Triple killer resentenced
NEW HAVEN, Conn. — One of two men sentenced to death for the slayings of a Butler County native and her two daughters during a 2007 home invasion in a wealthy suburb was resentenced Wednesday to life in prison.
Steven Hayes is the first of 11 death row inmates to be resentenced since the state Supreme Court ruled in August that their sentences violated the state constitution’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment and was out of step with contemporary standards of decency.
The court reaffirmed that ruling last month in considering a 2012 law passed by Gov. Dannel P. Malloy and the Legislature that abolished the death penalty for future cases. Malloy and the legislature had insisted on that as a condition of their support for repeal in a long-running debate that focused on the Cheshire home invasion. The law left 11 men, including Hayes, still facing execution.
The majority in last year’s landmark ruling essentially said it wouldn’t be fair to execute the remaining death row inmates when lawmakers had determined the death penalty was no longer needed for future killers.
Hayes and Joshua Komisarjevsky were convicted of the murders of Jennifer Hawke-Petit and her daughters, 17-year-old Hayley Petit and 11-year-old Michaela Petit.
Hawke-Petit spent her elementary school years in Slippery Rock. Her parents are the Rev. Richard and Marybelle Hawke.
A judge on Wednesday imposed six consecutive life sentences on Hayes, who did not speak during the brief hearing.
Hawke-Petit’s husband and the girls’ father, Dr. William Petit, was badly beaten during the home invasion but survived. He did not attend the hearing but issued a statement critical of the resentencing.
“It is a very sad day when a prolonged trial and decision and sentencing by a jury that took 4.5 months to seat is overturned by a legislature that ignores the wishes of the people of CT,” he said in a text message via Twitter.
“The insult is compounded by a Supreme Court that rules on not one but 2 cases based on personal opinions and politics and not the law.”
A hearing scheduled for Friday to resentence Komisarjevsky has been postponed. His attorneys are seeking a new trial.
