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Two for two in CT home invasion case

I

ichy

Diamond Member
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/10/n...ky-gets-death-for-cheshire-killings.html?_r=1

Joshua Komisarjevsky will be joining Steven Hayes on death row for the horrific murders of William Petit's wife and daughters. There's almost no chance that either of these two monsters will ever be executed, but the fact that both juries had the courage to do the right thing is still encouraging. It's a pity that our judges and legislators have made it nearly impossible to carry out justice in our broken legal system.
 
What is the delay for the three on death row. They have been there for 20+ years.
Legal stalling?

Conn has a death penalty - they have execute people since the USSC reauthorized.
 
EagleKeeper: The only execution in CT since the 1960s was that of Michael Ross who voluntarily dropped his appeals.
 
dabuddha said:
[retarded idiot] We should jail them for life instead. They can be rehabilitated! [/retarded idiot]
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I don't think anyone out there is saying that rehabilitation should play a significant role in this case, since nobody is arguing that they should ever be freed. I think everyone understands this is either a life-without-parole or death penalty case.

This case is a good example of the difficulty in debating about the prudency of the death penalty. Assuming these guys are guilty (and I am highly confident they are), I have no real regard for their civil rights, because they are the worst kind of criminal scum and have left a wake of utter devastation as a result of their cruelty and selfishness. It is, accordingly, tempting to say they should be executed. There is no shortage of dreadful men on death row, most of whom are desperately unsympathetic figures based on their behavior.

The problem, at least for me, is that once we have a death penalty, it is available as a sentencing option even in cases where there is legitimate doubt whether a defendant is guilty or even whether a crime was committed (Cameron Willingham is a great example of the latter). I think our criminal justice process is probably the best ever devised, but it remains a human enterprise, fraught with opportunities for failed memories, personal grudges, and racial bias to enter into the equation. It's usually impossible to know for certain whether or not someone is guilty, and there are myriad examples of people on death row being convicted on weak evidence and later being proved innocent.

So, to return to this case, I am not a clergyman and I will not pretend to care about the fate of these awful men (Steven Hayes being by far the more awful of the two in my view - it would appear he is actually a fairly prolific serial killer). I will continue, regardless, to say that the death penalty is a deeply flawed, enormously expensive, and totally ineffective way of achieving justice, no matter how loathsome the person it's applied to.
 
ichy said:
EagleKeeper: The only execution in CT since the 1960s was that of Michael Ross who voluntarily dropped his appeals.
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This is reminiscent of the US military, which has not executed anyone since 1961, or the federal system, which executed Timothy McVeigh after he dropped his appeals, but which, if memory serves, had not previously executed anyone for 40-50 years.
 
It seems like the death penalty is more a legal term (threat) than practical. 🙁

It should not take more than 1 year of paperwork/review at each level of the appeals process to determine if the trial/sentence should be revisited or overturned.
 
EagleKeeper said:
It seems like the death penalty is more a legal term (threat) than practical. 🙁

It should not take more than 1 year of paperwork/review at each level of the appeals process to determine if the trial/sentence should be revisited or overturned.
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The problem is that it's hard (and, I think, unwise) to eliminate the various extraordinary writs available for DP appeals, and these things take time. Plenty of guys have been exonerated after years and years on death row - if we streamline the process it will substantially eliminate any possibility of that happening.

Honestly I don't see the point of the death penalty and think it does more harm than good to everybody involved (and this includes not only the families of the victims, but also our society as a whole). There's a reason we are among the last civilized nations on earth to use the death penalty.
 
The death penalty is just a feeding frenzy for the judicial system and the attorney vultures feasting on it. Sadly it costs less to have a trial that leads to life in prison without parole. But dont make the mistake of thinking any of this is about justice. In a truly just world, a burglar trips the silent alarm and 28 seconds later gets blasted by a million candle power spotlight mounted on a 12 gage, and if he's lucky that's all that he gets blasted with.
 
I live in CT and this case has dominated the newspapers and TV news since it happened. To tell you the truth I was a bit surprised the jury came back with the death penalty for the second guy-his lawyers did a tremendous job bringing out the extenuating circumstances. This is grossly oversimplified by me, but he was adopted by a religious fundamentalist couple and sexually abused in that home by his older (also adopted) brother. Health care professionals repeatedly begged his parents to seek mental treatment for him but the parents decided instead to pray it away. Again I'm greatly oversimplifying but I got the strong impression his life turned out the way it did mostly because of decisions others made for him as a child.

I guess in the end the crime was so horrendous that no one outside of a OJ jury would go for anything but the death penalty. It will be many millions of dollars more and several decades when and if either is actually executed.
 
I don't care if he was raped on a daily basis as a kid. Nothing excuses or mitigates the kind of crime he committed. End of story.
 
ichy said:
I don't care if he was raped on a daily basis as a kid. Nothing excuses or mitigates the kind of crime he committed. End of story.
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I just don't understand how he could do those things to a little girl when he has a 9 year old daughter himself. I also don't understand how the defense could try to use his daughter's testimony to try to convince the jury not to condemn him to death. I think the fact that he has a daughter that age makes him look even worse.
 
dank69 said:
I also don't understand how the defense could try to use his daughter's testimony to try to convince the jury not to condemn him to death.
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Most defense attorneys are basically sociopaths who would actively assist their clients in committing their crimes if they thought it would earn them a few more bucks.
 
No it is not. In Maryland it has become a real problem that defense lawyers are helping their clients intimidate and even murder witnesses. The legal profession is loathsome and incestuous though so these scumbags are never prosecuted.
 
ichy said:
No it is not. In Maryland it has become a real problem that defense lawyers are helping their clients intimidate and even murder witnesses. The legal profession is loathsome and incestuous though so these scumbags are never prosecuted.
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Even if this were a widespread problem in Maryland (which it isn't), that would not imply that it was elsewhere. Incidents in which criminal defense lawyers become directly involved in criminal activity are exceptionally rare, and painting all of them with the same brush is as stupid as saying that all soldiers are spree killers because Spc. Jeremy Morlock is one, or saying that all pediatricians are serial child rapists because Dr. Earl Bradley raped many children.

I have no idea what your profession is (other than trolling), but if you were to tell me, I'd be able to identify murderers, rapists, child pornographers, etc. who perform the same job. That would not make your profession a "loathsome" one.
 
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