Thomas MacMillan Photo
William Petit after the verdict.
Citing the Book of Timothy, William Petit said justice was served. Citing Mahatma Gandhi, the attorney for Steven Hayes said no one deserves to be put to death.
Those dueling quotations were spoken outside the courthouse on Church Street Monday afternoon as a wrenching legal drama came to a close, for now.
It ended as Hayes was sentenced to die for his role in the 2007 murders of Petit’s wife Jennifer Hawke-Petit, and his daughters Hayley and Michaela at their Cheshire home in a particularly brutal attack that riveted the attention of the region. Petit survived the attack, while his immediate family was murdered.
Hayes was found guilty a month ago. The jury deliberated through the weekend and determined that he deserves to be put to death for his crimes.
“He’s thrilled. He’s very happy with the verdict,” Hayes’ attorney, public defender Thomas Ullman, said to reporters on the steps of the courthouse. Hayes, who has attempted suicide, welcomes the death sentence, Ullmann said.
Public Defenders Patrick Culligan and Thomas Ullman (left and right).
Ullman, for his part, said he’s “devastated” by the verdict. He said he plans to appeal.
He and fellow public defender Patrick Culligan argued that this case got more press attention and ended in a death sentence because it happened to people in the suburbs, not the city.
The jury handed down the verdict late Monday morning in the sixth-floor courtroom on Church Street where the trial has taken place. The seven women and five men on the jury wrestled with the capital punishment question throughout the weekend. (Read about that here.) In the end, they found that Hayes merited the penalty on all six possible counts.
The verdict was a milestone of sorts for New Haven State’s Attorney Michael Dearington. In his 37 years on the job, he has rarely sought the death penalty, far less so than some of his colleagues elsewhere in the state. Monday was the first time he ever prevailed in obtaining a death verdict.
Click here for a New York Times report on the long road ahead before Hayes would actually be put to death.
Petit emerged from the courthouse just before 1 p.m. with his family. They walked down the steps to a firing squad of a dozen TV news cameras and a scrum of reporters.
Hawke-Petit’s father, Rev. Richard Hawke, spoke first.
“Justice is being served,” he said. “Our society has spoken.”
Rev. Hawke invoked the Ten Commandments as the “basis of our law.” The first of those commandments is “thou shalt not kill,” he noted.
“There are some people who just do not deserve to live,” he said.
Petit and Rev. Hawke (left and right).
Petit began his comments with a reading of 2 Timothy 4:7, “We have fought the good fight, we have finished the race, we have kept the faith. Now there is in store for us the crown of righteousness.”
“This is not about revenge,” said Petit, who remained composed during the somber press conference. “This is about justice. We need to have some rules in a civilized society.”
“Fortunately, justice delayed wasn’t justice denied,” he said at another point. “But it was many, many sleepless nights and a lot of worry, a lot of agitation, a lot of tears.”
“Michaela was an 11-year-old tortured and killed in her room among her stuffed animals,” Petit said. “Hayley had a great future. Jennifer helped so many kids.”
Petit — who had his visage daily photographed and plastered on front pages and the TV news for weeks as he endured the intensity of the trial — was asked about what happens next in his life. He predicted that the next trial, of Hayes’ co-defendant and the crime’s alleged mastermind, Joshua Komisarjevsky, “will be just as ugly and just as painful, unfortunately.”
Petit spoke about how difficult the trial has been for him. He said there were many days “when I didn’t want to get out of bed. I didn’t want to park my car and cross the street. To get my picture taken for the 150,000th time.”
“Thousands of times I wanted to jump up and scream out” in court, he said. “The defense would have liked me to do that.”
He thanked his sister, Johanna Petit Chapman (pictured), for her steadfast support during the trial.
Petit said he thinks “closure” is not possible for him. “I don’t think there is such a thing as closure. There is never closure — there is a hole with jagged edges — they may smooth over time. A hole in your heart is a hole in your soul.”
Petit also addressed policy questions raised by the trial. He questioned why it takes years for a capital crime to go to trial when the perpetrators are caught at the scene. He also called on the next governor not to “fix” the budget “on the backs of victims” by cutting back on support programs.
Ten minutes after the Petit family, public defender Ullman (at right in photo) addressed the media.
“Our president is in India, so I think it’s appropriate to quote Mahatma Gandhi. who said, ‘An eye for an eye makes the whole world go blind,’” Ullmann said.
“He [Hayes] is thrilled,” Ullmann said. “He’s very happy with the verdict. That’s what he’s wanted all along, is suicide by the state because he can’t kill himself.
“We, on the other hand, are devastated by the verdict and we intend to fight it tooth and nail down the road,” Ullmann said. “This is the first step, really, of a long and lengthy process.”
Ullmann said there are “many areas of appeal” and he plans to file a motion within the next 10 days.
Ullmann and Patrick Culligan, another public defender, said Hayes will go directly to death row.
Culligan and Ullmann spoke out against the sensationalizing of a suburban murder when urban crimes go unnoticed. They said that is why the case came to the death penalty.
Other murders of three, four, and five people have resulted in life sentences, not death sentences, Culligan said.
New Haven has had 60 murders in three years, none of which has received the same coverage as the Petit murders, Ullmann said.
“No person deserved the death penalty,” Culligan said.
Following are installments of the Independent’s trial court diary:
• Day One: Deceptive Calm
• Day Two: It Was All About “The Girls”
• Day Three: Defense Strategy Emerges: Spread The Blame
• Day Four: Pieces Fall Into Place
• Day Five: Numbers Tell A Story
• Day Six: Suffering Takes Center Stage
• Day Seven: A Gagged Order
• Day Eight: A Quilt & A Puppet Theater Bring Home The Horror
• Day Nine: It’s About Specific Intent
• Day Ten: The Notes Told The Tale
• Day 11: To Save A Life, Lawyers Must Humanize Alleged Monster
• Days Twelve & Thirteen: A Life, In Context
• This Time Around, Petit Jurors Are Yawning, Chuckling
• Will “Coward” = Death?
• Is 11 Enough?
• 2 Men In A Courtroom, 2 Living Hells
• No Rush To Judgement