The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Judge: ‘Most severe sentence’
Komisarjevsky gets 6 life terms, plus 140 years behind bars
NEW HAVEN >> Joshua Komisarjevsky, convicted in the 2007 Cheshire home invasion and triple murders, was sentenced Tuesday to six life terms in prison without the possibility of release as well as an additional 140 years.
The sentencing at Superior Court in New Haven came as a result of a state Supreme Court ruling affirming that Connecticut’s abolition of the death penalty applied to those already on death row.
Komisarjevsky’s co-defendant in the case, Steven Hayes, in June was resentenced to six life terms in prison.
Hayes’ sentence included 106 years following those six life terms.
The two men were found guilty of murder and numerous other slightly differing counts in the deaths of Jennifer Hawke-Petit and her daughters, Michaela, 11, and Hayley, 17. Both men received death sentences but the state Supreme Court last year ruled the death penalty unconstitutional.
Komisarjevsky was the third of 11 Connecticut death row inmates to be resentenced.
Superior Court Judge Jon C. Blue, who presided over Hayes’ trial in 2010 and Komisarjevsky’s trial in 2011, told Komisarjevsky Tuesday: “Obviously, your crimes were of the most extraordinary se-
verity imaginable. The most severe sentence allowed by law should be imposed.”
Before Blue imposed the sentence, he asked Komisarjevsky if he wished to say anything. “Uh, no, Your Honor,” he replied.
Komisarjevsky was dressed in an orange prison jumpsuit and his demeanor was as sober and unsmiling as in his many previous court appearances. For Tuesday’s hearing he had a crew cut and was not clean shaven. He was brought to the courthouse in a police convoy under heavy security.
Senior Assistant State’s Attorney Gary Nicholson, a co-prosecutor for both trials, noted during the hearing, “Some time ago, 12 conscientious citizens of this community decided that Mr. Komisarjevsky should receive the death penalty. The state Supreme Court determined this is no longer legal or proper.”
Nicholson thus told Blue the state did not oppose correcting the sentence. But he added, “The court should impose the maximum sentence.”
Nicholson also noted, “We have contacted Dr. (William) Petit and his family. They chose not to be here because they felt they’ve already indicated their feelings in this matter.”
Petit, who attended each day of the trial, usually accompanied by his parents and other relatives, was the sole survivor of the attack that befell his family on the morning of July 23, 2007.
Hayes and Komisarjevsky broke into the house at about 3 a.m., the day after Komisarjevsky noticed Hawke-Petit and Michaela shopping at a Cheshire supermarket. He followed them to their house and then told Hayes they would make a good target for burglary and robbery.
The invaders spotted Petit sleeping in the sun room downstairs and beat him on the head with a baseball bat. Then they tied him up in the basement, woke up the two daughters and their mother, and tied them to their beds.
Several hours later, after the bank opened, Hayes forced Hawke-Petit to drive there with him so she could withdraw $15,000 for the perpetrators. But soon after they returned to the house, Hayes raped and strangled her. One of the perpetrators applied a match to gasoline that had been spread throughout the house. The girls died in the fire.
Petit heard the commotion and managed to break his ties and escape from the basement hatchway to seek help. As the house was consumed in flames, Hayes and Komisarjevsky fled, crashing the Petit vehicle into a nearby police barricade and were apprehended.
Komisarjevsky’s defense team from the trial came to the courtroom Tuesday to observe the resentencing. Attorneys Walter Bansley III, Jeremiah Donovan and Todd Bussert met briefly with him in a conference room before the hearing.
After court adjourned, Donovan was asked about his reaction to the new sentence. He replied, “From a purely personal point, whenever somebody’s on death row, it’s a heavy burden on your life. It’s like someone you love being sick. Boy, does it feel good to have that burden lifted!”
But Donovan said he wished he could set the clock back to before Komisarjevsky’s trial and have it avoided. He noted the defense attorneys had told prosecutors they were willing to have Komisarjevsky receive a life sentence without the possibility of release. State’s Attorney Michael Dearington, now retired, decided to go forward with the trials in order to seek the death penalty because of the nature of the crimes.
Although Donovan said he was grateful the state legislature and state Supreme Court abolished the death penalty, he added he wished the legislators had not retained the death penalty for those already on death row, including Komisarjevsky and Hayes. The state’s high court said this was not fair, which set in motion the resentencings.
Donovan said, “Public policy is too important to be made for one victim,” an apparent reference to Petit, an outspoken advocate of the death penalty.
Donovan recalled the day the Supreme Court abolished the death penalty as “one of the most remarkable experiences of my life.” He said he and the other defense attorneys visited Komisarjevsky that day and they were elated “knowing that somebody we came to care for wasn’t going to be killed by the state.”
“Josh is not a mad dog killer,” Donovan said. “He’s a deeply troubled kid with lots of potential.”
Asked how Komisarjevsky will handle spending the rest of his life behind bars, Donovan said, “I think Josh is a pretty good prisoner. He tries to make use of his time by drawing and studying Latin. And he’s a stoic.”
After Blue imposed the corrected sentence Tuesday, he heard testimony and legal arguments over the issue of whether earlier testimony about an alleged Cheshire police call the morning of the murders can be used by Komisarjevsky’s attorneys as they appeal his convictions to the state Supreme Court. One of the appeals issues is whether the fact the trial defense team did not receive all of the police call records merits a new trial.
Blue’s task was not to rule on the new trial question. He was asked to make a finding of fact as to whether testimony given last month by Hawke-Petit’s sister, Cynthia Hawke-Renn, on a supposed police call was credible.
Blue ruled against the defense team on this issue because Hawke-Renn testified an email that was sent to her about the call was then lost and she couldn’t say who sent it to her. In making this ruling, Blue supported the arguments of Deputy Chief State’s Attorney Leonard Boyle.
According to HawkeRenn, the email included evidence of a police call stating an officer was at the Petit house and saw the Petit vehicle return there after HawkePetit and Hayes went to the bank.
The appeals attorneys have argued the fact that records of three other police calls weren’t provided to the trial defense team could have been used at the trial to challenge the credibility of Cheshire police witnesses who testified against Komisarjevsky. The appeals attorneys alleged this showed their “motive, self-interest, bias and prejudice against him.”
During Tuesday’s legal arguments, defense attorney John Holdridge said, “There’s a history of the state withholding critical calls from the defense.” He called this “suspicious” and said the state “should not get away with suppressing the truth.”
While Holdridge Tuesday cross-examined Michael Winters, an IT manager for the Cheshire police department, Winters said his log of the calls from the morning of the crime did not include three that were later found during the summer of 2014 in a file at the town hall. One of the calls had a police representative asking whether a hostage negotiator has been told not to come to the police department; another concerns a SWAT team member being told not to come to police headquarters.