private school in Farmington.

    Petit, her 11-year-old sister, Michaela, and their mother, Jennifer Hawke-Petit, were killed. The girls’ father, Dr. William Petit, was beaten but survived.

    Hayes, 47, of Winsted, and Joshua Komisarjevsky, 29, of Cheshire, face the possibility of the death penalty if convicted of the capital felony charges. They’re also charged with sexual assault and other crimes.

    Police documents say the two men tied up the victims and poured gasoline on and around them before setting the house on fire and fleeing in the family’s car. Both were arrested a short distance from the house in Cheshire, about 17 miles north of New Haven.

    Hawke-Petit was strangled and the two girls died of smoke inhalation, according to the medical examiner’s office.

    Vitello said he arrested Hayes after the two defendants crashed the Petits’ car into two police cruisers in a failed escape attempt. The detective testified that he asked Hayes if there were any victims in the house, and Hayes told him two or three times, “I don’t know. Things just got out of control.”

    Under cross-examination by Hayes’ lawyer, Vitello said he hadn’t read Hayes his Miranda rights when he asked him that question.

    A state police detective, Anthony Buglione, also testified Wednesday, saying he smelled gasoline on Hayes during an interview at the police station.

    Hayes’ lawyer, Thomas Ullmann, asked Buglione why he didn’t record his interview with Hayes. Buglione responded that he conducted the interview like all the others he did.

    Ullmann filed a motion Tuesday saying the failure to electronically record Hayes’ statements in a death penalty prosecution requires they be suppressed. He says any statements Hayes made to police and a correction officer were involuntary and in violation of due process rights.

    Jeremiah Krob, a corrections officer, testified that he overheard Hayes talking about the home invasion with another inmate. Like other witnesses, he did not testify about the content of Hayes’ statement.

    Johanna Chapman, Dr. Petit’s sister, said the family was glad not to hear the details of Hayes’ statements and predicted they would come up during the trial. Her brother was not in court Wednesday.

    The court hearing will resume Friday.

    http://registercitizen.com/articles/2010/07/15/news/doc4c3e8f6340647127144430.txt

  9. #19
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    Death penalty disputed in Conn. home invasion case

    One of two men charged with killing a mother and her two daughters in a home invasion in which the girls were tied to their beds and their house set on fire said the death penalty is too cruel to be permitted.

    Attorneys for Steven Hayes argue that the Connecticut legislature's decision to abolish the death penalty last year means executions should no longer be permitted, even though Gov. M. Jodi Rell vetoed the bill.

    "A majority of Connecticut's elected representatives have concluded, after lengthy and thoughtful debates that considered all sides of the issue, that the state should no longer be permitted to exercise this authority," wrote Hayes' attorneys, Thomas Ullmann and Patrick Culligan, in a recent motion. "Imposing the death penalty in the face of that determination, and without the full support of all three branches of government, must be regarded as cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the state constitution."

    Prosecutor Michael Dearington declined to comment, except to say he would file his response to the defense argument in writing. New Haven Superior Court Judge Jon Blue on Friday scheduled a hearing for July 27.

    Hayes, 47, and Joshua Komisarjevsky, 29, face the possibility of the death penalty if convicted of capital felony charges. They're also charged with sexual assault and other crimes in a home invasion in 2007 that killed Jennifer Hawke-Petit and her daughters, 17-year-old Hayley and her 11-year-old sister, Michaela.

    The girls' father, Dr. William Petit, was beaten but survived. Petit, who was not in court Friday, has called for the death penalty, and his father, William Petit Sr., reiterated the family's support Friday after the hearing.

    Police documents say the two men tied up the victims and poured gasoline on and around them before setting the house on fire and fleeing in the family's car. Both were arrested a short distance from the house in Cheshire, about 17 miles north of New Haven.

    Hawke-Petit was strangled and the two girls died of smoke inhalation, according to the medical examiner's office.

    Hayes' attorneys contend the legislature's decision to abolish the death penalty is consistent with a growing national and international consensus that it is not an appropriate form of punishment.

    Blue heard testimony Friday from two more police detectives on the issue of whether alleged incriminating statements made by Hayes can be used as evidence during his trial. Blue did not rule, giving prosecutors and defense lawyers until July 30 to submit briefs and scheduled arguments for Aug. 17.

    http://www.boston.com/news/local/connecticut/articles/2010/07/16/hearing_in_conn_home_invasion_case_resumes/

  10. #20
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    Prison Books Bring Plot Twist to Cheshire Killings

    As the trial approaches for one of the men charged in the triple-homicide home invasion in Cheshire, Conn., in 2007, all the motions, requests for evidence and demands that one would expect in a complex capital case have flown back and forth between the defense and prosecutors.

    But one stood out, tantalizingly. The defense said it would request that the names of books that one of the accused men, Steven J. Hayes, checked out of a prison library before the killings not be admitted as evidence. The books, the defense indicated in one motion, included plots that were “criminally malevolent in the extreme.”

    Mr. Hayes’s lawyers suggested that prison librarians might have given him what amounted to a literary blueprint for the crime, which already has what some see as a literary predecessor of sorts. It has been compared to the 1959 Kansas killings described in Truman Capote’s “In Cold Blood.”

    The defense lawyers’ suggestion that prison library books could have shaped the crime, or that knowing Mr. Hayes read them could turn jurors against him, has created a strange kind of guessing game about the literary interests of Mr. Hayes, 46, a career thief and drug abuser whose education topped out at a high school equivalency degree.

    The titles have not been made public. Some people have hypothesized that Mr. Hayes had access to lurid crime novels. Others have said it may have been something more literary, along the lines of the international best seller “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo,” or perhaps the Capote book itself, which the author described as a “nonfiction novel.”

    The defense filing also raises questions: Why would a prison library possess books with plots considered “criminally malevolent in the extreme,” and why, if it did, would it lend such books to prisoners? State officials would not answer those questions, citing an order in the case directing parties not to comment publicly about the trial.

    Mr. Hayes and another long-term criminal, Joshua Komisarjevsky, were arrested on July 23, 2007, outside the home of the Petit family in Cheshire, where the mother and her two daughters had been killed and the father had been beaten in a crime that included rape, robbery, molestation and arson.

    After months of jury selection, a suicide attempt by Mr. Hayes and any number of legal issues, the death-penalty trial is to begin on Sept. 13. Mr. Komisarjevsky is to face a capital trial later.

    In a motion last month, the defense lawyers referred to “Department of Correction library books.” They noted that Mr. Hayes, who spent much of his life in Connecticut jails, had borrowed “one or more books of fiction whose plots can fairly be described as salacious and criminally malevolent in the extreme.”

    The lawyers were trying to block any reference to Mr. Hayes’s prison reading before the Cheshire crime at his trial. They said a mention of the books would be “highly inflammatory and very prejudicial to the defendant.”

    In court, the state’s attorney, Michael Dearington, then said he would not use Mr. Hayes’s prison reading against him. This means that, most likely, the names of the books will never be revealed in court. Still, with the crime a continual focus of fascinated revulsion in Connecticut, there has been wide speculation about what books Mr. Hayes was able to get.

    At least one blogger, a lawyer, suggested that the books might have included “In Cold Blood,” which described the killings of the Clutter family of Holcomb, Kan. Since the first reports of the Cheshire killings, the calculated Clutter family crime in a placid setting and the toxic combination of the two ex-convicts who committed it have brought frequent references to the Cheshire crime as a chilling echo of the events in the Capote book.

    But in recent weeks, some people in Connecticut have noted that Mr. Hayes’s defense lawyers signaled that Capote’s classic true-crime book was not on Mr. Hayes’s reading list when the lawyers pointedly said they were referring to “books of fiction.”

    Asked this week, Mr. Hayes’s chief lawyer, Thomas J. Ullmann, declined to identify the books.

    Brian McDonald, the author of a 2009 book about the Cheshire crime, said he believed the lawyers meant that Mr. Hayes had read explicit crime novels along the lines of Stieg Larsson’s “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo,” though that book was not published in the United States until after the Cheshire crime.

    Mr. McDonald said that during prison interviews, Mr. Komisarjevsky told him that when Mr. Hayes’s prison reading was revealed, people would speculate that some of what happened inside the house had been influenced by the books.

    “He thought it was not good for Hayes’s defense,” Mr. McDonald said. He said Mr. Komisarjevsky did not tell him what books Mr. Hayes had read. Mr. McDonald did not interview Mr. Hayes.

    Brian A. Garnett, a spokesman for the Connecticut Department of Correction, declined to disclose the names of books Mr. Hayes had obtained from prison libraries. Mr. Garnett said a court order in the Cheshire case directing parties to the case not to comment publicly about it prevented him from responding.

    When Mr. Garnett was asked if the department’s policy would permit Connecticut prisoners to have access to works that could be described as “salacious and criminally malevolent in the extreme,” he again cited the court’s order.

    But Steven Oberfest, a former inmate who now advises people about life behind bars, said it would be unusual if Connecticut prisons allowed books that included explicit details of deviant acts. “My experience was it was very bland reading” in prison, Mr. Oberfest said.

    Bibles and law books are common in jail, he said. Ken Kesey’s “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” is typically one of the more provocative works.

    State Senator John A. Kissel, the ranking Republican on the Connecticut Legislature’s Judiciary Committee, said he had been troubled by the suggestions about Mr. Hayes’s prison reading. Mr. Kissel said he was sending a letter to corrections officials demanding to know what books were available to inmates.

    “If there’s a plot line along the lines of what all took place in Cheshire,” he said, “I don’t think those books should be available to inmates.”

    http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/22/nyregion/22cheshire.html?src=me&ref=nyregion

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