"The Modern Elite Ruling Class Notion of Justice"

This article is a must read.  

I am so impressed that I am posting the entire article as well as a link to the original, lest the contents become lost down the line via the hyperlink. I wasn't aware when I first began blogging that oft - times, many hyper-links to time - sensitive articles, especially within mainstream online publications become useless, "broken" leading the now piqued, unsuspecting reader to a cyber dead - end of sorts. This an average of 6 months to a year from the initial publication of the article being linked

As I became a more seasoned blogger, I discovered that clicking on hyper-link, including my own, within an older article,  invariably  brought me to a page that was marked "were sorry but that article is no longer available. Thanfully, not every online magazine or newspaper handles their dated articles this way and these are no surprise, the usually better publications, where one will find a message similar to that article has been archived, you may use our advanced search system to locate the article that you wish to read/.

Today, I am compelled to copy and paste a rather long article, of great substance; it's one of those rare articles that has the power to change things.

I'm putting up the very last paragraph of the article first. I felt that the words below perfectly  embodied the same passion and motivation that drive my own dogged pursuit of the good fight for Justice, a perpetual fight fought mostly via the power of the formidable pen, the words below summed up beautifully what we, as a people can do, must do, in order to invoke the changes that need to take place to better  insure the safety of our loved ones and ourselves, politics be damned.

 I once believed myself a Democrat. As I grew older and became more of who I was meant to be,  I discovered that the most essential issues facing our legislators and politicians should be non partisan; Public safety;, violent crime, child abduction, terrorism of the domestic kind, broken bones, sexual assault  and brutality.

 And behind it, the engine that drives it, never mind allows it, it keeps it all running; apathy and greed.

It is our unwavering right as human beings to procure sanctity for ourselves and eachother, from maiming and death at the hands of others, often who have often been in and out of our" correctional facilities' their whole lives.

The article begins in Italics below.

"CONCLUSION: Surrender or Fight?


What can be done about a travesty of justice system declared “impossible to defend” by a state chief justice?


Gail Canzano and Marilyn Flax, quoted at the outset, make clear the choice: Repeal the law or enforce the law. Indefensibly surrender to the indefensible or fight to make the system defensible.


Surrender is especially unjustified because, with great consistency for a very long time, capital punishment has had overwhelming public support, notwithstanding that very many have bought the repeatedly refuted claim that innocents are executed. The only choice is to fight – to fight those fanatically devoted to brutal murderers and unconcerned about victims.



The first step in that fight is to inform the public of the intolerable abuses shown here. The media have egregiously failed. Rectifying that failure is the purpose of this article.



By Lester Jackson, Ph.D., Guest Contributor

“[T]he death penalty constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. Not for those on death row but for the families of their victims”




—— Report on Connecticut Families’ Call for Death Penalty Repeal



“What I would like … is not [repeal] the law, but enforce the law.”


—— Marilyn Flax (57), widow of murder victim



“It’s difficult if not impossible to defend 29 years for a case to be in the courts.”


—— former Kentucky Supreme Court Chief Justice Joseph Lambert






____________________






INTRODUCTION


Days apart in early February, two Connecticut events dramatically highlighted how power-abusing elitists have sabotaged the death penalty. First, in the second protracted Petit robbery-rape-arson-murder case, defense attorneys fired a fusillade of motions to spare the life of a client they proclaimed so dangerous that the “public interest” required him to “never again spend a day in free society (4).” Second, a group of murder victim family members called for death penalty abolition, complaining it inflicted greater suffering on them than murderers. Dr. Gail Canzano asserted: “The death penalty ensnares people in the criminal justice system… result[ing] in … years of suffering … for the families left behind. … [E]very single court appearance re-traumatizes the family….”






This was further vindication of the ruthless strategy of so-called death penalty opponents: protecting barbaric murderers by abusing the legal system to drag out, for decades, cases in which there is no doubt about guilt, torturing victims in the process.




That it was not always this way shows that it does not have to be this way now.






OLD JUSTICE


■President William McKinley died on Sept. 14, 1901, eight days after being shot by Leon Czolgosz, who was caught in the act and confessed. On Sept. 23, Czolgosz went on trial and was sentenced to death three days later. He was executed on Oct. 29, 53 days after the crime and 47 after the president’s death.


■Unable to get near his first choice (75), President Herbert Hoover, Giuseppe Zangara settled on President-elect Franklin Roosevelt. On Feb. 15, 1933, Zangara’s errant shot hit Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak, who died on March 6. Caught in the act and having confessed, Zangara was executed on March 20, 1933 after 10 days on death row and 14 days after his victim died.


■On July 2, 1881, Charles Guiteau shot President James Garfield, who died on Sept. 19. Immediately caught, Guiteau boasted of his deed. He was placed on trial for murder on Nov. 14 and found guilty on Jan. 25, 1882. After an appeal rejected May 22 and a denied request for an orchestra to play at his hanging, Guiteau was executed on June 30, 1882, nine months after his victim died.


■William Kemmler murdered his wife on March 29, 1889 and was sentenced to death 45 days later, May 13. He appealed the new execution method, electrocution, which was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court May 23, 1890. Even with the aid of high-priced lawyers hired by George Westinghouse, his execution occurred August 6, 1890, 15 months after the murder.


■On March 20, 1927, Ruth Snyder, aided by paramour Henry Gray, strangled and bludgeoned her husband to death to collect insurance. In fewer than 10 months, January 12, 1928, they were both executed.


There was never any doubt whatsoever about the guilt in these cases. Justice was done – swiftly. This is now inconceivable, both in unpublicized and high-profile cases. In today’s murderer-friendly, victim-hostile judicial and legislative environment, incontrovertibly and boastfully guilty assassins and other murderers spend years, even decades, on death row – if sentenced to death at all. Consider the following few of limitless examples.






MODERN JUSTICE




■On Nov. 5, 2009, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan shot 45 mostly military people, killing 13 and wounding 32. After 17 months, it remained uncertain whether Hasan would face capital charges or even be court-martialed. Although apprehended in the act of murdering, he is, in today’s argot, still merely an “accused” murderer.


■On April 19, 1995, Timothy McVeigh bombed a federal building in Oklahoma City, murdering 168 innocent people. He boasted of his guilt. Nevertheless, he was not executed until June 2001. Had he not dropped his appeals, there is no telling how many more years would have elapsed; indeed, he might still be alive after 16 years, which is routine nowadays.


■On parole from a sentence for beating a neighbor to death, Robert Alton Harris kidnapped and murdered two boys, one “crouching and screaming,” and “giggled …, saying he had blown … Baker’s arm off. [He] amused himself by imagining be[ing] a police officer … report[ing] the boys’ deaths to their families. … [He] laughed, commented he had really blown the boy’s brains out, and then flicked the bits of flesh into the street.” Executed after “only” 14 years, the New York Times bitterly attacked the Supreme Court’s “Rush to Kill.”


■John Jacob Dougan made several tape recordings bragging about the 1974 murder of an 18-year-old boy, which were mailed to the victim’s mother as well as to the media: “He was stabbed in the back, in the chest and the stomach, ah, it was beautiful. You should have seen it. Ah, I enjoyed every minute of it. I loved watching the blood gush from his eyes.” 37 years later, Dougan remains on death row.


■Spared a death sentence for murder, this mercy enabled Clarence Ray Allen to communicate with and order associates outside prison to murder witnesses against him. It took another 26 years to execute him.


No ground for delay is too preposterous in today’s courts. So shameless are death penalty opponents that, after being kept alive to have a second bite at the murder apple that cost three more innocent lives, Allen’s lawyers actually argued (n362) he should not be executed because just thinking about the prospect might cause him to have a heart attack. In this vein, two justices have taken seriously the abolitionist demand that any murderer who succeeds in gaming the system for decades should be rewarded for the delay he himself has caused – by voiding his death sentence because execution would be cruel and unusual punishment after so long. In other words, grant mercy to the parent killer on the ground that he is an orphan.


In 1882, Guiteau got nowhere with his demand for an orchestra to accompany his permitted pre-hanging reading of his poetry, which he insisted would be “very effective” with music. Today, when judges take seriously the claim that a brutal murderer should be spared execution because he won a dance contest or would not be a threat in prison because he “only preyed on elderly women,” Guiteau’s demand, alone, would likely be good for a delay of a year or two.




Equally absurd but far more serious is the routine argument that a murderer never intended that anyone be murdered, even when he showed up with a loaded gun and a lethal knife, planned an armed robbery, stabbed his rape victim 53 times (93-4) or smuggled a chest filled with guns into a prison to help two convicted murderers escape. In the Petit case, lawyers argue Joshua Komisarjevsky never intended (3) for anyone to be murdered, but they fail to explain why, if this is so, he deserves an actual life sentence in “the public interest.” (There is evidence, from his own cell phone, that he was an active, willing participant. His partner probably could not have committed the crimes alone, nor even tried.)


Such absurdities help explain why the point has been reached where Virginia is held up as a veritable death penalty paradise (8) by some capital punishment supporters because it can execute the clearly guilty in an average of “only” seven years; and why former Kentucky Chief Justice Lambert conceded that it is “difficult if not impossible” to defend multi-decade cases. But given judicial obtuseness regarding victims, it is, first, vital to stress that these cases further victimize the law-abiding in the name of purported “due process” for the most brutal lawless.






VICTIMIZING VICTIM FAMILIES


Murder victimizes survivors in two ways: (1) the loss and pain of family members and others who care about the homicide victim; and (2) the agony inflicted by the modern travesty of justice system.


To lay persons, this may seem too obvious to mention. But not to many judges. The idea that, on behalf of convicted murderers, the courts cruelly punish murder victim families flies in the face of the denial they are victims at all. In a virtually unreported but highly revealing statement, Justice Stevens calls it a “misnomer” to label as “victims” the family members and others who love and care about murder victims because they are merely “third parties.” Really?! Consider these few examples:


■David Brewer raped, strangled and stabbed Sherry Byrne 15 times; he slit her throat. This “ruined the lives of everyone close to her.” Her mother was hospitalized and divorced; her husband, who “wanted to die,” was twice hospitalized for psychiatric care.


■One mother stated: “When Shannon died, we died.”


■Dr. William Petit considered suicide because he lost: “a wife and two wonderful daughters, where you’re defined by your family. … children are the jewels … all your hopes for the future are in your children… Your wife is your partner, your team-mate … you lose it all.’


■It is unlikely that Stevens will descend from his ivory tower to face Diana Harrington, who flatly declared (368-75) herself “a victim” of the brutal murders of her sister, brother-in-law, niece and nephew.


Also, Stevens finds it “troubling” (7) to “rouse jurors’ sympathy for the victims and increase jurors’ antipathy for the capital defendants.” Indeed, if some justices (once a majority) had their way, victims’ families would have the courthouse doors slammed in their faces.


Solicitude for murderers and callous unconcern for victims go a long way toward explaining why judges have no qualms inflicting cruel and unusual punishment on the latter.


Justice Ginsburg suffers stress and cries; and Justice Blackmun found executing barbaric criminals “particularly excruciating” (153). Yet one can search in vain for similar expressions by them about victims. Hence, on behalf of those whose guilt is uncontested, these justices often have compounded geometrically the anguish of losing loved ones. That is why family members have said it is they who endure cruel and unusual punishment.


Justice Stevens worried that it might take 11 minutes rather than 7 for a condemned killer to die. But he voted to stay the execution of Earl Wesley Berry to decide only if lethal injection, previously advocated by Stevens as a lethal gas substitute, was inhumane. The justices voting for this stay said nothing about further victimizing the family of Berry’s brutally murdered victim. A local paper called it cruel not to execute Berry: “ironic that a man who beat and stomped to death a woman now hopes the justice system will save him from a death he believes is ‘cruel and inhumane.’” The daughter referred (n319) to suffering caused by “hav[ing] to deal with court proceedings and appeals processes” for two decades.


Although executing the most barbaric murderers causes stress, tears and excruciation for the likes of Ginsburg and Blackmun, they are heedless of the torment expressed by a son 30 years after his father was murdered: “It never ends for families … It’s just not right that it goes on and on.” Having waited 25 years for execution of her family’s murderer, Harrington (367) said the “loss of loved ones is enough agony that one should bear, much less the constant reminders of the criminal’s appeals, protests and constant complaints ….”


Doubly victimized – and Stevens denies they are victims at all!!


Now, judicially, legislatively or both, the Petit survivors are likely to suffer elite contempt for victims.




THE PETIT ROBBERY-RAPE-ARSON-MURDERS


This case has been reported widely, in detail. Briefly, in July 2007, Komisarjevsky and Stephen Hayes broke into the home of Dr. William A. Petit. They forced his wife to withdraw money from a bank, brought her back, tied up, sexually attacked, doused with gasoline and burned alive her and her 11 and 17-year-old daughters. They also attacked Dr. Petit, who survived.


Two points are especially significant.


First, because there is no doubt whatsoever as to guilt of either perpetrator, this case shows clearly how the legal system has been debased into a weapon to torture already victimized loved ones of victims of the clearly guilty. Although Komisarjevsky’s lawyers conceded (4) he is so dangerous that permanent incarceration is required, they sought four months for jury selection alone, followed by two more months before his trial finally begins, while accusing (3) the trial judge of “cringing accommodation to …. speed demanded by the victim….” For his part, the judge pointed out (6): “By the time the jury in this [second] case is impaneled, over four years will have elapsed since the crime.”


Second, most murder victim families and trials receive very little attention; here there has been enormous coverage. However, while the coverage has been unique, the suffering inflicted by the dysfunctional nature of the American “justice” system is not unique at all. Elites – not only judges but elected legislators – have callous contempt for victims, be they publicized or unknown. Prior to signing the highly unpopular Illinois death penalty repeal, Gov. Quinn refused even to meet with the mother of a viciously raped, tortured and murdered girl. Connecticut’s elected governor and legislators strove mightily to show their scorn for democracy generally and Dr. Petit particularly by trying to repeal capital punishment even before Komisarjevsky could be tried. That appears to have been temporarily averted. But those who side with murderers are relentless and promise to come back after the trial, so that the public and Dr. Petit will sooner or later receive their contempt. Repeal is “inevitable,” they promise.


Much delay results from duplicitous abolitionist legislators who seek to deceive the public by voting for popular death penalty legislation only after they insert poison pill provisions to render it ineffective. Such politicians will not fix the system (8) to enable enforcement when their true goal is to make this impossible.


If prominent victims can be tortured, what chance is there for those who suffer unnoticed?


Dr. Petit, his family and friends already have endured not only agony from the barbaric crime, but also from the system. Tragically, this seems likely to continue.


TORTURING THE INNOCENT TO SAVE THE GUILTY


For years, death penalty abolitionists have tried to convince the public that there have been rampant executions of the innocent – even in recent years, with multiple layers of appeals and procedural restrictions. This repeatedly (7-19) has been refuted. In reality, nearly all death penalty litigation lasting decades (374) involves the sentence, not guilt. Even justices who have done the most to undermine capital punishment concede: “a substantial claim of actual innocence [is] extremely rare. … [C]hallenges to … death [sentences] are routinely asserted … [But] …claims of actual innocence are rarely successful.”


Alleged innocence is just a convenient propaganda tool irrelevant to the true objective. Abolitionists do not oppose the death penalty for fear of executing the innocent. They oppose executing the guilty, period. Hence, they fear seeking the truth, lest it limit endless duplicative litigation to drag out any case – regardless of savagery and number of murders committed, recidivism, and overwhelming weight of evidence.


Leading opponent Bryan Stevenson called it “misguided” (25) to focus on the “wrongly convicted.” Carol and Jordan Steiker warned against “too much enthusiasm” for innocence. They cautioned that DNA tests used to attack the death penalty, by claiming “exonerations,” ultimately would provide additional support for and “salvage capital punishment” by establishing guilt conclusively.


So the main weapon is not to claim innocence but to incessantly manipulate the legal system, tying it in knots. Justice Scalia observed (12, 17): “It is just a game, after all.” The name of the game is: delay, delay, delay. When sentence challenges fail, much more delay is caused by litigating execution methods (16-20) for murderers who have inflicted maximum drawn out torture on their victims. As noted, any absurd argument will do.


Endless delays not only cause huge expenditures (not necessarily more than life imprisonment) and strain judicial resources; far worse, as documented above, they further torture already victimized survivors. Opponents thereby seek to compel death penalty supporters to surrender to total abolition. Having grossly abused the system, abolitionists use that very abuse (6) as an argument to end the abuse by ending capital punishment. On March 25, PBS premiered a “documentary,” No Tomorrow, again arguing the death penalty is too costly – based on the case of a brutal triple killer “neither sympathetic nor plausibly innocent”!


Abolitionists will never admit to having anything but compassion for victims, even purporting to act for their benefit. For example, Komisarjevky’s lawyers feigned concern for the Petit family in the very flood of motions attacking that family (e.g. (6), as the “Petit posse”) – contending (3) that not granting a motion would “do a disservice to… the surviving victim and the victims’ loved ones and supporters.” In declaring a 300-pound man’s rape of an 8-year-old girl, requiring painful surgery, insufficiently depraved to warrant the death penalty, a 5-4 U.S. Supreme Court claimed (32) to lessen the victim’s ordeal of aiding prosecution – as though she would not have to testify in a non-capital trial!


Gov. Corzine (NJ) said he signed a death penalty repeal to spare loved ones from being “more deeply hurt by long delays and endless appeals….”


Despite this faux concern for victims, those who most stridently oppose the death penalty as cruel and unusual punishment for the guilty have absolutely no compunction about perverting the law to impose such punishment upon the innocent. And so much the better if a public relations coup can be extracted from even a few tortured victims seemingly experiencing Stockholm Syndrome – so that, rather than protesting the abuse inflicted upon them, they submissively join their tormenters to seek abolition of the death penalty on the precise ground that it is cruel and unusual punishment for them instead of convicted murderers.


WAS THE OLD JUSTICE WORSE THAN THE NEW?


“The demands of justice have been satisfied,” began the long July 1, 1882 front-page New York Times report on the Guiteau execution. Today, the same paper deems it injustice to execute even a presidential assassin proud of his deed. Nevertheless, countless polls show the 1882 Times closer to 2011 public values.



Other than abolitionists, few would deny that justice requires not only prevention of convicting the innocent but also protecting the law-abiding and expeditiously meting out punishment deemed just by society (not judges or elite newspapers). Yet, those who now dominate the legal system have no use for an ancient maxim: “justice delayed is justice denied.” For them, justice delayed is justice. However, Chief Justice Burger worried that delay would “drain even a just judgment of its value,” thereby undermining essential public confidence in the courts.

The Sixth Amendment provides: “the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial.”

Decades ago, the Supreme Court held that the right to a public trial is not confined to the accused because the public has a right to be informed. By the same token, if the securing public safety is the first duty of government, justice demands a right to a speedy trial for the public as well as the accused. On its face, it is grievously unjust when, as in the Petit case, it takes more than four years to bring to trial a defendant whose lawyers seek life imprisonment in the “public interest” while complaining about too much speed. Is that what the Constitution’s Framers had in mind? Did their concept of justice intend defendants to have two rights, both to speed and endless delaying tactics subjecting victimized survivors to endless ordeals? Was such cruel punishment of victims “usual” when the Constitution was adopted?

Ironically, it is the innocent who benefit from speed,while interminable delay is the ally of the guilty at the expense of justice for their victims. The examples provided here, both old and new, involve the indisputably guilty. Whatever the claimed defects of the old justice system, today’s safeguards (9-12) make wrongful conviction in capital cases rare at worst, leaving abolitionists in a desperate futile search for an actual execution of an innocent person. By tragic contrast, murders are far from rare: 738,000 homicides in 38 years!






Also far from rare is decades-long litigation aimed, as noted, at saving the guilty, not avoiding conviction of the innocent. The whole purpose of abolitionist tactics is to prevent all executions, using every ludicrous pretext either to void death sentences or keep murderers alive until natural death.






Is it justice when fresh victims are murdered by previously convicted recidivists, causing yet more suffering (3, 10) for loved ones? (The Petit savagery was committed by paroled recidivists.) Is it justice to inflict cruel and unusual punishment on victims in order to enable the barbaric guilty to avoid just punishment?






Surely, there is much to be said for the old legal system. Moreover, by maintaining modern protections for the innocent and abolishing judicial and legislative subterfuges to avoid justly punishing the guilty, a combination of the best of the old and the new can be created.






CONCLUSION: Surrender or Fight?






What can be done about a travesty of justice system declared “impossible to defend” by a state chief justice?
Gail Canzano and Marilyn Flax, quoted at the outset, make clear the choice: Repeal the law or enforce the law. Indefensibly surrender to the indefensible or fight to make the system defensible.






Surrender is especially unjustified because, with great consistency for a very long time, capital punishment has had overwhelming public support, notwithstanding that very many have bought the repeatedly refuted claim that innocents are executed. The only choice is to fight – to fight those fanatically devoted to brutal murderers and unconcerned about victims.






The first step in that fight is to inform the public of the intolerable abuses shown here. The media have egregiously failed. Rectifying that failure is the purpose of this article.

Note; Lester Jackson has written articles showing how the media has enabled the Supreme Court to undermine the death penalty. He views mainstream media misrepresentation and suppression of the truth as essential to harmful judicial activism. A former college teacher, he has a Ph.D. in Political Science.
Copyright ©: 2011 Lester Jackson, Ph.D.
Post Published: 19 May 2011
Found in section: Lester Jackson, More From Our Pundits































 

The Casey Anthony Trial, a Cult of Infamy

One of the better articles out there regarding Caylee Anthony's murder and the trial proceedings.
However, immaturity and dysfunction do not explain Casey Anthony,nor what to many seem unfathomable behavior and utter callousness
as displayed in the excerpt of her courthouse note to a fellow inmate. All of this nonsensical attention over the so called mystique and
mystery surrounding how a "attractive young woman" could kill her child and be so distanced from her own despicable actions(as to
rent videos go out dancing and get tattoos in the weeks and months following the murder) is really becoming very old very fast.
With all of this incessant writing concerning this case all of the ludicrous media attention, we rarely see or hear or read the word: SOCIOPATH.

Even Huffington Post, usually a decent Blog with decent writers, of varying degrees, are either reluctant to "go there" I am ssuming
because Anthony is a female and what the writer perceives as a "young attractive" one at that or out of ignorance, which considering the rest of the article and its relative insightfulness, I find unlikely.

So there you have it; if an intelligent legal analyst/writer cannot seem to bring themself to hastily arrive at this obvious conclusion, what are they doing haranguing about the worldwide attention due to the "mystery" of how this women with anti-social personality disorder, did what sociopath's do?

In the meantime, lets pray for Caylee's perfect little soul and Justice for her brutal death.

Komisarjevsky Trial To Continue As Planned

We've got all necessary Jurors and the trial is going to  continue on schedule, thank God.  The Komisarjevsky defense "team" has literally tried every sleazy trick in the book, with absolutely no conscience, in order to stall the inevitable: Justice for the assaults and murders of Michaela, Hayley and JJennifer Petit. And lest anyone forget the near fatal baseball bat assault upon William Petit jr.head and brain, from which he certainly still suffers from daily.

They've petitioned the appellate and supreme courts, when they've gotten nowhere with Judge Blue, they've buried the prosecution and the judge, in a veritable snowstorm of paperwork for the dual purposes of
encouraging a white flag plea bargain from what they invision as the beleagured prosecution and Petit families, and if nothing else stall stall and stall some more.   All of this is of course a glaring abuse of the system, as well the bit of power that they have as officers of the court.

I've personally read nearly every single motion that these lawyers so eloquently comprised (with help from their team of minions)they are all show no go--not one issue that they broach and meander endlessly about is viable; legally, judiciously or ethically-Athough I think by now, the latter has become a non- issue, as the moral turpitude that is the Joshua Komisarjevsky's defense has been thus recognized from quite early in the process and certainly by now the people of the state and other caring onlookers,know what were dealing with.

Connecticut Law Tribune: In Civilized Society, Vengeance Is A Good Thing

A good Op-Ed on the whole overblown Senator comment "issue".

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.
.
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.

Ninth Juror picked in Komisarjevsky Trial

One more juror chosen today and thus, nine more to go, including six alternates; Four alternates are the standard for most Jury's , but capital cases might call for additional alternates, as was done during the Hayes trial, (Komisarjevsky's accomplice in the Petit murders -  he was tried first and given the Death Penalty after long deliberation)

It should be noted that it was indeed an intelligent decision to have extra alternates during Hayes' trial, as with very violent and emotional crimes such as the Petit assaults and murders, jurors seem to  "quit" more often, citing that they can't handle the evidence emotionally or sometimes they will use other family hardship reasons for not being able to live out their commitment. This happened quite frequently within the Hayes Trial, with jurors and alternates both asking to leave well into the trial and others being dismissed by the Judge for various breaches in the jurors sworn oaths.

In any event,each one of the additional alternates during Hayes trial almost became acting jurors as the original twelve juror panel began to steadily dwindle starting the second day of proceedings when a juror asked to speak with Judge Blue regarding some concerns he had about the States presentation of the case..

The Juror somewhat nervously found himself addressing the entire courtroom, media and all, when I believe he'd expected to speak alone with the judge. The Jury however, was removed from the courtroom for the duration of what turned out to be a loquacious and stinging diatribe re the States" haphazard presentation of evidence thus far", which had been circulated to the Jury at that early point in the trial process.

While his sentiments might have had some validity, they were clearly over-zealous and  premature, and his decision to elaborate ad nauseamover the states failings at such an early juncture, gave the court a birds
eye view of both his lack of judgement and a clear prejudice against the State at a very early point in the
proceedings,

Within his response to the Jurors litany of complaints and concerns which he  read from a sheef of paper that he had clearly spent some time preparing.

Judge Blue had given the juror some paternal sounding advice regarding his concerns, explaining that it was very early in the trial process  to make any sweeping judgementsregarding the States handling of the case, specifically taking issue with a lack of prompt explanations to the Jury regarding evidence that had been distributed to them early in the trial process.
At the end of the judges 
advice to the juror which consisted mostly of give this a bit more time and the pieces of evidence will be explained and tied together by the State,  He was asked several times by Judge Blue, if he could uphold his duties as a juror, as promised at the outsetof the Jury instructions;

The Juror John Lively,said as things stood " he could not."  The prosecution moved to have Lively dismissed. The Defense objected and elaborated on the reasons for their objections - Lively had been one of their picks and it was clear they wanted him on the Jury. Judge Blue heard Ulmann's objections out and moved to dismiss the Juror again,citing concerns regarding what he considered unreasonable behavior for a juror the bottom line fact that the juror was asked twice if he could perform his duties as sworn under oath and he said he could not. There was a parallel issue that Lively would contaminate the other members of the jury with his
 probable ongoing dissection of the States presentation of their case.

That was the the first Juror to be dismissed, albeit by his own provocation.
A good number would follow, either of their own accord, asking to step down,one having practical issuesregarding family matter,while others had emotional reaction to the crimes and evidence.

 But none left as unexpectedly and colorfully as that first very eccentric,articulate juror who apparently expected  perfectionism from the State, and within a few days into the trial,realized that this wasn't
going to be Law and order.

Eight Jurors Chosen so far For Komisarjevsky Jury

Eight Jurors have managed to be chosen thus far for the State of Connecticut vs Joshua Komisarjevsky Jury trial,  one of the longer voire dire processes that the State has ever seen, capital murder crimes notwithstanding, (as well multiple sexual assault, torture of a minor, kidnapping, assault in the first degree, arson, larceny, and  various other violent crimes, or as they are more commonly referred to, as " charges".

This, is what acts of brutality, torture and terror have become watered down to, within the courtroom anesthetizing process, and the men that commit these acts, sit years later, the time lapse between their acts of butchery and the formal judicial remedy for them serving it's purpose; a natural lessening of the initial grief and horor felt by the family and community.
The murderer now sits, years later, in their Sunday best, sporting new haircuts and chatting with their lawyers, as if they were regular human beings, not someone who maimed raped and murdered.

And such is our system.

And within the hushed whispers between attorneys and defendant, the strategy for outing the potential juror that might be too tough, or one that just doesn't sit right with their by now well honed instincts regarding who is the most likely to empathize with their client, a sociopath a child-killer, who happens to have a boyish face.

 One of the worst parts in this  obscene charade is watching self described killers and rapists effusively shake hands with their state paid lawyers at the end of this trial, as if to say if not for the lives I terrorized and stole, we might very well  be pals.  Of course not true, but the mere appearance of this ordinary display of mutual respect and other niceties extended to self admitted rapists and murderers, only adds more of a surreal quality to the whole teeth gnashing process, as if one is having a nightmare and open their mouths and cannot form a scream despite the overwhelming need to do so.

To those of us present or even watching the case via televised trials, become sick with the backwardness of all if this agreed upon en masse denial.
 But nevertheless we must  play along with the insanity of it all, because there is nothing else, no other remedy for resolving brutal murders of our brethren in this country.

And most ironic, much later, down the line, if and when this "process" actually manages to yield a tiny measure of arduously dragged out "justice", a sentence reached within the confines of what the law dictates, after sitting through all of the painful details of violence, like civilized human beings, showing immense self restraint, we can then expect to be chastised and accused of being "bloodthirsty" for breathing the tiniest breath of relief that something  vaguely resembling justice rose from all of this.

Outbreak during Komisarjevsky Jury Selection

No additional jurors chosen this week in Komisarjevsky trial

Six Jurors total are all that have been chosen thus far for the highly publicized Joshua Komisarjevsky Jury. Komisarjevsky is the second man to be tried for the Petit family crimes which happened in July 2007 he is believed  to be the instigator of the home invasion which ended in 3 capital murders and other charges including rape of a minor child, Michaela Petit, only 11 years old.


The Komisarjevsky lawyers have been aggressive and particularly immoral in their approach to this case especially considering Jeremiah Donovan lead attorney made a point to mention that he himself has a beloved wife and two daughters at the onset of the crimes aftermath when he was assigned the case.

There has been an ever widening berth re what the difference between being entitled to a fair defense and a vigorous defense, the latter a term the public has been hearing from the killer's lawyer's as a broad stroke excuse for all behaviors, motions and indeed outright breaking of court law and procedure, in one case Donovan broke a court gag order during the Hayes case first citing he wanted to ameliorate any unnecessary pain the Petit family might endure after hearing forensic evidence that day that proved that their daughter Michaela had indeed been sodomized by Komisarjevsky.

When it became clear that no one was buying that and in fact the Petits along with every intelligent and informed member of the public, Donovan quickly shifted gears, something his client is known for when boxed in by his own dishonesty, and now the attorney claimed that he'd announced this information re Michaela's rape via his client, on the courthouse steps of Hayes trial, as a purposeful display of contention against the gag order that had been in place on the cases since late 2007.

I am actually heartened by Mr Donovan and company obviously poor judgement and overt lack of ethics and human decency, for this will all become apparent very quickly to any jury, no matter how slow and purposefully selective the public defenders carry out the voire dire process.

dimeo gets life sentence for murders of Donnelly Jewelers in Fairfield Ct

I hate to say it but I had a feeling that the whole heroin habit foisted upon Dimeo purportedley by his now deceased mother, who also was  supposedely bringing along 6 yr old dimeo on heroin buys long before his indoctrination into the use of the drug, was going to more than suffice for one gigantic mitigating factor for this sentencing.

I also understand that the donnelly family has stated publically that they dont support the death penalty for Dineo as enough death has already occurred, but as benevelont and saintly as that may seem to some , to me it only adds fuel to the fire of every would be murderer, rapist, child predator  and the like-this class of people occassionally stumble into a situation where a life is taken, as Dineo's then girlfriend did via a severe heroin habit, she is someone the court should have shown mercy to, she pulled no trigger and obne could see she was tortured by her part in these deaths, drugs or not- and indeed with a 20 plus year sentence for crimes which involved no murders assaults nor cleaning up the aforementioned,

 I think that the state cane down hard on her needlessly. She was and is extremely remorseful rehabilitative. However suffering from stage 4 cervical cancer, she is in UCONN Medical CENTER likely dieing long  before her sentence is fulfilled.

And then I see Dimeo sitting in the courtroom chatting with his attorneys, now  adorned with glasses making him appear substantially more innocuous than his mug shot taken the day he was caught in a motel in New Jersey, wanted on a different set of robberies including the needless murder of a store manager in the  NY jewekrt store heist-a store that his then girlfriend tred him to stay away from as it had ab elaborate alarm and a store manager who appeared tough and not easily intimated. Dimeo never gave him the chace and shot him in cold blood, as the owner store ran out the back door.

I heave watched and watched for any sign of humanity remorse or sorrow within dimeo now that he is no longer on heroin to catapult such egregious actions. Ive seen not one flicker. I have seen signs of a sociopath who merely wants to sray off death row. TGoday INMATE dIMEO GOT HIS WISH.

Komisarjevsky Lawyers Ask To Redact Names From Witness List | 24hr Legal Adviser

 Now the defense lawyers are trying to redact certain names from the witness list because their motion to make the entire witness list secret from public and press - was officially denied after due consideration, as was the obligatory "reconsideration" motion, Reconsideration to grant motions that were just denied would seem to now be standard protocol for almost every motion that the attorneys feel "strongly about" or when they need more time for something else and are using the system to slow the process to an ebb.

As mentioned, there have been an inordinate amount of baseless, at times downright insulting - defense filed motions, some of which are written up by the horde of minion law clerks that the Connecticut state public defenders office directs to do the actual practical work of looking up precedents that don't apply, and to make certain the motions are typed up in such a way as to appear official, despite the transparency of their true purpose.

The witness list is supposed to be available end of April, although Judge Blue gave the Defense this time to file more motions of take it to higher court, as they did with the "Tweeting" issue. something that is really akin to the shorthand that old time journalists used to use and then shout out to the public waiting outside what the latest happening was in regards to high profile crimes.

 Tweeting, while it may seem a bit cold in a sense violent crimes and terrorising of human beings being reduced to 142 characters or less, is really just a tool of today's journalists press and media members, it is but one of many many forms of news conveyance that simply attempts to be as close to real time as possible, in order to give the public information regarding the trial, when television camera's have been disallowed, in this case Judge Blue made that decision, probably because of asexual assault of a minor and two other women within the crimes committed by Komisarjevsky and Hayes.

He also might have felt that cameras themselves could cause an intrusiveness's that laptops or tweeting off laptops don't. As someone who attended parts of the Hayes trial,I can say that the electronic devices managed by the reporters were extremely low key, the mood was one of somberness, and only once did a reporter have to be asked to either get a new keyboard or make her current one less clacketyclack as a juror had complained about the noise.

The Komisarjevsky attorneys didn't want the tweets because they are afraid that their violent,cunning and murderous client who unlike Hayes, has a boy like appearance lending itself to more innocence" which they are counting on to appeal to the emotions of the jury insofar as giving him the death penalty which he certainly qualifies for under State law with a deluge of Aggravating factors, including the fact that he alone chose these victims; he targeted them at stop and shop when Hayes was not with him. He alone brought the information regarding the attractiveness of Jennifer Petit to Hayes, as one would lure a fish with bait on a line.

This is something that cannot be denied nor controverted and no matter his self serving claims either within his illegally smuggled Book which he agreed to as it would serve to get his bogus version out there to the potential jury pool-despite a gag order he knew prohibited him from discussing details of the case. But a sociopath does not believe that they need to follow any rules, and Komisarjevsky, perhaps with his lawyers sideways wink of his eye, proceeded to interview with a writer and send copies of journals and letters written for just this purpose; most of the important forensic evidence in the Hayes trial showed exactly my suspicions ; that the "book" was filled with outright,lies,manipulations and just enough so called truths thrown in, to appear as if he might might be telling the truth-that and the fact that the book was narrated from Komisarjevsky's perspective, lent itself to the appearence that this 'book' was fact.

Even later after the hayes trial, the writer Brian Macdonald, admitted after seeeing hearing forensic evidence witness testimoney etc, that Joshua komisarjevsky was the most manipulative human being he had ever known, and he is a crime writer by trade. In effect he'd admitted he'd been used and duped.

Jury Selection for Joshua Komisarjevsky trial inside view

Here's an article from a local online paper called The Patch" which covers most of the State of Connecticut, albeit in geographical segments, much the same as small newspapers do.  The difference is that the Patch has a lot of commentary and doesn't deliver the usual recitation  of the facts in what has become mainstream media's idea of "news".

I was just marveling to a friend that  now it even appears that the blogosphere is becoming more homogenized, with bloggers hoping to be picked up by national oe "mainstream" sources are trying to walk that political tightrope of not alienating this one or that one or said organization and as a result, what was once a great underground movement with the very same visibility as regular press and media, whose true blogs used unadulterated real reporting of the news, is slowly but surely becoming similar vanilla versions of "the "facts" or....the crazy militant sort of blogs that only manage to take credibility from blogs by choosing to use the blogosphere as a place to vent, and their commenter's of course follow suit and surpass the blog authors, with over the top suggestions of torturing the murderers as they tortured their victims etc.

None of this is helping to make our judicial system better, nor more accountable, although the power of the pen is still a wonderful tool for yanking the covers off of hypocrisy, corruption and the apathy and evil that is it's engine.

Mastermind of Petit murders bogs down Jury selection

Not a big surprise that the Jury selection ( aka Voire dire) process for  Joshua Komisarjevsky trial is moving at the same tortoise-like pace as the  entire pre-trial'process did for Steven Hayes . Both men were literally caught fleeing the Petit murder scene, a gasoline fueled house-fire designed specifically to kill all in its path, which included poor Hayley and Michaela Petit, tied to their gasoline soaked beds as well as the body of Jennifer Hawke Petit who was raped then murdered prior to the fire by strangulation.

The ensuing jury selection, trial and sentencing phase for Steven Hayes, Komisarjevsky's hand picked accomplice and sexual predator in his own rite,was enlisted, apparently with ease,(as evidenced by the text messages from Hayes leading up to the crimes)  by Komisarjevsky soon after he'd spotted Michaela Petit and her mother shopping at the Cheshire Stop and Shop earlier. He's admitted to both writer Brian MacDonald as well in his journals, that he liked the way the younger Petit girl looked" 

Michaela Petit was eleven years old.

Later that very same night, after meeting at a bar  and hiding their cars, both men toting zip-ties, surgical gloves, a pellet gun nearly identical to a 9 mm handgun, and Komisarjevsky's cellphone with a camera( he used this to take pornographic photos of Michaela and Hayley tied to their beds, before sadistically burning them to death.

" Fire destroys everything" he told Hayes, including DNA evidence, and it also served to get rid of the witnesses to the sexual assaults, the larceny and Komisarjevsky' severe assault on a sleeping Dr. Petit who he struck repeatedly in the head with a baseball bat..

Mrs Petit was sexually assaulted by Steven Hayes immediately after returning back to the house from her bank - shed complied with the men and procured 15,000 in cash (5,000 more than they asked for)
and believed that the men would keep their promise and not harm her family and leave.
Needless to say this was a terrible ruse and both men held back their true viciousness right up to the end,
 with Komisarjevsky playing the smooth diplomat  and even confiding to her some of the problems he had and why he needed money so badly.

 Unfortunately, Jennifer, a trusting soul, believed him right up until the point when both men grabbed her and tied her back up with her begging for her life as Hayes raping her. According to Hayes Komisarjevsky walked in and out of the room while he raped Mrs Petit and Komisarjevsky said "Get rid of her!" And Steven Hayes choked Jennifer Petit to death breaking her larynx in two places.

I am certain that Mrs Petit was shocked and didn't see this coming at all - remember shed told the bank
teller the men holding her family hostage were being "nice" and as long as no one called the police everything would be fine"  This is a bit akin to something called the Stockholm syndrome and its a self preservation technique that many people experience in order to survive an ordeal where their control and power is taken
by criminals or abductors or even abusive partners.

Jennifer Petit was good hearted and empathetic but but she also seemed to be a very strong woman and as such I attribute the fact that she was so unaware of what these men truly were capable of and in fact-doing-right under her nose ie komisarjevsky molesting Michaela in spurts as shown by his cell phone time stamps,  while Hayes was out on road trips to buy gas for burning down the Petits house -komisarjevsky had to lead him back to the Petits home via cell phone calls when Hayes, unfamiliar with the Cheshire area, got lost numerous times.

All of this was care of Joshua komisarjevsky's agility at manipulation and lying;  Prior to this final inevitable exposure of his true evil self komisarjevsky was careful to keep his molestations of Michaela quiet, as the girls and Mrs Petit were tied up in separate rooms, making them isolated and more manageable. I  believe he also likely kept Hayes from sexually assaulting Mrs Petit until the money was in their hands in order to insure her compliance and trust. He had earlier admitted using her attractiveness as bait to get Hayes interested in the "job" as he undoubtedly had had conversations with Hayes whereby both men hit upon their mutual fantasy of sexual sadism and control of women-or pubescent in Komisarjevsky's case. 

He also needed a second guy to insure that he could get the household under control. There was likely a male head of household and truth be told if komisarjevsky went in to that house alone, even getting the drop on Dr Petit with a bat  sound asleep on a see through glass porch, Hayley Petit was a strong athlete and she'd escaped her binds once and komisarjevsky admitted calling Hayes for help to overtake her and get her tied back to her bed.


Komisarjevsky and Hayes had in fact spent the two previous nights breaking into homes in Cheshire, so that the former, who fancied himself a thief or great talent, could show the older man how "easy it was to get into most of these upper middle class homes.

This break-in was different as evidenced by the rope, masks, gun zip ties and the initial severe assault upon the then sleeping Bill Petit whom the men admitted they'd watched  sleeping through sun porch gable windows at 3 am as they stalked the family. Twelve blows to Petit's head almost cost his life.

He was the lone survivor for the simple reason that as a man he was not the critical target of the men thus they allowed their attention to be directed elsewhere for the longest periods of time; they  needed him neutralized so that they could proceed with their  sexual assaults of the girls and Jennifer Petit and grab whatever goods or cash they might get. Thus, they took their attention away from him the longest, They'd left him tied to a pole in his cellar all night and morning and the blood loss from Komisarjevsky's bat blows and brain injury caused him to float in and out of consciousness.

The pair did however plan to kill him eventually via burning down the house with him tied. He foiled this plan when he escaped through the bilco steps hopping on tied legs rolling across his lawn  when he'd awakened to hear strange noises on the floor above him.

sadly Jennifer Petit believed the money would buy the men's departure but was unaware that Komisarjevsky sent Hayes out to buy Gasoline 5 containers worth at 6 am that morning. .The plan had long been hatched to kill the entire family and neither man was particularly disturbed by what they'd done as police at the scene who were setting up perimeters cited they both were laughing as they ran out of the Petit's burning home.

The amount of preemptory challenges allowed in Connecticut, where either side can simply dismiss a potential juror with no reason at all is already high.
Thus far the defense of Komisarjevsky who sits in on this process as allowed by law, has used up many more such challenges than the prosecution. The pre-requisites for the trial already are difficult enough, and the defense has tried unsuccessfully to have the trial moved-change of venue-based on publicity, and their client not getting a chance at a true objective jury as a result.

 The judge overruled this as this crime has had national media attention since it happened and then after the gag order was in essence partially made moot when first komisarjevsky co authored a self serving version of the crimes to a true crime writer and then later via the Hayes trial where much forensic and other evidence presented such as komisarjevskys cellphone photos of a nude Michaela tied to her bed as well as Hayley her 17 year old sister, the latter was taken at a time frame where Hayes was proven to be at the bank with Jen Petit, making it clear the photos were komisarjevskys doing.

The bottom line is that there is no place in Connecticut nor the country where one can find a jury that knows nothing about the case. But in fact this works for konmisarjevsky as so much that has been written is what he himself tried to spoon feed the potential jury pool via his book derived from interviews and journals given to an author who has since realized he'd been duped by a sociopath of the textbook variety.

For now the defense attorney's are using up their preemptory challenges like mad dogs, the prosecution also using a few but in his typical intelligent and conservative nature, dearington is just doing his job., while Donovan and Banford are alternately trying to both slow the process down to a halt as well as setting up another attempt at moving the trial ie "' see I told you we couldnt find an appropriate jury  here in New Haven.'"

These two lawyers have tried so many horse and pony tricks re a plethora of motions based on non exisiting or twisted precedents and any other unethical manipulation that they can conceive of, in order to " "save the life of their  client"

In the meantime, God is watching.