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Thread: Joshua Komisarjevsky - Connecticut

  1. #101
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    Komisarjevsky Not Involved In Sale Of Personal Items On "True Crime" Website

    A state Department of Correction investigation found that Cheshire home invasion killer Joshua Komisarjevsky did not take part in the sale of his personal items on a website that sells items of serial killers and other notorious murderers.

    His belongings were part of the website's "True Crime Museum & Prison Art Gallery, "that features items from more well-known infamous killers like Charles Manson, Gary Gilmore and "Son of Sam" killer David Berkowitz.

    Once prison officials were alerted, they launched a probe into how items tied to one of Connecticut's worst crimes in recent history ended up in the collection.

    Andrius Banevicius, a spokesman for the state Department of Correction, said this week that the investigation showed that Komisarjevsky "did not knowingly take part in placing personal items belonging to him for sale on the website darkvomit.com."

    He said the investigation also showed that "there was no misconduct on the part of staff at the Northern Correctional Institution regarding this incident."

    Komisarjevsky and his accomplice, Steven Hayes, are on death row awaiting execution for the torture and slayings of Jennifer Hawke-Petit and her two daughters, Hayley and Michaela, during a home invasion and arson at their Cheshire home in July 2007.

    Kelly Hutchison, an artist and art dealer from California who runs darkvomit.com, told the Courant in February that he did not have any communication with Komisarjevsky and obtained the items through a "pen pal" of Komisarjevsky. He described the pen pal as a "struggling single mom" who needed the money.

    Hutchison said Komisarjevsky would not be "compensated in any form for the items."

    Kahan, director of the Houston-based Mayor's Crime Victims Office, said Thursday that he would continue to monitor the website. Kahan has been battling against the sale of the macabre items for 15 years and does daily checks of the roughly six websites that sell such items.

    So far, two drawings and Komisarjevsky's commissary list have been sold. A poem, two of his sweatshirts and two books he has read on death row are still for sale, now at a discount.

    When asked if Komisarjevsky's mail would be monitored more closely in light of the incident, Banevicius declined to comment, saying he could not comment on security matters at the prison.

    He said there are policies in place that regulate prisoner correspondence, ranging from how often an inmate can send mail to whom mail can be sent.
    Banevicius said the level of supervision for death row prisoners is the highest.

    http://www.courant.com/news/connecti...430-story.html

  2. #102
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    Connecticut Supreme Court Rules Death Penalty Unconstitutional, Bars Execution Of Any Inmate

    By EDMUND H. MAHONY
    The Hartford Courant

    The Connecticut Supreme Court Thursday ruled 4-3 that the state's death penalty law, as it now stands, is unconstitutional and it barred the execution of the 11 state prison inmates now on death row.

    The law in question was enacted in 2012. It barred the "prospective" execution of those convicted of capital offenses after the date of enactment, but permitted the execution of those convicted before.

    "Upon careful consideration of the defendant's claims in light of the governing constitutional principles and Connecticut's unique historical and legal landscape, we are persuaded that, following its prospective abolition, this state's death penalty no longer comports with contemporary standards of decency and no longer serves any legitimate penological purpose," Justice Richard Palmer wrote for the majority.

    ""For these reasons, execution of those offenders who committed capital felonies prior to April 25, 2012, would violate the state constitutional prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment."

    When state lawmakers abolished the death penalty in 2012 but made the law prospective, it prompted legal challenges by attorneys representing those condemned to die by execution.

    The Supreme Court agreed to take up the law's prospective issue when it granted a request by Eduardo Santiago, whose death sentence was overturned two months after the repeal took effect.

    The justices ordered a new penalty phase for Santiago, saying the trial judge failed to disclose "significant and relevant" mitigating evidence for jury consideration when jurors decided to send Santiago to death row for the December 2000 killing of Joseph Niwinski in West Hartford.

    During the death penalty debate, some legislators questioned whether a prospective repeal would stand up in court. The provision was added following the high-profile trials of Cheshire home invasion killers Steven Hayes and Joshua Komisarjevsky, both of whom are on death row.

    In his 2013 arguments before the Supreme Court, Assistant Public Defender Mark Rademacher told justices that even Connecticut's top prosecutor was skeptical of the prospective repeal.

    "The problems with the prospective repeal were aptly summed up by Chief State's Attorney Kevin Kane when he told the legislature that prospective repeal creates two classes of people," Rademacher said at the time.

    "One will be subject to execution and the other will not, not because of the nature of the crime or the existence or absence of any aggravating or mitigating factor but because of the date on which the crime was committed," Rademacher said Kane told legislators in March 2012.

    "That is untenable as a matter of constitutional law or public policy. I just wouldn't plain feel right doing it," Rademacher recalled Kane saying.

    Rademacher said no jurisdiction in the history of the United States has executed an offender after renouncing capital punishment. In Connecticut, the State Board of Pardons and Paroles — not the governor — has the power to commute a death sentence to life in prison.

    Senior Assistant State's Attorney Harry Weller argued in support of the new law, saying that prospective repeal was the legislature's intent. He said it is constitutional and argued against the justices ruling on just part of the law. If the effective date of the law is found unconstitutional, the law must be struck in its entirety, he said.

    Weller said he saw two outcomes, "and neither of them get the defendant what he wants." The first outcome, he said, would be to affirm the constitutionality of the new law. The second outcome would be a ruling that the new law is unconstitutional.

    "But if you do that, the entire act is unconstitutional," Weller said. "This defendant remains subject to the death penalty and the death penalty remains in place."

    Weller said the state's highest court has always deferred to the legislature in regard to decisions about Connecticut's death penalty.

    The last person to be executed in Connecticut was serial killer Michael Ross, and it occurred in 2005 only after Ross waged a legal fight to end his appeals and to have the sentence imposed.

    http://touch.courant.com/#section/-1.../p2p-84199697/

  3. #103
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    Cheshire Home Invasion Killers Want Death Sentences Vacated After Supreme Court Ruling

    NEW HAVEN — Attorneys for Cheshire home invasion killers Steven Hayes and Joshua Komisarjevsky have filed legal papers asking a judge to vacate their death sentences and to impose sentences of life in prison without the possibility of parole.

    Two motions, one filed Thursday, the other filed Friday in Superior Court in New Haven, say the death sentences are "unconstitutional and must be corrected" in light of the state Supreme Court's decision in August barring all executions, regardless of when the sentence was imposed.

    The filings are the first of what is expected to be a wave of resentencing motions filed in state court by attorneys for the state's 11 death row inmates. Each case could be handled separately or an administrative judge could consolidate them.

    Connecticut lawmakers abolished capital punishment in April 2012 but made the law prospective, effectively applying it only to new cases and keeping in place the death sentences already imposed before the bill was passed.

    The provision was added after the high-profile trials of Hayes and Komisarjevsky.

    Hayes, 52, and Komisarjevsky, 33, are on death row for killing Jennifer Hawke-Petit and her daughters, Hayley, 17, and Michaela, 11, during a July 2007 home invasion.

    The men tied up and tortured the family as they ransacked the Petit home for cash and valuables. Komisarjevsky sexually assaulted Michaela, and Hayes raped and strangled Hawke-Petit.

    The house was doused with gasoline and set on fire. Hayley and Michaela died of smoke inhalation. The daughters' father and Hawke-Petit's husband, Dr. William Petit Jr., survived but was severely injured.

    Hayes was sent to death row in 2010 and Komisarjevsky was sentenced to death in 2012.

    After the 2012 repeal of the death penalty, attorneys representing those on death row challenged the law, saying it violated the condemned inmates' constitutional rights.

    The state Supreme Court agreed to take up the prospective issue in the case of Eduardo Santiago, whose death sentence was overturned in June 2012. The case was argued before the state's highest court in April 2013.

    In a 4-3 decision in August, in the case of State v. Santiago, the state Supreme Court banned capital punishment for all defendants, saying in the majority decision that Connecticut's death penalty no longer comported with societal values and served no valid purpose as punishment.

    Last week, the high court denied a request by the chief state's attorney to postpone the Santiago decision, a ruling that followed a denial by the Supreme Court of a request by prosecutors to reargue Santiago.

    Hayes' attorneys said in the motion filed Thursday that a sentence is illegal "if it is not within the range of permissible punishment for an offense. Here, the six sentences of death are unconstitutional pursuant to [the Santiago decision].

    A life sentence is the only available alternative sentence under the statute governing" Hayes' offense. Neither New Haven State's Attorney Michael Dearington nor Senior Assistant State's Attorney Gary Nicholson could be reached for comment Friday.

    http://www.courant.com/news/connecti...106-story.html

  4. #104
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    New details emerge about deadly Cheshire home invasion showing police were close to nabbing killers before murders

    By Nicole Bitette
    THE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

    New details in the case of a grisly 2007 home invasion and murder of the Cheshire, Conn. mother and her two daughters show that cops were sent to stop the car driven by one of the killers moments before the gruesome crimes.

    Police were ordered to find the vehicle driven by convicted murderer, Steven Hayes, while he took Jennifer Hawke-Petit to the bank to withdraw $15,000 before returning to the Petit home, where he and accomplice, Joshua Komisarjevsky, committed the sickening crimes.

    A phone call was made between police stating, "head down toward that area and see if we can intercept this car," according to court documents filed by lawyers for Komisarjevsky.

    An officer was within blocks of the bank at the time, but it's not clear if they ever approached the Chrysler Pacifica, the Hartford Courant reported.

    Cops had previously never confirmed that they were looking for the car being driven by Hayes.

    Komisarjevsky's lawyers are now arguing that police withheld evidence of the phone calls that were made to dispatch from private lines or cell phones, according to the court documents.

    When Hayes and Hawke-Petit returned from the bank, the mother was raped and strangled while her younger daughter, Michaela, 11, was sexually assaulted before she and Hayley, 17, were also killed, according to police.

    The torture occurred over seven terrifying hours inside the family’s home.

    All of the victims were tied up before the home was set on fire. The bodies were discovered inside the burning home.

    Husband and father, William Petit, was brutally beaten, but survived the invasion.

    Both Komisarjevsky and Hayes were captured as they fled the burning home and crashed into a police cruiser.

    The two were convicted of murder and initially sentenced to the death penalty.

    Komisarjevsky's lawyers are also asking for a new trial and that the conviction be overturned due to lack of evidence.

    Court documents filed in 2014 also allege that that police response to the crimes were inadequate and that officers wasted time setting up perimeters before ever approaching the home.

    Another officer was stationed blocks away from the Petit’s address, but was never told to approach the home, according to the documents.

    The Hartford Courant reports that no date has been set for another hearing on the evidence.

    http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crim...icle-1.2434973

  5. #105
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    Hearing slated in bid for new trial for Cheshire killer

    By DAVE COLLINS
    The Associated Press

    NEW HAVEN — A Connecticut judge will consider the request for a new trial from a man convicted in a brutal home invasion triple killing who said recordings of police phone calls that were believed to have been destroyed in a lightning strike would have been crucial to his defense.

    Joshua Komisarjevsky was convicted of murder along with Steven Hayes for the deaths linked to the robbery and fire at the Cheshire home of the Petit family in 2007.

    Authorities said Hayes strangled Jennifer Hawke-Petit after driving her to a bank and forcing her to withdraw $15,000. Her daughters, 17-year-old Hayley and 11-year-old Michaela, died of smoke inhalation in a fire set at their home shortly before Komisarjevsky and Hayes were arrested after crashing the family's car into police cruisers.

    Hawke-Petit's husband, William Petit, was severely beaten but survived.

    Prosecutors and Cheshire police said the recordings at issue were initially believed to have been destroyed in a lightning strike at the police station in 2010, before Komisarjevsky's trial. But backups of the recordings were found in 2014 at Cheshire Town Hall.

    New Haven Superior Court Judge Jon Blue is scheduled to hear arguments about the police recordings on Tuesday.

    The calls include one in which a sergeant and officer talked about intercepting the Petit's car after it had left the bank. Police did not stop the car, and it's unclear if they tried to.

    Komisarjevsky's appellate lawyers, Moira Buckley and John Holdridge, said in court documents that the recordings would have helped prove a defense theory that the police response to the home invasion was inadequate — an effort to question the credibility of police witnesses who testified against Komisarjevsky.

    Hawke-Petit's family has been critical of the police response, saying officers waited too long to go into the home and try to save the victims.

    Holdridge declined to comment ahead of the hearing. Prosecutor Marjorie Allen Dauster said nothing in the recordings warrants a new trial.

    Komisarjevsky and Hayes had been sentenced to death but no longer face execution because the state Supreme Court abolished the death penalty for condemned inmates last year. Both have appeals of their convictions pending before the state Supreme Court.

    http://www.rep-am.com/articles/2016/...cut/940999.txt

  6. #106
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    State Supreme Court Upholds Abolishment Of Death Penalty, Including For Death-Row Inmates

    By Alaine Griffin and Matthew Kauffman
    The Hartford Courant

    The Connecticut Supreme Court has upheld its decision to abolish the state's death penalty, including for inmates on death row.

    The 5-2 ruling, released Thursday, upholds the justices 4-3 decision last August that the death penalty was unconstitutional for all – including 11 convicts on Connecticut's death row – following the legislature's abolition three years ago of capital punishment in Connecticut. Lawmakers made the law prospective, meaning it applied only to new cases and kept in place the death sentences already imposed on those facing execution before the bill was passed.

    Attorneys for those on death row challenged the law, saying it violated the condemned inmates' constitutional rights. The ruling last August came in the case of Eduardo Santiago, who had faced the death penalty for the December 2000 killing of Joseph Niwinski in West Hartford. Santiago has been resentenced to life in prison without the possibility of release.

    In the August ruling, the justices in the majority wrote that executing an inmate "would violate the state constitutional prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment" and that the death penalty "no longer comports with contemporary standards of decency."

    Chief Justice Chase T. Rogers, who joined with Justice Carmen E. Espinosa and Justice Peter T. Zarella in the August dissents, voted this time with the majority, saying she felt bound to the doctrine of "stare decisis," a Latin term meaning "stand by things decided."

    "Just as my personal beliefs cannot drive my decision-making, I feel bound by the doctrine of stare decisis in this case for one simple reason—my respect for the rule of law," Rogers wrote. "To reverse an important constitutional issue within a period of less than one year solely because of a change in justices on the panel that is charged with deciding the issue, in my opinion, would raise legitimate concerns by the people we serve about the court's integrity and the rule of law in the state of Connecticut."

    Rogers said, "stability in the law and respect for the decisions of the court as an institution, rather than a collection of individuals, in and of themselves, are of critically important value, especially on an issue of such great public significance as the constitutionality of the death penalty."

    In separate dissents, Zarella and Espinosa rejected the assertion that respect for precedent mandated Thursday's ruling, saying that doctrine should never be used to enshrine a flawed decision. And they pointedly noted that Rogers herself had blasted the original Santiago decision as "a house of cards, falling under the slightest breath of scrutiny."

    They also criticized Justice Richard A. Robinson, who came on the court after the Santiago decision and voted with the majority, along with justices Richard N. Palmer, Dennis G. Eveleigh and Andrew J. McDonald. Like Rogers, Robinson cited the importance of respecting precedent.

    "I cannot fathom how Chief Justice Rogers and Justice Robinson believe they respect the rule of law by supporting a decision that is completely devoid of any legal basis or believe it is more important to spare this court of the purported embarrassment than to correct demonstrable constitutional error," Zarella wrote.

    In switching her position on Santiago, Rogers wrote that overruling the case so soon after it was decided could lead to public perception that Supreme Court rulings are based on the personal whims of its members and would undermine predictability in the law.

    "The short answer to those concerns," Espinosa wrote, "is that they are unjustified and irrelevant when the prior precedent at issue is clearly wrong." And that is particularly true, she wrote, when the "clearly wrong, recently decided case" upended prior decisions and violated the rule of precedent.

    Zarella also dismissed the assertion that overruling the Santiago decision would send the message that closely decided cases can be revisited whenever there is a change in the Supreme Court membership. "My response is concise and simple: So what," he wrote. "This has been, and will always be the case."

    Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, in a statement released Thursday afternoon, said the ruling "reaffirms what the court has already said: those currently serving on death row will serve the rest of their life in prison with no possibility of ever obtaining freedom."

    Malloy noted that Connecticut in the last half century has executed only two inmates, both of whom volunteered for death.

    "Opinions on this issue vary, and it's critical that we respect that diversity of perspectives," Malloy said. "These are deeply personal and moral issues that we as a society are facing and the court has once again ruled on today. Our focus today should not be on those currently sitting on death row, but with their victims and those surviving family members. My thoughts and prayers are with them on this difficult day."

    Chief State's Attorney Kevin T. Kane said his office respects the decision and would "move forward" to re-sentence the individuals currently on death row to a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of release.

    "The Division of Criminal Justice and I extend our deepest sympathy and condolences to the victims of these crimes and to their families," Kane said in a statement. "I also wish to express my appreciation to the dedicated professionals in the Division of Criminal Justice who have devoted so much of themselves throughout this process."

    In October, the high court denied a request by the chief state's attorney to postpone the Santiago decision, a ruling that followed its denial of a request by prosecutors to re-argue Santiago.

    Prosecutors then filed briefs arguing for the Santiago decision to be overruled in the pending appeal of Russell Peeler, who was sentenced to death for ordering the 1999 killings in Bridgeport of 8-year-old Leroy "B.J." Brown Jr. and his mother, Karen Clarke. The justices heard arguments on those briefs in January.

    Prosecutors said in deciding the Santiago case, the court "did not confine its analysis" to the actual claim raised -- whether enacting the 2012 law invalidated the death sentences of those sentenced before the law went into effect. The court made its ruling, prosecutors said, "for reasons having little or nothing to do with" enactment of the 2012 law and "erred in its ruling on lines of analysis and authorities the parties had not discussed."

    Prosecutors also argued that the justices relied on "flawed historical analysis" to justify their "departure from well-established principles of law" and incorrectly determined that state residents prior to the 1818 constitution gave the high court the authority to act independently to invalidate a penalty.

    Public defenders for Peeler made several arguments against overruling the Santiago decision in court briefs, pointing foremost to the legal doctrine of "stare decisis" -- letting decided issues stand. Senior Assistant Public Defender Mark Rademacher told the justices that the state faced an "uphill battle" in getting the ruling reversed.

    "What the state is asking this court to do ... is simply breathtaking," Rademacher said at the January hearing. "It is asking this court to overrule a long line of cases that have affirmed the court's authority as a constitutional matter to protect the citizens of this state against cruel and unusual punishment."

    http://www.courant.com/news/connecti...526-story.html

  7. #107
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    Man on death row set to be resentenced in Cheshire home invasion

    CHESHIRE - One of the men sent to death row for the 2007 Cheshire home invasion murders is scheduled to be resentenced this week.

    Joshua Komisarjevsky will have his sentence changed to life in prison because Connecticut acted to abolish the death penalty.

    Komisjarevsky is expected to be in court on Tuesday.

    He's one of two men convicted in the murders of Jennifer Hawke-Petit and her two daughters, Hayley and Michaela, in 2007.

    The other man convicted in the case, Steven Hayes, was resentenced last month.

    http://connecticut.news12.com/news/m...ion-1.12087088

  8. #108
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    Condemned Connecticut home invasion killer resentenced

    NEW HAVEN, Conn. -- A man condemned to die for killing a woman and her two daughters during a 2007 home invasion was resentenced Tuesday to life in prison without the possibility of release because the state abolished the death penalty.

    A state judge in New Haven resentenced Joshua Komisarjevsky to six consecutive life terms.

    He became the third Connecticut death row inmate to have his sentence changed to life in prison since the Connecticut Supreme Court ruled last year that the death penalty violated the state constitution's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. Eight other condemned inmates await resentencing.

    Komisarjevsky and Steven Hayes were sentenced to death for killing Jennifer Hawke-Petit and her two daughters, 17-year-old Hayley and 11-year-old Michaela. Dr. William Petit Jr., Hawke-Petit's husband and the girls' father, was severely beaten but survived.

    Hayes was resentenced last month to life in prison.

    The Petit family chose not to attend the hearing Tuesday because they had nothing to add to their remarks at the first sentencing of Komisarjevsky in 2012, prosecutor Gary Nicholson said.

    "July 23, 2007, was our personal holocaust," Dr. Petit said the day Komisarjevsky was sentenced to death. "A holocaust caused by two who are completely evil and actually do not comprehend what they have done."

    Dr. Petit, now running for a seat in the state legislature, opposed abolition of Connecticut's death penalty.

    Komisarjevsky's lawyers had worked to spare him the death penalty by describing sexual abuse he endured as a child. The jury and the judge - who had been subjected to grim evidence including pictures of charred beds, rope used to tie up the family and autopsy photos - were unmoved.

    Komisarjevsky's appeal of his convictions remains pending.

    The killings culminated hours of terror in the Petits' home in Cheshire, a suburb north of New Haven.

    Komisarjevsky had followed Hawke-Petit and Michaela from a supermarket to their house. Komisarjevsky and Hayes returned to the Petit house in the middle of the night while the family was sleeping to rob it.

    Dr. Petit was beaten and tied up in the basement. Michaela and Hayley were tied to their beds. In the morning, Hayes took Hawke-Petit to a bank to withdraw money. Komisarjevsky stayed at the house and sexually assaulted Michaela. Hayes was convicted of sexually assaulting the mother.

    After Hayes and Hawke-Petit returned to the home, Hayes strangled her. Komisarjevsky and Hayes then doused the house and beds with gasoline, set it ablaze and fled. They were caught after crashing the Petits' car into police cruisers.

    The sisters, bound while flames and fumes rose around them, died of smoke inhalation.

    Dr. Petit survived after escaping the basement while the house was on fire.

    http://www.cbsnews.com/news/condemne...y-resentenced/
    Don't ask questions, just consume product and then get excited for next products.

    "They will hurt you. They will hurt your grandma, these people. The root cause of this is there's no discipline in the homes, they don't go to school, you know, they live off the government, no personal accountability, and they just beat people up for no reason, and it's disgusting." - Former Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters

  9. #109
    Senior Member CnCP Legend CharlesMartel's Avatar
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    EXCLUSIVE: 'Some people are too evil for this Earth' - fury of family of mother killed with her two daughters in notorious home invasion as second killer escapes Death Row

    Joshua Komisarjevsky, of Connecticut, re-sentenced today for 2007 killings

    Victims were Jennifer Hawke-Petit and her two daughters, Michaela and Hayley; William Petit, her husband and the girls' father was sole survivor

    Komisarjevsky was due for lethal injection over the Cheshire home invasion but state Supreme Court ruled death penalty unconstitutional

    On Tuesday he was given six life sentences without parole but Hawke-Petit's sister, Cynthia Hawke Renn, said death penalty would 'fit the crime'

    Dr William Petit has remarried and has toddler son with his new wife

    Couple run foundation in memory of his murdered family

    The family of a mother killed in a notorious home invasion said on Tuesday that 'some people are too evil for this Earth' as her second murderer had his death sentence commuted.

    Cynthia Hawke Renn said that Joshua Komisarjevsky should have been given a lethal injection because it would 'fit the crime'.

    She said that she was haunted by the idea that he could escape from prison and that no jail term would match the suffering of her family.

    Renn spoke out after Komisarjevsky was given six life sentences totaling 140 years for killing her sister Jennifer Hawke-Petit and her two daughters.

    Komisarjevsky, 35, had been facing lethal injection but was saved when Connecticut Supreme Court changed the law to ban the death penalty.

    Steven Hayes, who helped carried out the slaughter in Cheshire, Connecticut in 2007, has already been spared from the death penalty.

    The two men savagely beat Dr William Petit with a baseball bat and tied him to a pole in the basement before Hayes strangled and raped Hawke-Petit, 47.

    Komisarjevsky sexually assaulted their 11-year-old daughter Michaela before both men tied her and her sister Hayley, 17, to a bed, doused it in petrol and set it alight.

    Both girls died from smoke inhalation.

    Dr Petit was the sole survivor in a case which shocked and disgusted America.

    Speaking to Daily Mail Online, Renn, 55, said: 'Sometimes there are people on this Earth that are too evil for this Earth.

    'People say that that death penalty is barbaric but sometimes the punishment has to fit the crime.

    There are a lot of people living their lives in prison that have not done anything close to what these two did.

    'I'm not quite sure I could come up with a punishment to fit this crime.

    'I don't think that death is good enough and I don't think that life is prison is enough either'.

    Renn added that having lost her sister and nieces under such terrible circumstances, she does think about the chance that Komisarjevsky and Hayes might escape prison and come after her.

    Sentencing them to life in jail meant they could pose a risk to other prisoners in the same jail as them as well.

    Renn said: 'I always said that I wanted our mother to get to a point where she did not remember what happened to Jennifer, and now she has Alzheimer's she cannot remember.

    'I lost my father last month and my husband has been diagnosed with terminal cancer. All I have left are my daughters, it's just very hard.'

    Rev Richard Hakwe died in June.

    In the years after the massacre Dr Petit, who is now 59, became a staunch advocate of the death penalty for Komisarjevsky and Hayes.

    In testimony and interviews, he said that people who commit such brutal crimes 'no longer have a right to exist in this society'.

    But in August last year the Connecticut Supreme Court ruled 4-3 that capital punishment should be banned because it was not in synch with today's moral values.

    The ruling meant that Komisarjevsky was given a reprieve by Superior Court Judge Jon C. Blue, the same judge who told Hayes, 53, that his sentence would be commuted to six life sentences last month.

    Eight other formerly condemned inmates in the state await re-sentencing.

    Komisarjevsky, 35, arrived for the brief hearing at the court in a prison van to hear his sentence.

    Nobody from the Petit family was there to see the hearing.

    Dr Petit, a prominent endocrinologist, has said that in the wake of the ordeal he had to put his career on hold.

    He also has been left with a strong of medical problems including nightmares and flashbacks.

    In a statement during the original sentencing for both accused in 2010, he said: 'As many of you may suspect, I seriously considered suicide many times - no wife, no children, no home and no interest in life in general'.

    Dr Petit, who has since remarried and had a son, Bill, who is now a toddler, has also condemned the decision to outlaw the death penalty in Connecticut.

    He has said in a statement that the judges 'disregarded keystones of our governmental structure such as the separation of powers and the role of the judicial precedent to reach (their) decision'.

    Dr Petit and his wife, Christine, run a foundation in memory of his first wife and his daughters, the Petit Family Foundation, which provides funds for programs in the areas of education, chronic illness and helping those affected by violence.

    Hayes' lawyer, public defender Thomas J. Ullmann, has described the decision to commute his death sentence as a 'momentous, historic day'.

    Speaking about the decision to overturn the death penalty, Renn said: 'Nobody really asked us what we think.

    'They don't care about what victims' families think. It doesn't matter what most people think. I'm sure that if you did a poll in Connecticut then most people would support to death penalty for these two.'

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...Death-Row.html


  10. #110
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    Ex-Connecticut death row inmates transferred to Pennsylvania

    HARTFORD, Conn. — Two former Connecticut death-row inmates convicted of killing a mother and her two daughters during a 2007 home invasion have been transferred to separate maximum-security facilities in Pennsylvania.

    Joshua Komisarjevsky and Steven Hayes were convicted in the slayings of Jennifer Hawke-Petit and her two daughters in a home invasion in Cheshire.

    Both were recently resentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole after the Connecticut Supreme Court ruled last year that the death penalty violated the state constitution’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment and was out of step with contemporary standards of decency.

    State prisons officials gave no reason for the Aug. 16 transfers, other than saying it was done as part of an interstate corrections compact for “reasons of safety and security.”

    “Hayes and Komisarjevsky will serve six consecutive life terms in prison without the possibility of release and will be housed out of state for an indefinite period of time,” the department said.

    Thomas Ullmann, the public defender who represented Hayes, said there were concerns that the two would be in danger in Connecticut’s prison population because of their notoriety.

    “I’m pleased with the move and I think Mr. Hayes is pleased with it,” he said. “But it’s not like life will be easy in Pennsylvania either.”

    Moira Buckley, an attorney for Komisarjevsky, declined to comment on the move, noting his case is still under appeal.

    The two men were at the center of Connecticut’s debate over its death penalty.

    A 2012 law passed by Democratic Gov. Dannel P. Malloy and the Democrat-controlled legislature abolished the death penalty for future cases, but left the 11 men already convicted of capital crimes on death row after a debate that focused on the Cheshire home invasion.

    Hayes and Komisarjevsky were among the first to be resentenced. The other former death-row inmates all remain in Connecticut’s Northern Correctional Institution, the state’s highest-security facility, which housed death row.

    Connecticut currently has 58 inmates housed in other states as part of the interstate compact, which has been in effect since 1973.

    Dr. William Petit, who survived the home invasion, has been traveling out of the country and did not immediately reply to a message seeking comment.

    He had called the decision to overturn their death penalties an insult.

    http://www.therepublic.com/2016/08/1...mate-transfer/
    Don't ask questions, just consume product and then get excited for next products.

    "They will hurt you. They will hurt your grandma, these people. The root cause of this is there's no discipline in the homes, they don't go to school, you know, they live off the government, no personal accountability, and they just beat people up for no reason, and it's disgusting." - Former Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters

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