“If you want to end Steven Hayes’ torment, kill him. If you want to end his misery, execute him. If you want to end his despair, sentence him to death.
“if you want him to suffer” and to carry forever the unrelenting burden of guilt, shame, and humiliation,” Thomas Ullmann continued telling jurors Thursday, “then sentence him to life without parole.”
Ullman was making one last stab at saving the life of his client, Steven Hayes.
Ullman made that closing argument to jurors in Courtroom 6A in the Church Street courthouse Thursday as they prepared to decided whether or not to give the death penalty to Hayes for participating in the murders of Jennifer, Hayley, and Michaela Petit during a home invasion in July 2007.
In a calculated twist, Ullmann sought to persuade jurors that the ultimate punishment for Hayes would be to have him live rather than die. We don’t know if there is truly a hell after death, Ullmann told jurors. But we do know that Hayes is living in one now, he continued – and it would satisfy justice to make him stay there.
Jurors only had to glance over to their left to see another man living in a kind of hell too. William Petit was beaten during the home invasion and tied up in the basement, while Hayes and his alleged co-defendant, Joshua Komisarjevsky, terrorized his family. Juror know, through evidence of rejected offers made by the defense of a guilty plea for life imprisonment, that life, even under the worst conditions, is not the justice the State or Petit seeks on behalf of the three women whose lives were brutally taken away.
Petit’s wrists and ankles were bound then, while his future was irrevocably altered by strangers — just as Hayes’ are bound now before he enters and after he leaves Courtroom 6A. Petit felt helpless to change the course of events then, just as, expert witnesses told the jury, Hayes feels now. Hayes lives in an isolation cell; Petit, though surrounded by loving family, is isolated too as the only survivor of one of the most horrific crimes in Connecticut history.
Both men sat silently in the courtroom during both phases of the trial. One man we felt compassion for and the other revulsion. Ullmann knows this. So he summoned Hayes to the podium to stand before the jury. While Hayes looked gaunt, diminished, his eyes downcast, Ullmann asked the jury to remember that “this is a human being.”
Ullmann hopes they consider that when they weigh the many issues that will decide the fate to befall the human being who stood before them. Those issues include the credibility of expert witnesses; the reliability of varying statements; the severity of past criminal offenses in relation to this crime; the satisfaction of each side’s burden of proof; whether statutory mitigating factors exist; and the determination of all other evidence of mitigating circumstances that may outbalance the obvious aggravating factors.
But, realistically, it is the fate that befell the other human being in the courtroom, the one who, in memory of the family he lost, has sat stoically in the front pew throughout this heartbreaking trial, whose life too was taken away from him, which will likely weigh most heavily on the minds of the jury as they deliberate.
Previous installments of the Petit 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?
"Guilt, shame, and humiliation"?
First, why would any juror believe that Hayes has any guilt, shame, and humiliation? I personally don't think anyone capable of these acts possesses those emotions. There is plenty of science on sociopathology which backs that up.
Second, Why, when Ullman has already shown us that he respects few boundaries in trying to save his client (engaging in the shameful harassment of Dr. Petit via a not-for-profit organization opposed to capital punishment)should we believe him when he characterizes his client's feelings? He and Donovan are about as credible as is any "jailhouse witness".
Third, because of death penalty opponents, over the years the length of time that a convict sits on death row has been extended to decades instead of months. So if Hayes actually DOES feel remorse, guilt, and depression, then he can thank his lawyer for the emotional torture that he will endure for the next 15 or so years leading up to his inevitable execution.