May 29, 2011

Casey Anthony, the Internet, pitchforks and torches - ComPost - The Washington Post

Well, thus far the circus surrounding this trial is beyond revolting.

The fact is that at the nucleus of this entire show is the murder of a innocent and vibrant five year old child has become seemingly lost in most of the Country's collective emotional intelligence; Caylee Anthony is the victim here, she will have no life, no favorite sports, graduations, proms, no chance to fall in love, marry nor make her mark upon this world in whatever striking, or seemingly modest way.
(Many people who never achieve fame nor fortune will contribute greatly in a thousand quiet but influential ways)

And once again, the mood and demeanor in the courtroom, a room filled with a veritable handful of people charged with finding justice for this child's murderer is too often anything but the somber and moreover, professional one that we should expect and demand in a capital murder trial especially one involving a child! A example of this bizarre and surreal mood was the judge's closing words on Friday's court- day; I thought I was imagining hearing the light hearted " Go (whatever local team!" that came out of this Mans mouth at the close of the day's proceedings.

This little ditty was made apparently because the Judge had received a formal request from the Jury, asking for a TV set so that they could watch some local game or another. The fact that that enough Jurors participating in a brutal murder of a child, were that interested in some stupid game, in the midst of listening to a week of very disturbing testimony; testimony and evidence about trunks of cars that reeked of dead bodies, duct tape chloroform that were used in in the murder of five year old Caylee - is extremely disturbing and that the judge brought it to center stage is beyond inappropriate.

While I'm at it the Judge overseeing this case has made various unsound rulings that time after time favor the slimiest of defense teams that I have seen in a long time - and I've watched quite a few"perform."

In fact, the lawyers for Casey Anthony could barely contain their smirks as the Judge would announce his pro-defense rulings before the Jury, rulings that the attorneys were already privy to, as they had been made with the Jury having been asked to leave the courtroom while the Judge spoke and announced to the prosecutors and lawyers how and why he was going to rule regarding a questionable piece of evidence or testimony and whether he would allow or disallow its entry before the jury. A perfect example of this obviously- defense leaning prejudice was a major judicial decision regarding extremely essential text messages that Casey Anthony made to her then boyfriend during the period when little Caylee was missing.

The text in condensed form read to the effect of just a few more days baby and you can come over any damn night you want!"


The Judge asked the jury to leave and informed the prosecution that he wouldnt allow the texts in as evidence because they made no sense, because after all, was Casey going to kill her parents too?"

Yes, that is what the Judge actually used as his official reasoning for refusing to let the prosecution enter the text messages. He declared the texts inadmissable as prejudicial" and the prosecution actually let it go, which I cannot fathom. My only guess is that they think they've got enough evidence without it, but this is always, always unsound thinking and legal strategy. I have to say this situation really made me question the prosecution's experience, intelligence and or dedication to this case.


In way of explanation of the Judge's ludicrous ruling; Casey Anthony apparantly lived with her parents at the time, therefore in his mind little Caylee wasnt the only one in the way of Casey having her main sex- mate (she had several so it was hard to distinguish at times) spend the night for fun" however, the child was an obvious obstacle to her life-style, something which is at the very core of the prosecutions motive theory.

If this motivation sound familiar, it might be because it was the very same motive that seemed to drive Susan Smith during the 1990's to  drive her beautiful children in a car into the water and drown them, claiming a black man had car jacked her car and taken
her children with the car.

Susan,also white and not resembling what people choose to imagine a person that kills her own children looks like, had police searching for weeks for this imaginary black man, until the submerged car with the children still strapped in it was found by Police, who were already looking at Ms. as a suspect ; her story of car jacking was not adding up evidenciarily, as well her behavior following the supposed kidnapping of her children was not consistant with a panicking or grieving mother.


It turned out that she'd been dating a man who told her in a letter that she wasnt right for him and among many reasons cited were the fact that she had two kids from her previous marriage which was yet to be finalized in divorce at the time of the dating and her two sons murders. It appeared that he did not want the package deal of a woman with three children, but rather would marry her if she were not bogged down with 3 kids.  However upon closer inspection, the man who came from a prominant local business family, had many many other misgivings about susan, including her promiscuity which undoubtedely was borne ofa
deep rooted need for male approval related to her father killing himself when she was a young teen.


I can vividly recall when they found the car and those three beautiful kids and my heart sank when I learned that the two older children had drowned holding hands, and because of this the remaining family decided to bury the children together. It breaks my heart to this day and It changed my entire view of woman as sociopaths.



Although far less common than male sociopaths, there are in fact women who have this personality disorder, and while all will not necessarily kill in their lifetimes, like their male counterparts, they often live volatile parasitical and destructive existences, as Casey did with the inadvertent help of her somewhat enabling parents.


And this is another common thread of socio's; enabling parents who often will bail thier adult children out of inevitable scraps with the law, and other agencies like the IRS ( sociopaths do not believe that they are like other people and often refuse to abide by any rules, societal or otherwise, often starting in childhood or adolescence with what is called "oppositional defiance disorder " when one is a child or adolescentyoung adult which segueways into sociopathology 9 times out of 10. (casey anthony owed 70,000 in back taxes) sometimes both shielding them financially as well as allowing their "kids" to hide behind the families typically respectable middle class lives. IE Casey Anthony, Joseph Duncan, Geoffrey Dahmer, Joshua Komisarjevsky, and Paul and Karla Homolka, the Canadian so called " Ken and barbie killers" are but a few examples.


Karla Homolka helped her boyfriend and later husband, to kill first her own sister, while raping her, then helped abduct, torture and murder at least four other teenage girls, kidnapping them and keeping them in her home for days before murdering them. In one instance she insisted her husband kill their latest victim who was being held hostage at their house because she was afraid the girl would escape while the two attended Easter dinner at her parents house.!


Karla later turned on her co-murderous husband making a deal with Canadian police to testify in exchange for a plea bargain that involved a very low sentence for her in a minimum security prison for women that resembled a dormitory.   She only came clean regarding the murders once the police were already hot on the trail of her husband as they had collected his DNA as a suspect for some rapes that occurred prior to the murders. Also he had made the decision easy for her when one night for whatever reasons he assaulted her-giving her two black eyes and quite a beating. This is when she gave police and her lawyer a version that depicted her as a woman suffering battered woman's syndrome-this altho there was absolutely no evidence that her co-murderer husband had ever hit or abused her in the past, family friends never witnessed one bruise prior to the beating that prompted her cooperation with the already closing in Police dept.

Later after the plea deal was officially agreed upon, videos surfaced of the rapes and tortures of many of the victims, and they all showed a smiling Carla homolka sadistically participating in said torture and rapes.

The people of Canada and the United States amd beyond were furious that the court was contending that despite the videos which had been in the possession of Carla's attorney the whole time, was still going to be allowed to serve only the short plea bargained "prison" sentence, as the videos were found after the "agreement"

Homolka had also admitted prior to the finding of the tapes that shed helped chop up the body of one of the victims a 17 year old girl shed helped lure into a car with hubby by asking the girl directions while her husband jumped out and grabbed the girl with a knife to her throat. Karla also stole drugs from the Veterinary clinic she worked at, used to slip mickeys to other girls prior tot he killings, whom the pair would rape together.



There was no question that this young woman was and is a full blown sociopath in her own rite. But because she was Blonde and attractive and came from a "good family" no one wanted to believe that she could have been a willing participant to such horrific brutal torture rape and murder. This isn't even addressing the fact that she was a woman and a young woman at that and as a society and a people, we are simply not willing to accept that woman are capable of evil, but as we see in Casey Anthony's case and others, this is not so.

The worst part of the Homolka case is that Karla Homolka was released from her dorm style women's prison about five years ago, amidst a fervor from the Canadian people who had since learned of the tapes and were already angry about the lenient plea deal she received for killing at least four teenage girls.

Despite the outcry -  she was released, and almost immediately got pregnant, which  re-ignited the anger and concern of the Canadian country, as well as the States, where the case had also made headlines for it's seemingly unusual female involvement in serial murder. Soon after her release Homolka changed her name and literally dropped out of sight after making what was surely a counterfeit statement via a radio station basically saying she was not the same person that she was when she was forced into committing murder by her husband and asked the press and people to leave her alone to live her new life"



Her ex husband Paul Homolka by the way received a life sentence in a maximum security prison, which is exactly where Karla herself should and would be, were she not female blonde and a better sociopath( ie lying manipulating, enlisting the help of unsuspecting, trusting others.)

That particular case snapped to mind when I started to read and study Casey Anthony; of course the former was a rarity of two sociopaths who both came from "respectable middle class families" that got together and formed an unholy alliance that resulted in over ten rapes, four kidnappings, rapes tortures and murders, all on underage teenage girls, the first of which was Karla Homolka's own sister, who she was seen in the video co-raping with zeal.  However it proved beyond a doubt that women can be as bad and indeed worse than thier male counterparts when it comes to murder and anti-social personality disorder, narcicistic personality disorder and the destruction that so often lies in their wake.

This is why education, awareness and hyper vigilance within society, the criinal justice system and individuals within families who often anable through denial and embarassment and a whole host of other terrible reasons, thier family member who exhibits symptoms of any of these personality disorders. They usually do not start off killing people, its an evolution and usually involves many many people before it becomes full blown pathology..

Please read up.




May 27, 2011

Appellate Court Orders Release of Komisarjevsky Witness Lists - North Branford, CT Patch

The appellate court has put an end to this nonsense--as of June 1 that is.

Komisarjevsky's attorney's wasted more taxpayer money pursuing yet another pre-trial, pre-jury selection motion/objection... this long drawn out fight over the defense witness lists not being privy to the press, or anyone else who can request such via the privacy of information act.

They are against the release of their defense witness lists for the trial against Komisarjevsky, brainchild to the Petit Rapes and murders.


The appellate court yesterday basically ruled that they have already ruled on this issue , being very generous in fact, giving two or three extensions to the defense with new court dates and layovers keeping the witness lists private until a final decision could be made.

That decision was made almost a week ago and Donovan, Bansford and co., in classic form shot out another auto-appeal, once again ignoring court protocol and making up their own rules as they traverse this already obscenely slow jury selection process: a process which has taken an inordinate amount of time, largely due to the the defense attorney's stalling tactics and their ridiculous amount of pre-emptory challenges. In the meantime, the Petit's and their extended families solemnly and with heavy burden, wait, and wait for something resembling Justice, for Michaela, Hayley, William and Jennifer Petit.

May 22, 2011

Komisarjevsky Judge Rejects Request For Trial Delay - Hartford Courant

Thank goodness there is a clear headed, common sense, experienced Judge overseeing this case.

The defense has 4 peremptory challenges left and the state has 10. There were 12 jurors chosen as of 3 days ago and one has asked to be excused. This leaves one regular juror and six alternates that need to be chosen. This process has taken excruciatingly-and ridiculously long enough; this defense has filed more fluff pre-trial "motions" - most of them transparent attempts to slow down the process, than any trial in Connecticut's history. Thankfully, all of the Judges involved, (some of the motions involved Judge Fasano as Judge Blue, Fasano presided over certain aspects of the pre-trial after Judge Damiani retired) have used sound legal and judicious arguments within their decisions to grant or deny these mostly ludicrous motions.

And once again, the Komisarjevsky defense team, this time with Banyon playing the lead- part of outraged moralist, tried ever so predictably to use the Senators remark, which was obviously made out of outraged grief and anger re the targeting rape and murder and photo taking of the Petit children which joshua komisarjevsky told the whole world about via a writer he'd written toipulate the entire system in an effort to delay their client's ultimate day in court.

They actually had the audacity to speak of "unprofessionalism" after the stunt that their lead attorney, Jeremiah Donovan pulled on the steps of the Hayes trial. The impromptu press conference whereby he tried to explain away forensic evidence that had just been discussed that very day proving that eleven year old Michaela Petit had been sodomized before she was set on fire tied to her bed.

That despicable, and illegal mini press conference earned Donovan, a summons to a hearing before Judge Fasano ,where he could have and indeed should have been found guilty of contempt of court for breaking a restraining order and a Gag order.

The Petit Hawke families had already asked for a restraining order due to prior attempts made by the Komisarjevsky defense team to contact them in a similar disingenuous fashion, trying for a plea bargain via a restorative justice firm hired by the Public Defenders office. Predictably as soon as the Petit's responded angrily through their attorney, Komisarjevsky's lawyers showed their true colors and began an immediate attack campaign on the same man whom they'd just tried to unsuccessfully seduce into restorative justice compliance.

It's men like this that give a bad name to lawyers but It is particularly offensive when they start throwing stones regarding proffesionalism
ethics and morality, no matter how they try to dress it up, hypocrisy is all that's left.

May 17, 2011

Man Tried to Coax Girl in Car in Milford Ct

This near abduction should put all childreen, teens and adult women in Connecticut on high alert - be aware of your surroundings at all times.

May 13, 2011

Petit Lobbies Senators, helps Changes Minds About Death Penalty Repeal

Kudos to Dr Petit.
Sometimes  speaking one on one to politicians, who are human beings after all, about something as intimate as becoming a victim of violent crime, can be much more effective than any petition, protest or traditional lobbying efforts.

In a different artticle about this, Dr Petit spoke to one of the Senators about being in court and having the Judge and others repeatedly refer to the men who murdered his family, as "Gentlemen," whereas his murdered family members were repeatedly referred to as the "decedents".Even someone who hasn't lived through violent crime can understand that there is something very wrong here;

It would seem that time and again our system  bends over backwards to ensure that  the criminals are perpetually humanized - lest we forget - and yet no such care is given to the victims, who are often dehumanized through that very same system. Anteseptisized words like decedents are just the tip of the iceberg; this is about the  entire sterilization of violent crime, which, when it is honestly looked at,, is all about human terror, suffering, torture, pain and the terrible trauma left behind .

When I read the Gentlemen" comment, it immediately resonated with me;  As a survivor of violent crime, ten years later I still vividly recall how I felt when one Judge overseeing my case would  maddeningly say " have a nice day gentlemen" to my assailant and his lawyer, at the close of  a 1 minute appearance in front of the bench which served as a "continuance" for my criminal case.

It was as if besides that pesky business about attacking a woman in her home and giving her brain damage, they'd all be pals, On another occasion I remember  a different judge wishing another defendant, a man who had battered his wife badly after breaking restraining order, a"Merry Christmas"  This just after she'd granted yet another fruitless continuance for the man and his lawyer.

 Since then, I've heard and seen many innapropriate gestures and considerations extended  towards men who are in court for committing serious acts of violence and pre-cursors to such.  I've sat and watched the docket all day and been disgusted by the winks, nods and general lack of consideration for the victims of the crimes that are being herded through the doors as if they were motor vehicle violations.


May 11, 2011

Six out of 12 jurors in Komisarjevsky trial Yale employees

Interesting. I guess that the jury pool is being pulled from a limited geographic area within Connecticut, otherwise this would be well beyond a coincidence

May 8, 2011

Christopher DiMeo apologizes to Donnellys at Sentencing Hearing

A life sentence for the cold blooded murder of Tim and Kim Donnelly, blindsided many in the community, including Senior Assistant State's Attorney Joseph Corradino, who lamented that verdict in his remarks to the judge Friday.

"The price to be extracted today is a meager one, which robs the law of vigor and the soul of justice," he said. "The prisoner brutally and unjustly murdered Tim and Kim Donnelly, two living, breathing fellow human beings, to take their property so he could buy drugs and feel good. This was an evil and vicious act at the apex of a short but extreme life of evil and viciousness."










Death Penalty abolishment bill written by Connecticut Judiciary Committee

With Gary Holder - Winfield  (94th  assembly district New Haven) at the wheel ( at least officially as the sacrificial lamb)  yet another Death Penalty abolishment bill was recently quietly drawn up by the Connecticut Judiciary Committee.  Here is the link to the actual bill that will be soon voted on by the Connecticut Legislature. Death Penalty Abolishment Bill

Most Connecticut residents that are following this volatile issue, more or less expected this bill to be re-introduced sooner or later by our  mostly democratic legilsature,  particularly if a Democratic Governor was elected in the next race -This as they  smugly pointed out, meant no more Governors last minute vetoes and  ....watch what you wish for folks.

However once again  the timing of this bill and it's surreptitious re-introduction, seems nothing less than purposeful and cruel to survivors and the victims families of criminal cases currently being played out in large and smaller city courts in the stateand obscene.

Two years ago, former Governor Jody Rell Republican vetoed a similiar Death Penalty abolishment bill that landed on her desk from the Connecticut Legislature. At that time the bill seemingly sprung up out of nowhere by the Connecticut Judiciary Committee, purportedely with monetary reasons as the main motivation that paeticular time, this as the State was in a Budget crisis - like every other state due to the failing economy..

 
Once word broke regarding the Judiciary committee's intentions to bring a death penalty abolishment bill to the legislature, the bill was already written and on its way to be voted upon in session. Shockingly,the bill  squeaked through both houses, albeit running into more resistance within the traditionally more conscientious and  intelligent Senate.

There I saidf it Since no one else seems to be pointing it out the Ct house of Representitives is filled with people that have no business making our State's laws or any other such rdssential decisions that effect the people of this state - especially concerning crime law and public safety.

It's bad enough that the process itself is mired in self serving politics and cronyism and that there is a small clutch of legislators (two of them are on the judiciary com mittee) that  control too many of the weaker house members. This is not good -  the one reason that Connecticut's state government  has not succumbed to complete democrat dirty pool is because we have traditonally voted for Republican Governors and a mostly Democratic Legilsature has consistantly managed to balance this bi-partisan state-wide leadership.

Its worked, For over twenty years it has worked. but  now weve got a Democratic Governor with a serious ego problem, who by all ccounts stole this election using Bridgport the infamously dirty pool city (ala Ganim and a host of others,)

when orignally watching the televished special session and regular session conducted by our state legislature I immeditely noticed a few things that had they been any more overt would have lefpt out of the tv set:
There was a pretty overt resentment by more than a few democratic Represnetatives in the General Assembly, most presiding over Geographic areas  rampant with crime, due to the realities of thier given demographics and the usual plagues for such urban areas; poverty, drug sales use and abuse, hopelessness  gangs, prostitution and the like.

 I was shocked at hearing over and over from some of these asssemblymen and women speak in hushed tones about the Petit family murders- after giving the child victims and surviving Willia,m Petit an obligatory nod of empathy, many set right in with the "issue' which turned out to be  a commonly understood but mostly unspoken" issue or resentment you could easily call it, "The white elephant or 'gorilla' as he was also refferred to frequently.

 At first I wasnt sure what these men and women were talking about as I watched and listened to them on the Connecticut cable Channel during the televised special sessions. But then it began to sink in....

The bottom line was a mantra of resentment that too much attention was being given to the Petit murders as compared to the many many many horrific murders that occur in thier jurisdictions every week - every month.

Many expressed a frustrtion that this set of horrible crimes by two early released chronic felons -white mren both, while certainly terrible shouldnt be getting all of this over the top "special attention". and some went on to name that eklephant and/or gorilla  as what they really felt it represneted; Racism and classism, although within my carefully poised earshot niether word was actually said within the microphone's coverage area but by gosh it was more than implied. I heard mention that because the victim was a docvtor and his family lived in a affluent suberb- which was in fact a completely incorrect assumption.


 Cheshire Ct was founded as a work=rking class town and indeed remained a mix of blue collar construction workers, shop owners even farmers. machanics factory workers and the like, along with a less than usual population of upper middle class residents with  homes that screamed money. There were very few of these, and in fact the Petit's raised ranch was a very typcial modest 4 bedroom house 2 car garage no pool no yacht club no boat no summer home just hard working charitable people whose lives were dominated by their methodist faith and community activism kindness and involvement.

I suppose to a legislator who grew up in hartford, these discrepencys mean very little. But in this case they dont belong in the seat of a general assemblyman bnut rather somewhere else where thier obvious  racism and classism bias does not lead to abuse of power and endanger peoples lives
 Were these folks truly believing that it wasnt the issues behind these horrible crimes that made them an emergent statewide issue?

 The fact that these men that took out an entire family  targeting the littlest 11 yr old girl her 17 yr old sister and mom at a supermarket - for an evening of kidnapping multiple rape and robbery almost as an afterthought had been paroled early less than half of the judges very clear senetnce?

 One man was paroled without any of his criminal records except for one single sheet from his last arrest file, no court transcripts nor judges recomendations for his sentence which was very specific and believe me that isnt always the case - manytimes the prosecutor in our ourts calls the sentencing shots and the judge merely acts as an officiary, giving a mod to whatever the states attorney or asst states attorney already dealt out to the defendents lawyer.

 This komisarjevsky was clearly the more dangerous of the two defendents insofar as his criminal history, its bulk how early it started the fire starting, panty stealing, stalking night vision goggles, the contant recidivism and the thumbing of his nose at any and all authorities. This is why we need forensic ppsychologists on police depts and within courts and certainly within porsions and parole and probation decisons.

JK admitted breaking into thousands of homes and garnering great enjoyment from watching the resident
eating watching TV or bathing  He admitted in the  documents that the Parole board never received he
 enjoying the challenge of getting into someones most private domain - having the sense of control over them lourding over them"

This dangerous predator ultimately was the man who targeted 11 year old Michaela Petit-he had a history of
attraction to young girls emotionally too young to know the signs of predatorial behavior) as he watched her
with her mother shopping in an area stop and shop the same evening he would later come back and break into her basement beat her dads head with a baseball bat as he slept on a sunporch tied him up bleeding profusely and molest the girl taking photos of her on his cell all night until morning came and he sent Hayes off with Mrs Petit to retrieve 15000 from her bank promising her hed be on his way as soon as they got the money. He already planned on killing the entire family as was evidenced by his dispacthing hayes to urchase some cans of gas at about 6 that smae morning, all the while fending off hayes form raping mrs petit or hayely, as he wanted needed her cooperation and trust. He kept his activities with michaela wuite and waited patiently until hayes left to fully sexually assault 11 year old michaela who was tiedto her bed.



Anyforenisc psychologist would tell you  that all of komisarjevskys prior crimes and behaviors were clearly
l pre cursors to sexual assault and it very well might hyave already happened and this young man simply hadnt beehn caught yet. Some of his crimes werd settin fire toa gas station-and getting caught on video camera.

Fires are part of a trilogyof sociopath behavior during the teen childhood years. None of this infoirmation was made available to our parole board who paroled Komisarjevsky, yet the sad thing is the judge who was a savvy man was obviously privy to what komisarjevskys history spelled and it meant danger for the people of Connecticut. That is exactly what he said in fact.

Had his files,all the way from arrest to court reports been organized and at the hands of the men and womendeigned with the decison whether to let him back into society would have surely not paroled him
seeing that it was the distinct wish of that judge that komisrajevsky be done with the dept of corrections when he was 38 years old. He got his tracking anklet sullen faced, removed 2 days prior to the Petit murders and the very same day that he was out with steven Hasyes breaking entering into Cheshire houses in order to
supposedely show steven how easy it could be to get into these houses filled with attractive girls and women.


In the meantime...
These  issues which create a " them and us" within our legislature, muddy the waters of what should be a unified effort to fight violent crime and improve public safety by our state Government.
The effects of these  resentments inour legislature were very evident to anyone watching the now televised legislative sessions broadcast on the local Connecticut cable channel.

The rhetoric by mostly minority and inner city legislators really amped up after the July 2007 murders of Jennifer Michaela and Hayley Petit in Cheshire Connecticut. To anyone listening carefully to the special session called by the Governor in the months following  the murders,  it sounded almost as if some of these legislators were saying  " now you know what we've been dealing with for years! "

The Petit murders were not the only brutal multiple murders that the people of Connecticut were reeling from at that time.Two additional multiple murders took place within six months, all involving recently released or paroled criminals who committed multiple rapes and murders within weeks of being paroled or released from prison. In each case poor decisions, lack of communication between departments, lack of proper paperwork and criminal histories

These crimes, which were being so closely examined due to glaring mistakes within our judicial system  had become a focal point of a fair number of inner city and big city legislators who fed a sick notion that the state had only taken a sudden interest in violent crime, because some murders and sexual assaults  took place in the suburbs.

In the end, the race for Governor last year was much closer than anyone predicted , and quietly simmering below the surface, the Death Penalty issue played a big role in the casting of votes. The people of Connecticut have shown, in poll after pol,l that they want reform of their criminal justice system,  including an revamping of Connecticut's Death Penalty law, making it actually enforceable, continuing to protect the  rights of that one person that could actually be wrongly convicted, but with limits on  the amount of appeals an inmate can file as well the validity of those appeals. This would solve a big portion of the current expense associated with Connecticut's DP.

In the most recent Quinnipiac poll, over 70 percent of Connecticut residents were in favor of keeping the Death Penalty as Connecticut's capital punishment. Most agreed it should be pursued in certain violent crime cases that have a number of brutal and cruel aggravating factors. We can argue the morality issues ad infinitum, and undoubtedly we will, but the bottom line is that the people of this state want the Death Penalty to remain, and they want it to have clearer limits so that it is in fact implementable. It is the ludicrous limitless appeals process that causes the inordinate expense and in effect makes our Death penalty untenable.

In the end, it was really the city of Bridgeport that won the election for Democrat Governor Malloy with the voting booths being held open an additional 3 hours in that city only, due to a reported "mishap",whereby "someone" ordered too few voting ballots for the city, and  more had to be fetched from somewhere.

The controversy surrounding this "oversight" that pushed a democratic win in a very, very close governor's race between Republican Tom Foley and Democrat Malloy, continues today and suspicious feelings abound regarding said "missing ballots" that forced a city, notoriously democratic, to keep it's polls open an additional 3 hours,  giving Democratic lobbyists precious time to grab the relatively small amount of  Democratic votes neccesary to put Dan Malloy in the Governors mansion.

And naturally, this would happen in Bridgeport, a city dripping with a history of corruption as well as an open tolerance of said corruption.
Before any of this had happened, many Connecticut residents, such as myself crossed over their party line in order to vote for Republican Tom Foley, based almost entirely upon his stance on violent crime compared to that of Malloy, who in classic Politician-ese was adamantly promising that if an abolishment bill were to be passed by the legislature again during his term, he would sign it, but any capital crimes committed before a hypothetical abolishment Bill, would be subject to the Death Penalty, if so sentenced.

This bone he tried to throw was an obvious attempt at placating the people of the state who were intently waiting for the trials of Steven Hayes and Joshua Komisarjevsky, caught red handed in the murders of Jennifer Hayley and Michaela Petit in july 2007.

Almost every attorney queried in the state has asserted that despite Malloy's political tight rope walking on this issue at the time, it was merely lip service to pacify the masses.(many Democrats polled were in favor of
the death penalty for the men who were caught fleeing the Petit murder scene, if they are convicted)
Legal experts have said that  if another abolishment bill passed in 2011, the legal ramifications of trying to put to death certain inmates  to death, even those who have been languishing on death row for years-hanks to(Connecticut's purposely paralyzed DP due to limitless appeals) will end up being bounced around the
 higher courts  by lawyers,for those on Death Row.

In the mean time no one in the Judiciary committee seems to understand that without a death penalty many more cases will proceed to trial automatically when defense attorneys begin rolling the dice with their clients accused of murder, as the very worst that could happen -life without the chance of parole- was what one used to hope for when offering to plea.

The new "goal" of the defense attorney representing someone accused of murder will be obtaining "  life with the chance of parole" and thus the courts dockets will fill with trials.And trials cost a lot of money, which is the main reason  Connecticut plea bargains 96 -  97 percent of it's violent crime cases.

Suffice to say this deluge of trials is going to cost the state millions and billions of new dollars, thus
making mincemeat of any notion that getting rid of the Death Penalty will save money. There will be no more offerings to plead guilty in capital crime cases, as both Komisrajevsky and Hayes's attorneys did.

The only reason those lawyers one a public defender and the other a state special public defender meaning he's also a regular private lawyer and thus he gets paid a higher amount per billable hour and you can bet he and his associates will be billing an obscene amount of hours to the State of Ct for Komisarjevsky's "defense"  The abolitionists act as if that wouldn't happen if there were no death penalty!? Nonsense. We all know that lawyers are kind at pushing the limits of whatever they can, if the state draws the line here they ll teeter on the edge of it, move it up a bit same thing.

The only reason either of the Petit murderers lawyers so called offered to plead guilty in exchange for life in prison was because the states attorney was pursuing the death penalty!  If there was no death penalty there is no way that either defendant would offer to plead to anything, because they have nothing whatsoever to lose by going to trial without the death penalty looming large.   This means that every single capital murder case is going to trial. As well there will be more capital murder cases because despite what imbecilic arguments weve heard to the contrary death is in fact a deterrent.  Even in a state like this where its merely going to" death row" for the rest of your life, even the most brutal murderers are cowards. The idea of waiting for death scares them.

If life without parole was now the worst sentence that murderers could get, no one is going to offer to plead anything, every single lawyer will go to trial in hopes of getting life with chance of parole or better. And if they "lose" they havnt
lost anything, except the states money.

Also for the murdering marauders whose slick attorney's manage to procure life with the chance of parole in a trial  this will then enslave  the victim's family into a life of appearing at every single parole hearing, for their loved ones killer or rapist or both.

This bare bones fact also makes a mockery of this oft heard argument-sometimes from murder victims family members, propped up by politicians, claiming  that the death penalty as it exists here in Connecticut at least, traps them into"a sentence
of their own,"  putting them through years of suffering through appeal after appeal for the
person or persons who killed their daughter, mother, father brother sister or child.

This is not an a reason to abolish our states death penalty, this is an issue that reflects how poorly our Death penalty as our states most severe capital crime punishment is written by lawmakers. Other states manage to put limits on appeals, their appeals have to actually be based on some kind of reality - not obligatory appeals such as the ones that mass murderer Michael Ross fought against, finally winning after suing the state for putting in appeal after appeal for his death sentence, a sentence carefully arrived at by multiple jury's for the murders and rapes of dozens of women and children. If Ross had not fought against this self defeating system, he would still be on death row, despite having confessedopnely to committing these pre mediatated murders rapes and tortures in the 1970's!

In the meantime,  the many many people in this state that are committed to continuing the battle for Justice for victims of violent crime,past presnet and future, ready themselves once again to fight these legislators that would seem to believe that what Connecticut residents want doesn't matter.

The best way we can prevent this from happening over and over again is to use our voting power:

Let us remember each legislator's name that votes for abolishment - we must track these members of the General Assembly and the State Senate like glue as their districts near voting time.

A veritable campaign must be waged against them and for their opponent - making it clear to the residents of that  district why they must vote across party lines if it is thus demanded, in this grave situation.

Repealing the DP will  make Connecticut a much more dangerous place to live. For those that claim that the notion of Death is not a deterrent I say nonsense! Why then such desperate scrambling by attorneys and their murderous clients spending much money energy and time fighting the mere proposition of the death penalty???? Why do we see nary a defendant coming forth and declaring themselves guilty stepping up to
willingly  take the prosecutor's pursued sentence of death-   a sentence that by the way is cautiously, thoughtfully and rarely pursued by States attorneys in Connecticut.

We reserve this punishment for our most heinous crime and criminals, murders, rapes where the sufferring of the victims was so eggregious the brutality so extreme, the terror protracted, that only the finality of death truly serves the notion of Justice. As well that criminal may kill  guard, another inmate

May 5, 2011

Eleventh Juror Picked for Komisarjevsky Trial

Another Juror was selected today for the  Komisarjevsky trial. This latest juror. a woman, chosen by the defense, brings the total amount of Jurors selected to eleven, with four men and seven women comprising the "Jury" to be.
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Much like the Steven Hayes trial,  (Joshua Komisarjevsky's accomplice in the Petit family assaults and murders,) this Jury selection process has been painfully slow, largely due to excessively cautious sizing up of potential jurors,  done via individual questioning  by the Defense attorneys and the Prosecutors for the state. The process which is sometimes done in groups of four, five or more in other states is painstakingly slower when carried out individually with the potential juror isolated from the other potential jurors. This is called " individual voire dire here in Connecticut, and has been the subject of debate among attorneys both civil and criminal for years for various, usually self serving, reasons.

Also a time consuming factor is the inordinate amount of " preemptive strikes that both sides, the defense and prosecution are allowed to use when an otherwise seemingly sound potential juror strikes them as someone who will not vote " their way" when deliberations begin. The state of Connecticut allows a total of 46 of these freebies for each side, but traditionally the defense uses many more than the State ie The prosecution.
Reportedly the komisarjevsky defense has used up 26 preemptive strikes, while the prosecution has used 20 thus far in the selection process. 

There is no jury selection on Fridays due to an earlier motion by the defense that they needed more delays for the jury selection for komisarjevsky's trial, this after they had already been granted a sizable delay once.
Citing the fact that their public defender office had other cases and was too busy to attend 5 day week voire dire for this case, Judge Blue compromised with a four day week.

Jury selection will resume on Monday at New Haven Superior Court.