The penalty phase of the prosecution of Steven Hayes has been nothing short of bizarre. The best defense thus far seems to be a twisted variant of "the devil made me do it." When the defense introduced the prison diaries of co-defendant Joshua Komisarjevsky as mitigating evidence, jaws dropped: Just how does Komisarjevsky's confession make Hayes look good? There is a danger that jurors will attribute the same sense of twisted glory Komisarjevsky boasted about to Hayes. There's only one way to set the record straight now about who Hayes is and why he engaged in the slaughter at the Petit home...
October 23, 2010
There was a short, but significant, drama in a Hartford, Connecticut, courtroom earlier this week. It lasted all of 25 minutes. It was a trial in which a federal jury heard evidence about the value of Malik Jones's life. The jury heard from one witness, his daughter, now sixteen. She was three years old when the East Haven police gunned her daddy down. The jury decided Mr. Jones's life was worth $900,000. How did it do that?
Don't ask the lawyer who defended the city of East Haven and the man who killed Mr. Jones, Hugh Keefe. He's still sizzling after being struck by lightning. This is...
October 21, 2010
Death, we like to say in the law, is different. Hence, the evolution of differing standards for capital cases. But the application of these standards is steeped in the same hypocrisy affecting non-capital criminal cases. The criminal justice system remains what it has always been: a farce with sometimes lethal consequences.
We’re in the kill zone just now in New Haven, where a jury will soon decide whether to execute Steven Hayes for his role in a 2007 Cheshire home invasion. The case has become fodder for the political class, and has worked its way so deeply into the minds of state...
October 21, 2010
"The testimony in this case reveals a crime of singular atrocity. It is, in a sense, inexplicable; but it is not thereby rendered less inhuman or repulsive. It was deliberately planned and prepared for during a considerable period of time. It was executed with every feature of callousness and cruelty." These are words spoken not in reference to the crimes committed by Steven Hayes, the man convicted for his role in the invasion of the Petit home in 2007; the words are now nearly a century old and were uttered by Judge John R. Caverly in Chicago in 1923. This is the judge who sentenced Nathan...
October 20, 2010
October 18, 2010
The Biblical story of Job can be read on several levels. On the one hand, Job is the faithful servant of a powerful God, never failing in his faith,...
October 17, 2010
Evidence begins tomorrow in the penalty phase of State v. Hayes in Connecticut. The state seeks the death penalty. Mr. Hayes has already been...
October 17, 2010
The first volume of Mark Twain's much-anticipated autobiography arrived the other day. At 700-plus pages, there is a telephone directory-like feel to...
October 16, 2010
I get many calls each week from people who believe they have been abused by the police. That is because for many years I was at the forefront of...
October 14, 2010
Twitter, for those of you who do not yet know this, is a social networking device that permits folks to send and receive brief, instantaneous...
October 12, 2010
I stormed out of a federal settlement conference the other day uttering intemperate words. The government has seized the life savings of a hard...