Office of Victim's Advocate Petition Komisarjevsky Motion to Sequester William Petit

Well glad to see that the Governor's recent plethora of cuts to the office of Victims advocate did not yet have a chance to affect thier prompt and terse response from the OVA to komisarjevsky's lawyers recent motion to have the sole survivor of their client's night of murder, rape and assault, sequestered from his very own trial. See below

Motion from OVA-in response to defense motion to sequester Petit fromTrial

If you scroll down a few posts on this page you should find a post regarding public defender, Jeremiah Donovan and Co.s latest motion to have all trial witnesses, including victim and sole survivor William Petit Jr., sequestered from( meaning he may not attend) the very trial of the man, who in his own words, beat Petit's head with a wooden bat, as he lay sleeping on sun porch,

" striking him at least 10-15 times, as hard as I could, as if chopping wood" 

* The above line excerpted from interview and/or letter to writer Brian MacDonald, who, after hearing the irrefutable evidence from the Hayes trial, including forensics and witness testimony, realized that he'd been suckered by komisarjevsky, a classic sociopath, by an obvious self- serving version of what supposedly happened on the morning of the rapes and murders, with all of the capital crime responsibility (  those crimes that render a death sentence) falling upon his accomplice, Steven Hayes -Naturally.

In reality, it was Joshua Komisarjevsky that targeted the victims and called the shots: being a life long chronic home invader with a history of attraction to young girls, setting fires, stalking his victims from trees with night vision goggles and even more damning - stealing personal belongings such as photographs and lingerie from attractive women who lived in the homes that he robbed -often while the homeowners law sleeping unaware of his prescence.

Anyone who knew about the Petit crimes saw through the MacDonald "book' immediately; it was so obviously a sociopath's ploy. There was also a strict gag order on the case at the time which komisarjevsky and his lawyers were well aware of. The objective was clearly to throw out facts that were already known to police, and  the states attorneys office, to lend the appearance of legitimacy to the book, so that komisarjevsky's entire version of the crimes would' be more likely to pass as the truth of what actually transpired that night. 

In reality this 'openness' was nothing more than a ruse, for all of the "facts" that komisarjevsky 'admitted to' were already a matter of record either through his own confession, Steven Hayes confession, witness corroboration, OR evidence seized at the scene - For example; cell phone photos of nude and partially nude Michaela and Hayley Petit taken by komisarjevsky on his Cell phone, these photos komisarjevsky had the audacity and stupidity to try to explain away as pictures taken only in order to "blackmail Dr Petit after the crimes"

This idiotic explanation must have taken komisarjevsky days to conjure; he knew the photos had been taken into evidence, he knew he had to address them, Thus, in classic  psychopath form, he came up with any possible alter reality other than the fact that he is, and was a sexual predator, rapist and pedophile, and following classic sexual sadist form he was memorializing his crimes by photographing them in order to excite himself by re-living the sick excitement he derived.

In any event, the cell phone photos that this lowlife took the time to take, dually served to show the central motivation for these crimes; A sexual predators desire to have complete control an eleven year old girl - still so much of a girl that her bed was ensconsed in her stuffed animals. He had spied Michaela Petit earlier that summer's evening, shopping at an area Stop and Shop supermarket near the Petit's-and komisarjesvky's (parents) home where he was residing after a recent prison  stint which he was still on active Parole for. After following the pair home he called his criminal pal steven hayes describing the actractive young looking blond Jennifer Petit and proposed they stake out the house for a break in involving rape robbery and whatever else opportunity presented..

 Although there is no doubt that although Michaela was his target. Joshua Komisarjevsky was self admittedely excited over the notion of tying up and  "having complete control "(ie power) over all of  the Petit house.This, despite the fact that as an obvious pedophile, attractive Jennifer Petit, at 48, was completely out of his sexual predatorial range, and Hayely, at 17 being an unusually strong and  intelligent girl  very much a woman in appearence at least, was far too threatening to komisarjevsky to be a central sexual target. This was not only because of her age and  her` size,she was a big girl at 6ft tall, her strength (she was an avid athlete) and moreover, her emotional strength, all of which excluded her as a natural target for this coward's power lust. He did however take the time to molest Hayely, as was evidenced by a single photo of hayely nude from the waist down tied to her bed with her legs tied apart.

This single photo if one goes by the cellphone timestamp seems to have been taken while Hayes had just left with Mrs Petit to her bank to extort the 15,000 as a buy off to guarantee her family's "saftey" I have thought a lot about that one pornographic photo of Hayely, as many of us have been perplexed by the fact that according to all press reports, only 11 year old Michaela was sexually assaulted, with two perverts in the house and an attractive 17 year old  tied to her bed all night? After attending portions of the Hayes trial and hearing about that one lone despicable photo of Hayely, I recalled Komisarjevsky's own words about Hayely taken from excerpts from the interviews and letters to Brian Macdonald.

This take it in also goes for his so called "journals" (which were conveinently found" by prison gurads in his cell)Much of these "journals" were in fact first writes and rewrites of letters to Macdonald specifically written  for inclusion in the book) must be taken with the complete aforeknowledge that he is a sociopath, Macdonald wrote him asking for his story about what happened and komisarjevsky sitting in prison decided that he would use this "book" and the writer who was to write it as a tool to pawn off a rewritten self serving version of the murders and rapes, using regurtitated facts that he well knew that the Cheshire police, The FBI and prosecutors were already privy to via irrefutable evidence and testimony, and therefore the entire book was his way of "explaining away" extremely damning evidence and trying to shape into something anything that might make him seem less of a monster and of course lay that mantle upon his accomplice, now convicted Steven Hayes.

I  believe the photo was taken more as an opportunistic act as well as a way of a final demaning of Hayely who he'd told Macdonald had been "a fighter till the end-she'd  refused to submit to he or Hayes even attempting to get away multiple times and nearly successful shed managed to start dialing 911 on her cell phone when he had to call hayes to help him subdue her and re-tie her.

He knew they were about to leave the home in flames killing everyone in the house; he had obviously sexually molested if not fully asssaulted Michaela as the time stamp on his cellphone left a trail of time evidence, as well as  at the Hayes trial among the cellphone photos found on Komisarjevsky's cell phone amongst pictures of himself nude and erect and a myriad of little Michaela, in various stages of undress and were described of  and nude from the waist down the fact made her lesss of a target to that to feel any more than a passing prfedatorial sexual curiousityerverted  to her despite her obvious beauty.

Nevertheless, being a sexual predator and a rapist he certainly derived excitement and a power lust from the notion that all of the females in that house were "under his control"  Michaela all evening, but more or less quietly, at least until Hayes left with Mrs Petit for the bank; he needed Mrs Petit's cooperation and compliance, which meant that she must trust him and not see him as the rapist killer that he was.

 In effect komisarjevsky ameliorated and manipulated the protective mother hen, whose trust he needed to hold onto just until he obtained her  money via her trip to the bank with Hayes.

He was such a good con artist in fact that he managed to win Jennifer Petit's trust, despite having nearly killed her husband upon entry to the home. I am certain she was unaware of the assault upon her husband and was merely told that he was tied up in the cellar as seeing that either man was capable of this type of brutality would have surely led her to take her chances and flee whilst at the bank thinking that the police would get to her home before any more of her family was harmed.

Note that once again on the trip to the bank to procure the 15000, Komisarjevsky has Hayes do the "dirty"  work, the dangerous work, IE if any cameras or witnesses caught Steven Hayes at the bank, or worst case scenario, if Jennifer Petit chose to tell a security person a kidnapper was outside in the car it would be Hayes that would be apprehended. 

I am certain that Komisarjevsky likely had to hold Hayes off" ie from the " main prize" he'd promised him as part of the incentive to invade the Petit's home in the first place ie "The pretty and young looking mom" he described to Hayes after following the pair back to their house from the Stop and shop was the perfect lure for his partner in crime, Steven Hayes. Hayes and komisarjevsky I am also certain had struck upon their mutual fantasies of rape ( ie power and control).prior to this crime, perhaps as far back as when they met at a Hartford area halfway house at the end of separate prison stints.

I do not think Mrs Petit was raped or even molested until the money was procured, due to komisarjevsky's "ultimate plan" In the meantime komisarjevsky had Mrs Petit, Hayley and Michaela tied up in three separate bedrooms, two on a separate floor from Mrs Petit. Time stamps on the cellphone photos prove that the first series of Michaela was taken shortly before and after Hayes was out getting the now infamous gasoline; filling 6 containers stolen from the Petits garage at approx 6;00 Am that morning, even admitting to sending him out of Cheshire knowing he'd still likely be caught by gas station cameras, but perhaps hoping police would not look that far from the scene of the soon to be arson murder/ crimes in Cheshire, and if they did?

It would be Hayes' image and not komisarjevsky that the cameras would see.

The entire book debaucle was very painful for the Cheshire and surrounding communities as well as the Petit Renn and extended families, I liken it to picking at an already raw scab. And it was all just another manipulation set up by Joshua komisarjevsky in hopes of fooling the public and his jury pool and thumbing his nose at the cases gag order at the same time. The order applied to all Attorneys, defendants, witnesses, police officers and judges involved peripherally or directly.

When the paperback book by crime writer Brian MacDonald was announced as imminently becoming published and thus available for purchase at local book stores and libraries, including the Cheshire library, this set the community and surrounding environs in a justifiable uproar.They knew after hearing excerpts from the paperback novel that it's entire reason for being insofar as Joshua komisarjevsky intention, was a grand attempt to dupe the public and thus also his potential jury pool.

People have a habit, even journalists amazingly enough, of reading anything and automatically citing it as fact. I've seen it with this case dozens of times, There has been more misinformation written about these crimes, most of it benefiting the rapist murderers such as  testimony that the murderers shared with  MacDonald or  defense paid psychiatrists etc ( Hayes had seen a shrink hired by his attorneys for 9 months during his prison stint whilst his lawyers desperately sought to rewrite history as well as Hayes already existing confession to police.)

In the end I was at least somewhat glad to note that writer Brian MacDonald snapped out of his temporary seduction by Komisarjevsky, who in the book he'd maddeningly described as surprisngly soft spoken and very articulate . After hearing details about forensic evidence in the case via the Hayes trial , he cited komisarjevsky as one of the " most manipulative" people" he'd ever encountered. 

It took him a while, but he eventually figured it out; unfortunately, a great many good people were greatly harmed and emotionally tormented because he Mr Macdonald ddint bother, or care to, take sociopath 101- something any responsible writer should research  before sitting down to write a book about murder and rape, despecially one based soley upon letters and interviews with the mastermind of these crimes.

As well Macdonald was aware, as was Komisarjevsky and his attorneys, that the entire case was under a gag order, which was utterly violated by the letters alone, never mind publishing a book this about a triple rape and murder where neither defendent had yet to even be scedhuled for trial!.

Thankfully in time the truth usually has a way of rising above lies and evil, albeit sometimes at its own pace painfully enough for those involved, However, Brain Macdonald will forever be a writer and a man that acted in collusion with a child rapist and murderer, a man who caused horrific suffering and pain and whether unwittingly or not helped put a psychopathic killers lies into book form where they were given eternal credibility, despite the fact that the entire book was a ruse and is rife with self serving lies. It is a book now and will forever stand to those who dont know any better as "the truth"

As a  victim of violent crime, I can tell you that when crimes like this happen, the truth is all that the victims and thier families have left. So to sully that truth by giving an open platform to the very man who orchestrated all of this violence, brutality and death upon the Petit family, and that platform being so premature no less not years after the crimes, once the evidence and facts have come out via a trial, but at a time where the possibility of any kind of counter to the ridiculous claims being made in this book and presented as fact to those not familiar with the case, ie the families as well as the prosecutor and police had to stand by as the book was sold, livid and mute, for they were bound by the same gag order that Mr Komisarjevsky and his attorneys so blatantly violated in cooperating with the writing of this book. 

Note Komisarjevskys lawyers certainly had to know about thier clients meetings with this writer in prsion- considering only they and komisarjevsky's parents were on his isitor list until Mr Macdonald began appearing on said list supposedly duping the guards into believing he was an attorney. This in one of the highest profile murder cases in the state. Can anyone spell collusion ???

Now....

Getting back to this latest audacious motion by komisarjevskys camp, who now have the audacity to claim Dr Petit is not a victim but rather a complaining witness" and as such should not be allowed to attend the trial of the very man who beat his head so badly with a bat that he required large quantities of blood and a 5 day stay in the hospital which he finally had to leave in order to attend his families funeral.

Besides the actual beating which resulted in Tramatic brain injury which has life long consequences, he suffers from cognitive problems, vertigo, and of course Post traumatic stress both from the assault and the personal knowledge of what his family experienced.

Dr Petit was also victimized by being tied up, threatened to be shot with what appeared a 9mm  gun  "if he moves put two bullets in him This from komisarjevsky to his accomplice Steven Hayes, then ultimately dragged to his cellar, bleeding profusely (the bleeding already life threatening  was exacerbated by the drug thinner Coumadin which Petit took daily. He spent 6 plus hours drifting in and out of consciousness, zip-tied  hands  feet and chest,with a garbage bag over his head, during the entire night and morning, knowing that his family was at the mercy of these men who had already shown they were capable of great violence.

Now despite all of this,which is a matter of record and was undisputed by either criminal and proven fact at the Hayes trial,, Komisarjevskys lawyers claim in their latest motion to sequester, that William Petit JR  is not a victim but rather a "complaintitive witness"

 It should be noted that this entire motion to sequester all witnesses is really only about komisarjevskys lawyers attempting to sequester Dr Petit, they don't want the Jury seeing William Petit face or reaction to the horrible evidence of his families rapes and murders, crimes that were in fact the brainchild of their client the defendant Joshua Komisarjevsky.

This motion to exclude Petit from the courtroom is made even more ironic considering several months ago buried within the now mountainous pile of motions regularly spit out by komisarjevskys public defenders, was a particularly offensive motion from komisarjevsky camp regarding the formal seating arrangements in the courtroom during his trial. whereby his lawyers insisted that unlike the Hayes trial-which amazingly, they were actually allowed to attend (so that they might take notes on what to do and what not to do etc.), komisarjevsky attorneys made a motion demanding to sit directly across from survivor William Petit Jr. so that "he could quote "face his accuser." This will give you a clear idea of the antagonistic attitude that has pervasively defined the komisarjevsky " defense" from the very start.  

And   this was just one of a bundle of courtroom seating arrangement demands that included: more space for The defendant Joshua komisarjevskys family" who apparently all plan to attend the trial in full visual  support of this murderous hell hound,) an objection to the Petit families being given a small room where they could retreat during breaks after particularly disturbing testimony such as autopsy photos descriptions etc.!

As well another motion decried what they labeled special arrangements that the beleaguered Petit families, who they claimed were getting by being given an "inordinate amount of seats and seats that faced the Jury, which is the standard seating arrangement of every solitary murder trial in Connecticut and many other states. Komisarjevsky's lawyers however didn't think it suit their clients best interests and wanted the prosecution and defendant reversed so that the jury did not get a birds eye view of the grieving Petit and extended families..

There were other obscene requests/demands made from the defense  motions that would seem to have set the tone for all of the motions to come-there must be at least 60-70 pre-trial motions thus far from Komisarjevskys "lawyers" 

Most of the motions were denied, as they were so clearly vividly self serving and had zero legal foundations to boot. But no matter, poor Judge Blue, and in a few cases Judge Fasano(the judge that presided early on in the pre-trial process before Blue) was and is still obliged by judicial law to answer every single motion as if it were legitimate - no matter how ridiculous --And I must say, he did this with a great deal more patience than I could ever muster, not to mention an incredible amount of intelligence, insight and in many cases, legal brilliance.

A few months back before the jury selection even started, there was actually a motion from the komisarjevsky lawyers citing an adamant objection to the Petit family and friends or anyone for that matter being allowed to wear their tiny little Petit Family Foundation Pins to court.

See accompanying link here for photo of the Pin  http://www.petitfamilyfoundation.org/

Yes, these lawyers actually had the audacity  to have their clerks who are paid with our tax dollars as are they, typing up motions that disallowed a family who lost three of their own, including two children, to rape and murder, from wearing pins that displayed the Charity logo. The design, which is understated and moreover, very small, was made by a friend of Hayley Petit, was chosen to be the eternal symbol for the family's  charitable foundation that has thus far raised thousands upon thousands for people suffering from chronic illness, violent crime as well as giving scholarships to deserving kids in need..

 For those who haven't seen it the small logo depicts three birds nestled together, one larger than the others, with a wing protectively encircling what appears to be her baby chicks.

Yes, the donning of these little pins is certainly going to inhibit the entire possibility of justice for Joshua Komisarjevsky, the same man who earlier demanded to have courtroom seating revamped from its 50 year old tradition so that he could quote" sit facing his accuser" 

Now if this had been any other group of public defenders besides Donovan, Bansford and co., I'd be taken aback, repulsed, appalled and disgusted, but frankly, with this group, morally speaking, they no longer have the capability to shock,they have long ago joined their client in utter evil incarnate, as well predictability( as in "the banality of evil" )

Sorry guys, there is no free passes under your ever-widening umbrella of  "all's fair while engaged in a "vigorous defense" for ones '"client"  ( no matter how much mayhem, murder torture and brutality said client has wrought upon innocent others.) As well  it should not go unmentioned that somehow through the years, the original notion of entitlement to a"fair defense", slowly segued into" a vigorous "defense which apparently includes doing, saying, whatever the hell it takes to get the guilty person "off"- no matter who is hurt,  re- victimized and no matter the price to the system and society. And by price, I am not only speaking of money, there is much more at stake here as a society, as human beings.

And the best, or really the worst, part of all of this, and the most ironic, is that the man, the "defendant/client" that these attorneys are sinking to such unethical depths over, would just as quickly rape and kill any of their own brethren, their granddaughters, for example,(their own children wouldn't be age appropriate for komisarjevsky as he is a pedophile) That is if they were within client Joshua komisarjevsky's reach, and preferred age range; ie  puberty 10-15 years of age or so. 

And despite this I am certain that not one of his three lawyers, two of whom I know for a fact have wives and adult children of their own, have allowed themselves this very real very important and pertinent consideration. Never mind the concept of how would I want to be treated if I were a surviving family member? ' Could I not, as a responsible attorney, represent my client as is my job, and yet do it in a way that is not so egregiously harmful to the surviving victims, and society at large.?'

Needless to say I wont be holding my breath for any one of these men to have such an epiphany; They all have their eyes glued to the rabbit blinders on as they circle the track. Clearly, the Petit family have long ceased being human beings to them; This puts them in the same company as their client.

In any case....

I was extremely heartened to wake up yesterday to see that during this particular  weekend, while the good people of the State set an all time attendance record for charitable activism ( at the annual  GE//Petit Family Foundation 5K Race day) the devoted folks at the Connecticut Office of Victims Advocate were  task mastering on behalf of the Petit family as well.

Below you will find both the motion from Komisarjevsky's lapdog's and more importantly the response from the OVA on behalf of Dr Petit.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/60479077/Motion-From-OVA-for-Dr-Petit-to-Attend-Trial

http://www.scribd.com/doc/60479659/Judge-Blues-Order-That-the-Sequestration-of-Dr-Petit-Be-Heard-in-Tandem-With-Issue-Re-Sequestration-of-All-Witnesses-Made-by-Defense-Heard-Aug-15

Thousands gather at Petit road race

The fourth annual Petit Family 5K Road Race Day has been another awesome success! Over Three Thousand people turned out for the event today,  a day of athletic competition, fun and activity sponsored by G.E as well as many other State and local businesses, each one listed on the Petit Family Foundation web-site http://www.petitfamilyfoundation.org/  .

There hasn't been an official report of the funds raised in this years Race day event yet, it's rather early for that,  but it is clear from the amount of people who showed up and participated,  that the support for the Petit's and their extended families has not waned at all as time marches on, but rather it continues to grow, to encircle not only this  family, who has lost so much, but as importantly to do our best to heed survivor Bill Petit Jr's plea made to us on the day of his families memorial; this was to carry on the spirit of his family Jennifer, Hayley and Michaela, by reaching out to other's who are suffering and in need.

A legacy was created by those inspiring words, so many people otherwise disconnected  from things of this sort, now turned towards issues and ther plights of others, things that they once might have turned away from not out of a careless disregard but rather a reflexive desire to shield themselves and their loved ones from all things unpleasant or painful. I have personally seen a gravitational change within this state and I am very proud of the continuing commitment towards activism and charitable endeavors.

Komisarjevsky defense makes motion to sequester witnesses during trial, including Dr Petit

As I said delay delay delay, that is the defenses plan of action.

In no particular order, here are the documents on the komisarjevsky lawyers motion to sequester witnesses during the upcoming trial.   This includes Dr Peti of course who the whole motion revolves around, he who both victim and witness.

However, Within Donovan and Bansford's motion, they have the audacity to claim that Dr Petit is not a victim, according to law, but a "complaintitive witness"

Its personal  jabs like these and other bad behaviors by these so called legal professionals that has alienated these lawyers already before the trial. has even begun.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/60164237/Motion-for-Sequestration-20110204160308
http://www.scribd.com/doc/60163430

http://www.scribd.com/doc/60164458

Judge Blue denies request in Petit murder trial for second Probable cause hearing

For anyone interested in Judge Blue's official, and extremely articulate - denial of the latest baseless, arrogant and time -consuming motion on the part of Joshua Komisarjevsky's  Public Defenders, you can find the motion ( inane prattle as per usual) and more importantly the official denial of said motion, here
http://www.scribd.com/doc/60059632 

This link brings you to my personal Laurel Okeefe Scribd account, which can be easily searched via google Goodsearch and other search engines. For those interested, I will be publishing most of the pertinent documents concerning the State of Connecticut vs Joshua Komisarjevsky as they become available to me on SCRIBD,  as I did in the State of Connecticut vs Steven Hayes, accomplice in the murders, rapes kidnappings and assaults of the Petit Family in Cheshire Connecticut in July 2007.

Incidentally, the "time consuming" element of said motion is in fact part and parcel of the motion's very existence, nay, purpose, as is nearly every one of  attorney Bansford and Donovan's veritable obscene deluge deluge of empty motions that they have written and filed pre-trial in the Joshua Komisarjevsky case.

Imagine, they have only just finished the Jury selection and these two lawyers have filed more motions than most lawyers file within 20  trials, and although Judge blue a surprisingly wise and insightful man, is well aware of  the lawyers intentions to drag out the process and attempt to frustrate the prosecutor, the Petit family and  the Judge, into throwing up their hands and simply say 'ok you win "no more -we can't take this anymore! Forget the Death Sentence, take the Plea deal' ie the one that komisarjevsky lawyer's officially offered in front of the court, to the press whining that they'd been "Ttrying to save everyone- especially the Petit Families, the unnecessary anguish of a drawn out trial, with accompanying upsetting testimony and images...By offering to plead their client guilty in exchange for life in prison( and no death sentence)

The prosecutor handling the Petit Family murder cases  has steadfastly pursued the death sentence for the murderers of the Petit familyfrom almost day one for both defendants; Steven Hayes, first to be tried and now convicted sits on death row awaiting his lawyers auto-appeal,  The prosecutor was very clear that this was his decision not the petit family or any other extended families of the victims. He stated  that he rarely and very cautiously purues the death penalty even in capital murder cases yet after two three days deliberating came to the conclusion that this case was so brutal, so horrible, with so much suffering took place because of it, that he felt it appropriate
Yet he perfunctorily sits down with his clerks and writes beautiful and sound legal reasoning citing appropriate cases in which each and every one of these lawyers points are nullified to absolute dust.

What Donovan and Co.'s "legal strategy" clearly is is slowwwwwwww down the wheels of justice,to a veritable standstill  and at the taxpayers expense no less) This way he wont have to get to the actual "defense" of his client, whom he has already as much as admitted his client was guilty as hell when he offered multiple times to Plead guilty in exchange for taking the death sentence off the table.

That client, for those of you who might yet be unaware, is in fact the self declared brainchild of the kidnapping, assaults, rapes and subsequent murders of the three members of the Petit family, including his targeting the family after spotting 11 year old Michaela Petit and her mother Jennifer, at a Local Cheshire Stop and shop where he followed them home at a stealth distance deciding then and there to check out their house for a break in/ based upon his desire to rape the slightly older looking 11 year old girl who had just experienced a summer growth spurt and was entering puberty.

Note; Komisarjevvsy has a history of pedophilia  attraction and behavior within his past, and when he did "DATE ( between stints in and out of prison and robbing houses, something he bragged about freely)"
it was consistently with much much younger girls, including the mother of his child who was five at the time of the Petit murders, and the mother of that child was 15 when she gave birth.
Do the math.

This was a man on the prowl, who, with aforethought and malice, targeted planned and executed (including the help of another sexual predator and life long thief from prison Steven Hayes) he chose this particular home invasion which he carried out that very same evening/ morning (3 am was the mens admitted entry time into the Petit's peaceful slumbering home once spotting William petit sleeping on his sun porch with some books on his chest)Komisarjevsky easily picked a basement door lock and once upstairs proceeded to bash Bill Petit in the head "as hard as if chopping wood" anywhere from 6 to 12 times depending upon which confession/ interview, he has given immediately rendering the male of the home bleeding profusely with a traumatic brain injury and fighting to stay conscious as komisrajevsky ran to open a door to let hayes in the two men bound petit hands and feet and ultimately tied him to a pole in his cellar with ZIP-TIES like the Police use which the men brought with them along with a faux 9 mm lookalike gun(it was a pellet handgun bought that day at komistrjevskys demand by Hayes.

All of this violence was not about robbery as both sets of lawyers have tried to imply; Komisarjevskys own words as well as Hayes have betrayed exactly their sick and evil motivation; rape. A house full of pretty women and now the one male based upon a desire to rape an eleven year old pretty, blonde, sweet little girl named Michaela Petit.

For those of you not familiar with Michaela and her life, please visit the Forever Michaela link to the right of my blog with the other link listings.

Michaela,  like her sister Hayley, was also murdered and at the very least, sexually molested, her body was found on the stairs, severelyy burned, as she has somehow managed to escape her binds and running amok as her bed was consumed in flames (from the gas that the men poured on her  and her sister as they lay helplessly tied to thier beds obviously knowing what the men were likely about to do.

Mr komisarjevsky actually took partially nude and nude cellphone photos of both girls, the photos discussed in terrible detail during the Steven Hayes trial testimoney.  Michaela Petit was a lovely 11 year old  girl beautiful inside and out,  and her life ended in the most cruel fashion -  being burnt to death among her stuffed toys, gasoline accelerant poured upon her and her bed, she was helpless tied to that bed tragically and infuriatingly having just been sodomized by Joshua Komisarjevsky.

 Komisarjevsly was a man, just  freed from prison months months earlier whose ankle tracking bracelet from the DOC was JUST REMOVED TWO DAYS PRIOR,  who decided that he would escalate his life long "extreme sport hobby" of home break ins,(-which he did almost exclusively while the homeowners were home at night- otherwise he found the break-ins, which were in fact home invasions (and should have been charged as such, all carried the potential for great violence)"  too boring".)  This piece of well known information came from Komisarjesvky himself as well as both his ex girlfriend, and the separate mother of his child, not to mention dozens of  friends" acquaintances confessions and his 2-3 interviews with crime writer Brian MacDonald.

He also mentioned the high he got from knowing that the often female home dwellers were in the house as he creepy crawled through their home and their belongings sometimes taking pictures of the women and lingerie and other personal items. This is also a major red flag and should have qualified Komisrajevsky as a strongly potent sex offender in the making at his Parole Hearing, in which he was not even present nor was his criminal file, as the parole board claimed it was usually the case due to interdepartmental arguments over who should pay the copying costs, the prosecutors or the warehouse with the written records, depending upon where the files were at the time of the early release parole"

Also, previous confessions to various police departments whose jurisdictions held Houses that Joshua komisarjevsky was caught having broken into, (his break-ins covered multiple counties in Connecticut and he was already once given a sweet plea deal for the first "string" which the judge decided to render his 6 month term awaiting trial  for the second string" over 22 houses this time, as time served"  Therefore he was to serve 9 more years and 6 years special parole as the unusually savvy prosecutor and judge in the second string judicial proceedings(another plea deal-no trial) seemed to be aware of the distinct danger that this baby faced 25 year old posed to the law abiding residents of this state.


Komisarjevsky actually served less then two years in prison in solitary confinement having complained via his elderly parents that he was being picked on by other inmates. He was then shipped off to a halfway house which permitted him far more freedom than a prison. one of these houses is where he met his future accomplice Steven Hayes, and when I am sure they both hit upon their shared interest in rape torture and a fantasy of living that out with some money thrown in for good measure. The only reason komisrajevsky did not rape sooner is because at 5 11 and 128 lbs he was far from an imposing force and could never get a family home under control without another criminal male with stronger physical force and equal interest in rape and control of women.

In any event......
Mr. Komisarjesvksys lawyers had a lot of nerve motioning for a second probable cause hearing, after summarily waiving their clients first one at the appropriate time shortly after the crimes occurred like every other murder defendant, as well we all knew the waiving was for what was clearly manipulative and strategic reasons/

But the real point here was my awe of the otherwise rather plain spoken and down to earth Judge Blue, a man who has been presiding judge in both accomplice Steven Hayes case as well and the Komisarjevsky trial despite his lawyers trying to have Judge Blue removed as soon as they saw how savvy he was while they were allowed to attend the Hayes trial.

With all of this said , we are back to Judge Blue's  formal judicial denial of Komisarjevsk'ys lawyers motion for a second probable cause hearing,it is in a word; simply spectacular;  I ecourage all who care about such things to please have a read. While all of Judge Blues written rulings on the thus far mountain of motions have been surprisngly loquacious and from a legal standpoint  unbelievably thorough and inpenetrable insofar as a possible source for future mistrial declarations)   this one is more of a masterpiece than some of the others.

And btw when i refer to the komisarhevsky lawyers mountain of motions its for lack of a more sunstantial term; but never mind the term  flurry" which the mainstream media keeps calling this inordinate amount of Donovan/ Bansford motions on behalf of thier client joshua komisarjevsky  this overused copycatted word first of all is not accurate enough and more importantly to me it almost sounds as if the media and presss are not getting it right---as usual.  This only makes the defense attorneys appear to be working within normal papameters for legal counsel for this man

 I plan on attending portions of this trial due to begin in September, although we can count on Mr Donovan attempts to delay this already twice delayed trial set date.  In any event I will continue posting  the most pertinenet of the court documents as they become available to me on my SCRIBD account under my name Laurel OKeefe, the same as I did during the Hayes trial.  Please feel free to email me via the adress found on my profile link. Ive taken the cooments section down for now as it became too distracting and attracted too many folks looking to gain attention by appearing to be contrarions to victims of violence.  Its a shame because I did enjoy a fair amount of the feedback and intelligent banter. I may reinstate thisfunction if the good base readership continues and the arses stay mute and the hacking,/spyware//adware spammers go away....We'll see. 

In the meantime; Godspeed to the Petit's Hawkes, Renn and Chapman families, There are so many of us standing with you and willing to hold you up  through our prayers and our collective strength and committment during this trial where Justice will be served

Public videotapes police brutality in New Haven?

This story and the accompanying video footage of a recent occurance of Police brutality in New Haven Connecticut, is extremely disturbing.

The first two officers could clearly be seen beating and slamming their "suspects" head into the pavement, punching, stomping and kicking him repeatedly while the man lay moaning and screaming out in pain, helpless, face down in the middle of the street, shouting out something about a shoulder injury and he couldn't put his arm behind his back ( to anyone watching it is obvious that the man had some kind of shoulder injury that prohibited his arm going behind his back, a fact that his mother later corroborated for the media. I had a rotator cuff tear as a kid and I cannot put one arm behind my own back without it causing excruciating pain, as well if a person ever experienced a disclocated shoulder they cant do the same!

In reality, these particular cops were going to beat this guy BADLY no matter what he did,
or didn't do with his arms behind his back , that much is obvious. The shoulder injury just makes this whole ugly episode even worse.

In viewing the video one can see that as soon as the second police car pulled up, the first two officers, who were in the midst of severely assaulting their prone, helpless prisoner" backed off substantially as they also suddenly started yelling very  loudly stop fighting stop fighting (which the man was not doing) for the benifit of the onlooker in the SUV that had pulled up and was clearly oggling the brutal attack.


Its likely that the first two doing the beating were typical  abusive type-cops and unsure of what officers might be in the second squad car, (IE were they decent, by the book, rule abiding type cops or..were they part of the degenerate -cop club, like themselves,  clearly sharing the mindset be it spoken or unspoken, that over- the- top physical force was just fine thank you very much and indeed their damn right as cops as they seemed to employ theyre violence with gusto as one notes while watching this infuriating video.

 Even if the back-up police officers weren't directly abusive towards suspects, like they were, they almost always always will still tow the "old blue wall ethic"   as was done here right for the eyes of the probing cell phone video camera. For those unfamiliar with the blue wall"  Its an age old unsoken rule that cops dont tell on eachother even when a "good cop is extremely uncomfortable with whats gone down in the apprehension of a suspect or often the abuse of a suspect once he's in custody, which happens far more often than most Connecticut residents would ever imagine.

The old 'we don't tell on other cops even when they clearly have abused their power ' is
alive and well and in 20/20 display, all the way from the other cops arriving in the multiple squad cars, the obvious apprehension and unwillingness to stop their fellow officers from what was clearly police brutality to the words from one of those fresh back up cops arriving well into the bloody scene - at the very end of this home video if you listen carefully, you can here one of those police officers saying --and it wasnt a question it was a statement meant to be understood by all present " he had a gun, he had a gun, right, right!

There was no gun present on that man and no danger of a gun being used on them as they held him down tasered him stomped kicked punched and slammed his head into the pavement. And what wil you bet that the guy was some crack dealer they spotted on the corner that ran out of a natural instinct. Beatings like this happen every week in New haven and other cities in Connecticut.

And lest anyone assumes wrongly, I am far from a "bleeding heart liberal": In fact, I am an anti-crime activist,  lobbyist as well as a survivor of violent crime.
Once a registered Democrat (now turned independent) I have learned to listen and best solve the issues at hand and ignore all the partisan BS as it only divides us. As such within Connecticut's legislative politics - especially concerning crime, the courts and crime victims rights, I now generally lean toward Republican views, This, simply because

. Disappointingly even "good cops" are prone to this age old unspoken reality for fear of being outcasts or worse, and they will sometimes either lie for a bad cop or cover by simply claiming that they "didn't see" the illegal cop behavior -like this one-- take place, rather than be considered a "snitch".

And yes, this kind of thing in varying degrees, still goes on every day in both bigger Connecticut cities,and believe it or not, smaller suburbs. Suburbia has their own bad cops and they often travel in packs-I have borne witness to outrageously abusive cops in towns within Fairfield County Connecticut for example; just as there are many, many decent, respectable and courageous Police officers,
deserving of our collective respect and appreciation, there are still plenty of cops that abuse their power on a daily basis and it takes a lot of cooperation and or apathy ie remaining mute about it from other police officers from the same force, to keep all of this going.

And then out comes the occasional home video and folks believe this abuse to be a rare thing. It's not.

As the short cellphone video illustrates, even the tone of these abusive police officers voices changed, and they leapt into an automatic and very obvious cover up for what was clearly an overkill police brutality,assault, not a restraint situation, which they continuously tried to loudly, verbally infer, even during the severest portion of the beating, they'd obligatorily yell for the benefit of those within earshot and eyesight "stop fighting stop fighting!" A statement which was beyond ludicrous, as the increasingly concussed and bloodied helpless man on the ground was not resisting at all - just bleeding,begging and moaning. They could see even in the midst of their hate fueled fervor, both the growing number of onlookers in the apartment building windows above the open street where one man was heard shouting "he ain't fighting!!!" and the newly arriving squad car all equaled possible trouble for them.


The saddest part of this whole story is the part about the little boy that lived in this neighborhood and witnesses this brutality from his home - from the take down to the beating, all the way to the pool of blood left on the street after the ambulance removed the beaten man, the little boy reportedly told his mother that he "no longer wanted to be a policeman when he grew up"

Those cops stole from that young man what every child is entitled to; an innocent and unsullied dream job or" career".
Some children in high risk areas such as the one where this police assault occurred, don't even bother mustering dreams - they either find it too difficult to imagine themselves rising to heights greater than where they are in that very moment or they are too angry or sad to allow themselves to dream for anything; This young boy did up until two New Haven Police officers showed him the ugliest side of what should be one of the most honorable and courageous careers in this country.

Lets pray for this boy and hope that he is counseled about what he saw, that he is somehow helped to understand and
reconcile what he witnessed and know that it is very very wrong and illegal.And although sadly we cannot tell him it is rare, that bad cops like these are the minority insofar as Police officers in general.

Perhaps he will be helped to understand that in this world although bad people exist even policmen with guns uniforms and badges, this means all  have a responsibility to do our best to make sure that what he saw doesn't happen again.

Like the anonymous person who took this video and shed light on what otherwise might have been a dark ongoing secret,  they showed they cared by filming it and showed courage by sharing it with the media. .Perhaps when he grows up, he too will have exceptional courage, and he will become that Policeman he had always wanted to be.  And he will be one of the good ones, the brave the proud helping  ensure that bad policemen, like the ones he saw hurt that man will become a thing of the past, something to be read about, like the holocaust, slavery and war.
.

Death Penalty Challenged In Second Cheshire Home Invasion Case - Courant.com

These used car salesman in suits are really reaching.

Jurors' Thinking In Casey Anthony Trial Starts To Emerge : The Two-Way : NPR

I am so disgusted and disheartened by this obscene verdict for the murderer of two year old Caylee Anthony, that words almost fail even me. Except for a few choice ones.

Lookism.

Sexism.

Female Sociopath and a mother's despicable enabling of her her daughter- murderer of her own grandchild (ie Cindy Anthony's many 11th hour lies, especially the ones about looking up Chloroform on the family computer etc.)
A terrible Judge.

A terrible Jury with low intelligence, who allowed themselves to be blinded by all of the above.



A more thorough analysis later ( when the anger and the pain ebbs just a bit.)

Murder trial jurors can be overwhelmed, traumatized

A decent article from CNN regarding an important syndrome that I wrote about back in June(-check archives link on right) Its about a type of "second hand "trauma if you will, that both Jurors on violent crime/murder cases experience, as well as ordinary members of the community and society at large.

 Anyone who has become privy to the details of a violent crime, be it murder, multiple murders, rapes and even bad assaults, are finally being recognized as subject to a form of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder that can be almost as severe and life affecting as it is for a surviving victim, witness, family members, friends schoolmates neighbors or anyone at all that has become privy to even the most basic of details re the violence involved.

We tend to only think about these things when there are prominent murder cases that are splashed all over the mainstream media, such as the Petit murders, and the Caylee Anthony murder, both of which have garnered a great deal of media hype-although thankfully for the Petit's, which happened here in Connecticut, has not quite reached the insane media frenzy as the Casey case.

 In September this will change a bit as the  the mastermind of the Petit murders and rapes Joshua komisarjevsky, will finally be tried, nearly five years after the brutal burning murders of Hayley and Michaela Petit, the strangulation of mom Jennifer Petit and the baseball bat assault on lone survivor William Petit's head (komisarjevsky struck him admittedly 6-10 times in the head)  This, after seeing the sole male of the house sleeping thru the sun porch window as he skulked the outsides of the property with Hayes---he broke in via a locked basement door, beckoning Hayes to wait outside until he let him in through a door,proceeded to stealthily climb the basement steps-he had checked out the basic layout of the home earlier that evening after following Michaela and her mother home from the Stop and Shop where he'd initially targeted the pair) And Joshua Komisarjevsky stood over the slumbering man at 3 am July 23rd 2007 and proceeded to bash him in the head quote "as hard as I could, as if chopping wood"

Steven Hayes, according to komisarjevsky, stood outside smiling, seemingly egging him on. For his part, Steven Hayes claimed he was quote shocked when he watched how vicious komisarjevskys baseball bat assault  upon the sleeping mans head who did nothing whatsoever to resist and it appears that that assault set the tone for the rest of the crimes to come;

The truth regarding those few minutes will never be known, but what we do know is the assault upon Petit was beyond overkill and utterly unnecessary in order to simply render Dr Petit a non threat. The men toted a 9 mm lookalike gun which Petit and the girls all likely believed was real. It was in fact a pellet handgun designed to look ominous yet was far cheaper and easier to procure for the men-Hayes bought it at walmart that very evening at komisarjevskys request.

Like myself when assaulted with multiple blows to the head,, Dr Petit lost all sense of bearing, partial consciousness, suffered severe vertigo where the room seems to be spinning and severe nausea from his damaged brain and vestibular system-inner ears and balance portion of the brain.

 He was in shock from brain trauma and bleeding which took place both within his brain and from the lacerations made by the repeated blows of a Louisville slugger that he'd grabbed from the petits basement.  Petit who was on coumadin, a blood thinner to prevent strokes, should have by all accounts died.

The fact that as komisarjevsky opened the door to let Hayes in and then tied Dr Petit hands and feet with zip ties slipping on Petits blood in the process brings such a vivid image to my mind and heart as it certainly did for anyone reading or hearing about it....this is but a tiny parcel of the brutality that this man Joshua komisarjevsky not only planned but was responsible for heightening every step of the way throughout the evening of terror and carnage and he did for one reason; power and control over a sleeping vulnerable family that lived lives of modest goodness and indeed were healers and philanthropists and aspiring healers-Hayley was plann9ng on becoming a Doctor like her dad and was to attend Dartmouth in the fall.

Komisarjevsky is the second of two accomplices tried for the sexual assaults,  murders, kidnappings and grand larceny, money that komisarjevsky wanted to bring his teenage girlfriend back from out of state where her parents had wisely moved her-away from the career felon who was just released on early parole having had his ankle bracelet removed 2 days before targeting Michael and Jennifer Petit while they shopped at an area supermarket. Komisarjevsky admitted to being attracted to the 11 year old Michael and used Mrs Petits blonde attractive appearance to guarantee the help of Steven Hayes a man who was the approximate age of Mrs Petit whereby komisarejsvky only 28 at the time had a long history of attraction to teenage girls.

.

Forensic evidence entered during the Hayes trial  proved that 17 year old Hayley Petit, who was not at the Stop and shop when komisarjevsky targeted Michaela and her mom (  added motivation for Hayes who shared komiarjevsky's fantasies of control rape and domination) Hayely was tied to her bed throughout the entire evening and morning hours of the crimes, she was also at least sexually molested during the ordeal by at least komisarjevsky, although he only confessed to "molesting": Michaela, close up cellphone photos of a nude, tied up and splayed Hayley Petit were found on  komisarjevsky's cellphone among many others of 11 year old Michaela Petit dressed up in various outfits, including a schoolgirl plaid skirt and white collared shirt (typical pedophilia Fetishism and other photos he took depicting Michaela nude and  in various stages of undress. These photos were mostly time stamped during the hours approx 7 am when Hayes is believed to have been sent by komisarjevsky to an out of town gas station to fill multiple containers from the Petit garage, with gasoline clearly preparing for the burning down of the Petit house in order to destroy DNA evidence of the rapes and murder by arson of all of the witnesses to thier barbaric rampage of crime.

Hayley's photos were time stamped at approximately 9 am, a time when police believe Hayes had just left for the Bank with Mrs Petit, again the sidekick doing the dirty work-he was caught on video cameras, while komisarjevsky ever the manipulative sociopath,  basically ran amok, through the house, fully raping Michaela-  forensics in the Hayes trial proved that despite komisarjevskys false claims of only ejaculating on Michaela as she lay tied up and naked on her bed, he had indeed sodomized the girl just minutes before dousing her in gasoline, pouring a trail to her sister Hayley, tied to her bed as well and down the steps to a now deceased via strangulation  Mrs Petit, whom Hayes raped the very moment he stepped into the house with her back from her bank once both men tied her down including a noose around her neck as she screamed begging for her life. She had just fully complied with the men's request and withdrawn 15,000 dollars which shed handed over to Hayes as soon as she entered the car outside the bank.


I attended parts of the Steven Hayes trial; it was very difficult to get in due to limited media seats of 25 total in the New Haven Connecticut courthouse but I managed to attend 4 days of testimony and evidence along with all many members of the local and national media,the familys of the Petits and Hawkes etc, the Jurors, Judge, and a grouping of other attendees who all seemed very emotionally invested in this case - it hit home for thousands of people within this state alone.

We all listened to graphic descriptions of the many lewd photos on Mr Komisarjevsky's cellphone; photos of innocent little 11 year old Michaela tied up and raped amongst her stuffed animals, after having been quietly  molested fondled and made to change into various outfits while this sleazeball snapped photos on his cellphone. This all took place while her mother lay tied in a separate room, I believe Jennifer Petit was not aware that this boyish looking young man)who was himself a native of Cheshire) was after her 11 year old, certainly I believe she dint know that he was molesting Michaela one floor above her where she herself was tied much of the night and morning hours waitng for the Bank to open.

It stands to reason from the statements of both men, pieces of komisarjevsky's interviews with Writer Brian Mcdonald who has since said that hed realized hed been totally duped by the soft spoken boyish looking young man hed corresponded with and met with in prison several times for purposes of writing a tell all book about "what really happened the night of the murders"   After listening to the Hayes trial he realized that hed been used by a classic sociopathic manipulator whod been trying to basically feed a self serving version of the rapes and murders whereby naturally steven Hayes was responsible for all of the really bad stuff ie such as the capital crimes which are what will land komisarjevsky on Death row when the truth comes out.
In fact Mcdonald was quoted as saying that Komisarjevsky was the most manipulative person hed ever met and this was a guy who wrote true crime novels!

In any case as I said  I believe that Jennifer Petit was unaware of komisarjevskys molestations of Michaela and certainly his obscene photo taking of her.  I am certain that she was more worried about her 17 year old daughter Hayley, which in a normal male mind would be the obvious target of someone planning on sexual assault--not a pubescent child who was so innocent that she was actually sleeping with her mother when the men first creepy crawled up the stairs and with the fake gun in one of thier hands tied up Mrs Petit alone and  led little michaela off to her own bedroom a floor above to be tied up sepearately.


No Josh Komisarjevsky B.S d Mrs Petit right offf the bat, indeed likely forming some kind of near stokhom type syndrome with the naive and notoriously kind Mrs Petit. Komisarjevsky later told macdonald he liked Jen Petit and said "I never should have talked with her, that was the mistake----implying that hed feel no remorse whatsoever had she not been so kind and willing to give him the money he wanted and told her he needed. No matter what this man said, I do not believe for a moment that he has a shred of guit or shame or conscience for in effect creating this evening of brutality, and murder and the lifetime of trauma that all of us are left with.

 Komisarjevsky, the consumate sociopath, and decidedly the in-charge guy with this set of crimes, spent much time pacifying the innocent and kindhearted Jennifer Petit who I'm certain believed this young man who after all unlike his accomplice Hayes did not appear or sound menacing, he assured Mrs Petit over and over, that the men just wanted money, that her husband was unhurt and simply tied up in the cellar, where he could not interfere; he made certain to keep Hayes who was likely chomping at the bit from raping Mrs Petit..... until the last piece of the crime-the 15,0000 that (either Mrs Petit offered in exchange for her girls being left alone ie not raped- and safe and alive along with her husband.

Komisarjevsky knew that if he allowed Jennifer petit to see the blood pool on the sun porch where he had bashed her sleeping husbands head in, he'd probably never get her compliance as she would become fully aware of his potential for violence and would run the minute she got into that bank.

As well, if he went ahead and fully raped 11 year old Michaela whilst in earshot of Jennifer Petit, he would lose all credibility with her in the same fashion, instead he stealthily went about molesting Michaela with a pillowcase over the girls face for the most part (photos depicted this)  He made certain Mrs Petit viewed him simply as a desperate for money, non violent thief, who just wanted jewelry valuable and money- and who would leave her home and family as promised, as soon as the bank opened and she accompanied his accomplice the older larger more imposing looking Steven Hayes, to withdraw the "goodwill" money.

These and other details such as the fact that Hayley managed to break Free of her binds several times and actually tried to call 911 on her cellphone before komisarjevsky had to call Hayes in the help him hold her down and tie her back up, the fact that Hayley's body was found face down burnt at the top of the family stairs, showing shed had gasoline poured so liberally upon her bed and clothing that her ties likely burnt from the heat and she ran aflame straight into the path of the poured gasoline fueled fire.

These these are what make this set of crimes that much more brutal and thus traumatic and heart breaking for anyone who hears even the scantest of details about it.   And Joshua komisarjevskys actions and involvement in these crimes including but not limited to his planning and executing of the crimes apart from many other similar home invasion murders. He orchestrated via manipulation control and deceit the rapes and slaughter of three wonderful people-two children and one adult women who like her husband whom he also fully intended on burning to death in the fire, was a healer, a pediatric nurse who suffered from Multiple Sclerosis, yet amazingly still found the strength to become one of The Connecticut Chapter of MS's strongest, most devoted, avid fundraisers and event participants as were her daughters Hayley and Michaela.

Hearing the details of these crimes when they happened in July 2007s broke my heart. As I learned more I became more and more upset and utterly preoccupied with the fact that our Connecticut Parole board had atypically let both of these men out on early release parole despite histories amounting to over 55 felony convictions between them!  Its bad enough when any violent crime happens, but when learning that this particularly horrific and cruel hours long kidnapping sexual assault and murder by burning to death, shouldn't have ever been allowed to happen had our state legislators judicial committee members and parole board-done their jobs-the Petit family would be alive and likely the happy productive and kind people that they were when alive.


Practically all of the state of Connecticut have been touched by these women's murders and by the losses suffered by Dr Petit (who no longer practices due to his head/brain injuries, as well as the grief and Post traumatic stress of losing his entire family in such an unbelievably cruel fashion)

And many many people outside of this state have written to the Petit's and their extended family's about how badly these crimes have tormented their thoughts and broken their hearts. I myself have imagined what each one of these girls went through on the morning of their torture and murders a thousand times over.

Just as things settled the littlest bit, we were all re-traumatized when Joshua komisarjevskys supposedly tell all paperback came out,  with a self serving autobiographical version of the entire evening and morning events leading up to and culminating in the murders of Michaela Hayley and Jen Petit the arson of their home and the abduction of komisarjevsky and Hayes as they ran from the burning Petit house laughing according to police testimony jumping into one of the Petits family cars and running it straight into two police cruisers that had set up a road block after being called by the manager of the bank where Jennifer petit had managed to whisper to a teller that she needed the money for a ransom as her family was being held hostage and if the police were not called no one would get hurt"

This, like everything else promised to Jennifer Petit by Joshua komisarjevsky, was a purposeful lie, designed to garner her cooperation and hopefully ensure that she would be reluctant to run away at the bank or call police, as first of all she believed komisarjevsky's promise not to hurt anyone because shed not seen the violence hed committed upon her husband nor her daughters and her rape had not yet occurred.

As Hayes took her to the bank to withdraw the money, Komisarjevsky remained at home with her family tied up and with what she believed was a 9 mm handgun, which in actuality was the 9mm lookalike pellet gun that komisarjevsky had given Steven Hayes the money to buy the very day he'd spotted and followed home eleven Year old Michaela and her mom after theyd shopped for their Sunday dinner, a dinner which Michaela, an aspiring vegetarian chef cooked for her family for the very last time in her young innocent life.

Casey Anthony's defense expected to rest case

My prayer for Caylee:

May this  despicable shameless media frenzy surrounding this beautiful two year old child''s murder end with haste..

Let these jury members see the truth, as it is so very clear -  to me and millions of others across the globe.
There is no "mystery"

Casey Anthony, acting alone, murdered, with pre-meditated aforethought and malice, her own innocent child. Her motivation, while is not necessary in determining that she is in fact guilty as hell, in my opinion was all about

 a) Casey Anthony obtaining freedom from motherhood becoming unencumbered by the responsibilities and constraints of a small child, heightened by the fact that her life revolved around such free wheeling behaviors as bar hopping, bed hopping, and other vapid and selfish pursuits.

I  believe that Casey Anthony is one of the more sinister and manipulative sociopaths that I have encountered throughout my years studying criminals that kill and or maim - and Ive seen a bunch.

Female sociopaths are not all too common, and when they do crop up within our society,  generally speaking they do not typically kill, although their manipulations deceptions and tendency to break laws and run roughshod over the rights of others, can be extremely destructive.  But while they may not kill as frequently as their sociopath male counterparts, when they do-they often get lighter sentences, or even wind up in mental facilities rather than the prisons that they clearly belong in.

Part of this may be our societal tendency, as is illustrated well by the judge presiding over the case refusing to emotionally compute the notion of a somewhat attractive and diminutive, young woman  from a respectable middle class upbringing, killing someone, much less her own child.


Tragically, this is a classic mistake that like so many, others in our society, erroneously believe; our courts systems, including otherwise intelligent judges attorneys sheriffs, prison guards you name it and an attractive young woman need only be a halfway decent sociopath, and seductress and she's going to receive special treatment both in and out of prison as well often will not receive the same verdict or sentences as a male who is accused of the same crimes with the very same facts within that case.

Our society seems to insist upon learning about violent crime and look ism, the hard way (remember Ted Bondy and or  Karla Homolka ( ie of the infamous Ken and Barbie rapist and murdering married tag team from Canada during the 90's?)

Tragically, this societal and judicial ignorance always, always, costs the innocent their lives. and the victims of crime their 'justice..

From early on in this case I noticed a distinctive red flag; an unnatural sibling-like rivalry that Casey Anthony seemed to have with her own child regarding her parents natural concern and deep love for their granddaughter little Caylee.  Their love was within normal parameters, there was nothing sinister about it nor suspect, I say this lest anyone out there reflexively thinks that Casey's jealousy of her own child was based in reality.
As a woman with a personality disorder Casey clearly resented the fact that her parents doted on her very own child, and saw this as competition and resented it. She wanted to be the eternal child. Rather than see Caylee as an extension of herself and thus, her parents love and concern when Caylee"went missing" ,
which was a healthy and indeed in this case they were so steeped in denial about Casey that it took the elder Anthony's who had divisiveness between themselves also, too long in my opinion to finally put their foot down and say ok where the hell is this child -- we are calling the Police in NOW.(It took a month of vague lies about non existent nanny's and then Casey's car smelling of a dead body before they finally were jointly willing to officially involve the authorities.

However, as an obvious narcissist and sociopath Casey Anthony saw her own daughter, as competition for her parents love and attention, as well equally seeing poor little Caylee as an object, a plaything, that she was tied of now jealous of and was getting more and more" in her way"  Caylee impeded Caseys lifestyle and the things that she wished to do when She wanted to do them; this does not go over well with a double narcissist/sociopath, never mind that she had Caylee at such a young age and was for all intents and purposes and single mother.  Add to the mix, an pre-existing  resentment for her parents because they were authority figures, whom Casey viewed as the ever critical enemy also constantly in her way"....the rest is very easy to figure out.
Casey had a lot of friction-with her parents that was clear, as was the fact that it was 99% of her own making as is the case with teens who have "oppositional-defiant disorder" which usually evolves into full blown anti-social personality disorder or Sociopath/psychopath as most people know it. There are a handful of personality disorders such as narcissistic PD, borderline PD, AVOIDANCE PD etc. What they all have in common is a disregard for other peoples rights boundaries and a disdain for rules and authority-be it parental, school, in the work environment, Police and other federal or state agencies etc. Most feel that THEY are different and that rules are for shmucks- if you'll pardon the language.


. To see a perfect example of Caseys jeolosyand resentment of Caylee who was dead at that point remember just watch the  infamous jailhouse phone conversations between Casey and her mom shortly after Casey's arrest, look listen closely. I believe that this jealousy largely perpetuated Casey's idea and thoughts of killing her child. Between this sick rivalry, which for a mature woman,would seem absurd, but for a
 young emotionally stunted sociopath, it wasthe perfect recipe for murdering one'schild -this combined with
 a desire to return to her previously held free-wheeling, partying lifestyle, a lifestyle that involved spending evenings with whatever young man of the moment, culminated in her premeditatively killing her darling 2 year old.


The text messages that this presiding Judge wrongly disallowed from being entered into evidence, clearly showed this part of Casey Anthony's mindset and motivation to kill Cay lee, just prior to the murder, They spoke volumes to that motivation;  She wrote in her text to her then beau " in just another couple of days baby you can bring your ass over here any frigging night you feel like it!"

Now for some ridiculous reason that was certainly not based upon  common sense fairness or proper judicial/ criminal precedents, this judge,who in my humble opinion is not a very good judge
(he is very inconsistent
far too detached and presumptive and this particular decision that he made regarding the dis-allowance of these extremely pertinent texts to be entered into evidence, ie shown to the jury-whom he ordered  out of the courtroom while they were read out loud in front of the lawyers and families was a major mistake that cost the prosecution and the rest of the law abiding world-the truth-and justice for Caylee.

.And  by way of explanation for disallowing the incriminating texts to be seen or heard by the jury-This Judge claimed the texts were prejudicial and made no sense anyway".  He then elaborated  saying"I mean,whats she going to do- kill her parents too?!  This was rhetorical, The Judge did not want nor expect an answer.
But if I was that prosecutor I would have given him a very pointed answer; and yet for whatever idiotic reason the prosecutor didn't say a word and let the entire thing go.

This shows his incompetence. My best guess is he figured the judge was stubborn he wasn't going to get anywhere likely and made the mistaken decision that he probably didn't need the texts to win the case against Casey Anthony. Plain stupid. You always always argue a point when you know you are right, your deadvictims right to justice is at stake.
Now when the judge said whats she gonna do kill her parents to" he did so in a mocking tone, which I immediately recall thinking  Does he not know a thing about forensic psychiatry?

Or is he like so many other men-and a fair number of women in this country-fooled by Casey Anthony's age and fresh scrubbed appearance, rendering the mere idea that this petite young woman-a girl almost , primly
sitting, in a crisp white shirt, on a subconscious level....had the Judge fallen prey to"Caseyitis" It sure was beginning to look that way  as I watched the judges decision and his"reasoning" in making it.

Here is a young mother accused of killing her 2 year old child and throwing her in the trunk of her car where she was left for days in the heat to rot while Casey lived her typical daily life without a sign of even discomfiture or moodiness.

The days following Caylees murder were filled with video watching, dancing clubbing,drinking having sex with  the moment boyfriend  (note; I am reluctant to bring up a women' sex life within the confines of a criminal case however in this instance  it relate to Caseys state of mind following the murder  in this case,thus rendering it extremely pertinent to the case.
the "accidental drowning story" where Casey  tried to throw her father under the bus by claiming
out of nowhere that he disposed of Kaylee's little body how on earth could she be so emotionally disconnected as to behave as countless witnesses have testified she did, in the days and weeks that followed this supposed accidental death of her child?!

Shopping, Getting Tattoo's, chirping away and texting on her cellphone with friends, all whilst simultaneously fending off her parents growing concern and demands for answers re Caylee's
whereabouts.

Do the math Judge. the texts make perfect sense -we are not dealing with a nice  young gal that is built like you and I -in her soulless frame lies the heart of a manipulating sociopath;

Thus to disallow key evidence that points directly to motive, text messages clearly showing said motive for the murder of her child a la  Susan Smith style, you don't send the Jury out,call a sidebar and state that you are not going to allow such important evidence in because either
a)
you have no training in forensic psychology
or
b) because they make no sense and yet are highly prejudicial-
which is it Judge?
ie "was she gonna kill her parents too?!  The Judge asked the prosecutor after sending the jury out.
Too clarify:

At the time Casey and Caylee lived at the elder Anthony's home,  as Casey didn't work and in fact had lied for months at a stretch,telling her parents that she was working at a job, only for them to discover she wasn't and as was typical for her she was lying, trying to keep them off her back so to speak
 an attempt to fulfill their demands that she work if she lives at home, as well as any parents of a young adult who wants to show their adult child that one must pay their way even when their parents have graciously allowed that adult child-and her child to live with them, including intermittent free baby sitting by the Anthony's.

Yes-YES-YES!  It is completely within the realm of possibility that Casey Anthony might kill
her parents,or  one of them,whichever she thought might be in her way the most or even worse
turn her in.  You better believe that anyone that would kill a beautiful 2 year old child and then behave so disconnectedly and lie with such connivance,showing utter disdain for her crying mother who was literally  begging  (on the prison phone) for any little thing that Casey might be able to remember about (upposedly missing at that point )cayle via her imaginary nanny,  a lie that reciting to her mom  alone seemed to irritate Casey-as if she resented having to "explain herself" yet again to her mother or anyone else....and why they hell dont you people care about me I'm in Jail!

 Casey was barely able to sound convincing whilst sounding utterly disgusted and bored when finally suggesting to her mother"I don't know mom Ive told you everything already! Look up her family I think they lived in the Dominican republic or something"   She threw this half hearted bone at her clearly distraught and broken up mother who was there visiting her daughter in prison, where she sat on charges of murdering her own child.

All we heard and saw from Casey Anthony, who remember now-in retrospect-is claiming at that point her daughter had long been dead-drowned in the family pool her little body disposed of conveniently by George Anthony, she suddenly says and yet what we saw and heard was a  Casey Anthony responding to her mothers pitiable beseeching re Caylee's possible whereabouts, with utter disdain.

Disdain sulkiness,resentment and bitterness -  and even boredom.
If you watch and listen to those tapes carefully, you'll see that Casey herself was so clearly sick and tired of being asked about Caylee -by her parents especially. It was bad enough she had to deal with the police and the lawyers, but she was not going to deal with her parents bugging her about this kid anymore.

Let this Jury see and feel the truth of Casey Anthony's evil and deception. Let them understand that Cindy Anthony has become caught up in a Stockholm like syndrome where she is now aiding and abetting her daughter desperately trying anything to keep her off of death row. She now claims that she searched the term chloroform"?!!!!!  She insisted that little Caylee could climb up to the pool herself and proffered photos depicting herself propping little caylee up with her hands at her little back as the toddler climbed the steps gingerly. I think we all can see whats happened here with Mrs Anthony. Her daughter has bamboozled her made up some lies about her father molesting her, stirred up media interest in her dads female friend trying to imply infidelity in order to hurt her fathers credibility.  And the tension  between Mr and Mrs Anthony can be seen from a mile away.

As is classic with sociopaths within a family dynamic they are experts at causing divisiveness all the better to divide and conquer.  From where I stand it is clear that Mrs Anthony has put herself i a thick state of denial re her daughter murdering Caylee. Shed much rather believe that Caylee drowned by accident and even if she doesnt really believe this, after listening to her lie under oath and claim that it was her that searched for chloroform on the computer I knew that Mrs Anthony had crossed over for wahtever personal demons she has to answer to. Its just too bad that she is wiling to aid and abet a child killer as well as throw her own husband under the bus in the process.


 But before we judge her too harshly remeber this, Socioapths are extremely adept liars and manipulators, the stories" about George anthony supposedly trying to molest Casey as well as Caseys brother, both of whom happen to obviously believe and know that Cseys is guilty of killing Caylee , these storiues were told at a very purposeful moment by Casey Anthony-she needed at least one parent on her side, so she worked out a scheme to solicit her mothers instinct to protect her own, she guilted her and she through the molestation bit in for good measure insuring that Mrs Anthony would begin to wonder....is it possible...oh my god maybe thats why Cassey is so messed up!" 

In the meantime a little girl desrves justice for her brutally stolen life.

Latest on Caylee Anthony murder trial

Photos Presented at Murder Trial Show Caylee Anthony Climbing Into Family Pool - FoxNews.com

Photos Presented at Murder Trial Show Caylee Anthony Climbing Into Family Pool - FoxNews.com

Serving as a juror can be stressful, traumatic

It's about time the media focused upon the experience of being a Juror in a violent crime case especially involving murder.
The Groene case involving the murder of Dyan Slade Brenda and the kidnapping and assault of 8 year old Shasta, is forever embedded in my mind and my soul, I can only imagine what the Jurors in Dylan's murder case went through. They were forced to watch video that Joshpeh Dunan took of his sexual assaults upon Dylan, as well a taped episode where he nearly killed the boy by hanging him into unconsciousness by a wire whilst mastutbating singing and mocking the lords prayer.

For years, no one gave the Jurors post traumatic stress a thought, certainly no practical considerations. IE such as offerring in depth counseling and psychiatric assistance before and after the trial re. what they experienced and bore witness to, within the confines of thier service and "Duty" to their country. Kind of reminds me of how we treated and still in many cases treat our veterans; use them up and tosss em aside until the government gets a fresh batch.

Slowly, the states are coming around but again too slowly much too slowly. Peoples entire lives change after serving on a jury such as the Anthony trial or the petit family murder trials. Their sense of safety in this world is gone, theyve gained a new insight to the dark and avil side of humanity that they a;; wish theyd never been made privy too. Yet they have.
In the meantime, lets talk about it, lets write to our legislators about this important issue. The more awareness we can bring to the second and third hand trauma caused by various violent crimes, which needn't be in our community for us to feel the overwhelming pain grief and terror that the victim(s) suffered, and in this, take on a piece of it ourselves. It';s part of being a compassionate human being with empathy, and as much as the media has trampled on this notion through their incessant insistence of sensationalising even a childs murder for ratings and monetary gain - well we the good people of this world need to do something about this as well.

Remember...

"Evil exists when GOOD men do NOTHING."

A quote and a philosophy by Voltaire that shows us that apathy and "not wanting to "get involved" is worse than committing a heinous act - for you the good man or woman, knows better and within that knowledge is a responsibility to stop insulating your lives from anything and everything unpleasant, its avoidance and denial that make the ideal climate for a predator.

Casey Anthony trial: Judge scolds attorneys for wasting time

Prosecution finishes case in Casey Anthony trial

Update re the case of The State of Florida vs Casey Anthony for the murder of two year old Caylee Anthony, in a word;

The prosecution has rested it's case, the judge has rejected the defense's motion to acquit after making a relatively short Judicial soliliquoy in his by now trademark slow, deliberate speaking manner. The defense begins it's side of the case Thursday morning, and the jury has been given the standard instructions regarding not discussing the case, et al.

Jury set for Komisarjevsky trial |

The last four alternates have been picked and the testimony is scheduled to begin September 19th.
We can be assured that Bansley and Donovan Komisarjevsky's laeyers will pull some stunt in the form of another motion to attempt to push that date up, just as they did with the advent of jury selection--managing to stall the onset of that process by well over 2 months.

"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