The Crimes and Trial of Steven Hayes and Joshua Komisarjevsy

674 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Racial discrimination in the justice system

In 2007, Steven Hayes and Joshua Komisarjevsy committed a violent crime in Connecticut. These two men killed a mother and her two children. Ms. Hawke-Petit, the mother, was raped and strangled to death by Mr. Hayes and Mr. Komisarjevsy. The two men also restrained and raped her two young daughters. The daughters were raped, and then killed by smoke inhalation when Mr. Hayes and Mr. Komisarjevsy set the family’s home on fire. While the assault of his family was going on, Dr. William Petit was beaten and restrained by the two men. The state of Connecticut pressed a number of charges against the pair of criminals. Mr. Hayes was convicted of raping and strangling Ms. Hawke-Petit and killing the daughters, who died of smoke inhalation. Mr. Komisarjevsy was held accountable for his crimes against the Petit family in a separate trial. He was convicted of the killings and a slew of other crimes, including sexually assaulting the 11-year-old and taking indecent pictures of her on his cellphone. Although the two men faced two different trials, and juries, both men were sentenced to death. Komisarjevsy’s lawyers were adamant about changing his sentence due to his past. According to Komisarjevsy, he was sexually abused as a child, suffered from mood disorders and head injuries. He also abused drugs and self harmed. He also stated that his evangelical Christian adoptive parents denied him proper care, relying instead on religion (Glaberson, 2011). Komisarjevsy’s lawyer tried to use this to his advantage and crafted a defense based on the fact that he was a damaged person, who was worthy of life (Glaberson, 2011). This defense successfully changed the jurry’s minds, because Joshua Komisarjevsy was convicted with life in prison, as... ... middle of paper ... ...of which being children who had not yet had a chance to live their lives to the fullest. I truly believe that Joshua Komisarjevsy should have been sentenced to death just like his accomplice Steven Hayes. These men took three innocent lives, and ruined a third in the process. They had no reason to tear the life away from these innocent people. They should truly pay for this senseless crime, and not get to sit in prison for the rest of their lives. Sitting in prison is not punishment enough for these two men. Letting these two hardened criminals sit comfortably in prison for the rest of their lives is a reward for them. I sincerely believe that these two men deserve to die for the inexcusable crimes. Reference Hickey, E. W. (2013). Serial Murderers and Their Victims (Sixth ed.). Belmont, CA, USA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.

Show More
Related

  • Delwin Foxworth Case Study

    718 Words  | 2 Pages

    In 2000, Delwin Foxworth was beaten and set on fire outside of his North Chicago home. Foxworth survived the attack but died two years later in a nursing home. Marvin Williford was arrested and convicted for the murder in 2004 and was given an 80 year life sentence in prison. Williford’s defense attorney David Owens is requesting a retrial for the case because of the absence of Williford’s DNA profile in the DNA samples that were taken from the crime scene. Additionally Owens makes the argument that the eye witness testimony of a woman who was present during the attack was unreliable. The woman states that she clearly saw Williford and two other assailants commit the crime, but Owens and Geoffrey Loftus, a professor of psychology at the University

    Read More

  • Battered Woman Syndrome: The Case Of Donna Osborn

    1138 Words  | 3 Pages

    Your honor, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, thank you for your attention today. [Slide #2] I would like to assert that separation is not the end of a relationship. Divorce is not the end of a relationship. Even an arrest is not the end of a relationship. Only death is the end of a relationship. In the case of defendant Donna Osborn, her insistence that ‘“one way or another I’ll be free,”’ as told in the testimony of her friend Jack Mathews and repeated in many others’, indicates that despite the lack of planning, the defendant had the full intent to kill her husband, Clinton Osborn.

    Read More

  • Casey Anthony Trial

    733 Words  | 2 Pages

    In July of 2008, one of the biggest crime cases devastated the United States nation-wide. The death of Caylee Anthony, a two year old baby, became the most popular topic in a brief amount of time. Caylee’s mother, Casey Anthony, became the main suspect after the child supposedly was kidnapped and went missing. To this day, the Casey Anthony case shocks me because justice, in my opinion, wasn’t served. I feel as if the criminal conviction system became somewhat corrupted in this case. The entire nation, including the court system, knew that Casey Anthony was behind this criminal act, but yet she escaped all charges. I chose this case not only because it’s debatable, but also to help state the obvious, this case was handled the wrong way. Clearly the legal system was biased, which worked in Casey Anthony’s favor, freeing a murderer.

    Read More

  • Harsher Crime Research Paper

    1166 Words  | 3 Pages

    If a family member was murdered, a family member was murdered, age should not dictate if the punishment for homicide will be more lenient or not. If anyone not just juveniles has the capabilities to take someone's life and does so knowing the repercussions, they should be convicted as an adult. In the case of Jennifer Bishop Jenkins who lost her sister, the husband and their unborn child, is a strong advocate of juveniles being sentenced to life without parole. In her article “Jennifer Bishop Jenkins On Punishment and Teen Killers” she shows the world the other side of the spectrum, how it is to be the victim of a juvenile in a changing society where people are fighting against life sentences for juveniles. As she states in the article “There are no words adequate to describe what this kind of traumatic loss does to a victims family. So few who work on the juvenile offender side can truly understand what the victims of their crimes sometimes go through. Some never

    Read More

  • Insanity in Tell Tale Heart by Edgar Alan Poe

    1048 Words  | 3 Pages

    Every once in awhile, a case comes about in which the defendant confesses to a crime, but the defense tries to argue that at the time the defendant was not sane. This case is no different; the court knows the defendant is guilty the only aspect they are unsure about is the punishment this murderer should receive. The State is pushing for a jail sentence and strongly believes that the defendant was sane at the time of the murder. It is nearly impossible for the defense to prove their evidence burden of 51%. The State claims that the defendant was criminally responsible at the time of the murder. By using excessive exaggeration, premeditation and motive, the Prosecution will prove that the defendant knew exactly what he was doing and how wrong it was.

    Read More

  • Should the Death Penalty Apply to Juvenile Criminals?

    2773 Words  | 6 Pages

    Day after day in this country there is a debate going on about the death penalty and whether we as people have the right to decide the fate of another persons life. When we examine this issue we usually consider those we are arguing about to be older men and women who are more than likely hardened criminals with rap sheets longer than the height we stand (Farley & Willwerth, 1998). They have made a career of crime, committing it rather than studying it, and somewhere along the line a jury of their peers decided enough was enough. They were handed down the most severe and most final punishment of them all, death. Behind all of the controversy that this issue raises lies a different group of people that are not so often brought into the lime light, juveniles.

    Read More

  • Young Offenders Act

    765 Words  | 2 Pages

    Steven Truscott was a 14 year old boy who was sentenced to life in prison after being accused of the murder of Lynn Harper. It was June 9, 1959 when Lynne Harper, a 12 year old girl, was heading towards a nearby school after having family dinner with her parents Leslie and Shirley. She was heading towards a nearby school playground in Clinton, Ontario where she came across Steven Truscott. She asked for a ride to a nearby highway. Steven Truscott agreed. Lynn clambered onto the handlebars of the 14-year-old boy's bike and they pedaled off. This short ride would trigger a chain of events that will hunt the lives of many for roughly half a decade. This would change the lives of two families, horrify a community, and bring doubts to the justice system protecting everyone’s lives. Lynne’s partially nude body was found nearby a bush in a farmer’s field two days after the bicycle ride with Steven. She had been sexually assaulted and strangled to death with her own blouse. Almost immediately, Steven was assumed to be the likely killer, although there was no physical evidence linking him to the murder. Steven was targeted as a consequence of being the last person to see Lynne alive. Two after the body was found; Steven was charged with the murder and was tried by the court as an adult. The trial lasted 15 days and Steven was sentenced to hang, which was after changed to life in prison. Now when did this misfortune start? It could have been when Steven agreed to give Lynne a ride, or it could have been when there was no physical evidence pointing to Truscott. Even if Steven was a potential suspect, there was no reason of why he should have been treated the way he was.

    Read More

  • Courtroom 302 Chapter 1 Summary

    1110 Words  | 3 Pages

    Steve Bogira, a prizewinning writer, spent a year observing Chicago's Cook County Criminal Courthouse. The author focuses on two main issues, the death penalty and innocent defendants who are getting convicted by the pressure of plea bargains, which will be the focus of this review. The book tells many different stories that are told by defendants, prosecutors, a judge, clerks, and jurors; all the people who are being affected and contributing to the miscarriage of justice in today’s courtrooms.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Just Mercy By Bryan Stevenson

    1163 Words  | 3 Pages

    Bryan once worked on a case with a man named Avery Jenkins who was on death row who was 20 and he thought he was being chased by demons then wandered into a house to then stabbed and killed an elderly man thinking it was a demon, he was committed for murder and sentenced to death row, automatically guilty you might say right? But i 'll give you a bit of background info on Avery, His father was murdered before he was born, his mother died of a drug overdose before he was one, and he was in 19 different foster homes by the time he turned 8 years old. Still think he’s guilty? Yes? Oh ok then listen because there 's more when he was 10 his foster mother, tired of caring for him, took him into the woods, tied him to a tree left him there for three days, eventually for hunters to find him in these woods leading to him being addicted to drugs at 13 by 15 having episodic seizures and psychotic episodes and at 17 he was homeless. Without a doubt this left psychological and life ruining damage to his future so let me ask you in a different way is he really guilty? For this man to be committed of a crime with the full death penalty in action without these facts being

    Read More

  • Essay On Eyewitness Testimony

    702 Words  | 2 Pages

    On May 17, 1982, in Shreveport, Louisiana, Calvin Willis was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for a crime he did not commit. He was convicted of brutally beating and raping a child based on three eyewitness identifications of him at trial. The case against him was substantively weak: there was no physical evidence linking him to the crime, circumstantial evidence indicated that the intruder was not him, and his pregnant wife testified at trial that he was home with her at the time. But, eyewitness testimony is viscerally powerful evidence, and the jury found Calvin guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Twenty-two years later, after DNA evidence conclusively excluded Calvin from having committed the crime, he

    Read More

  • Steve Felony Murder Case Study

    370 Words  | 1 Pages

    Steve should not be convicted of felony murder because the is doubt in Steve's case, and there is a problem with how juveniles are handled in the justice system. To begin, Steve should be found not guilty because, teen brains have been proven to be not fully developed till they are at least 18 years of age. According to “experts link teen brains’ immaturity, juvenile justice” it list “juveniles are more vulnerable or susceptible to negative influences and outside pressures, including peer pressure causing them to have less control over their environment” this means juveniles don't have the brain to tell them what's right and wrong, because things like peer pressure cause them to make poor decisions. Therefore Steve shouldn't be convicted of

    Read More

  • Analysis of the Case of Andrea Yates

    875 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Andrea Yates murder trial was one of the most highly publicized cases of 2001. Perplexing and complicated, it appealed to the public audience for various reasons. A mother methodically, drowns her five children in the family bathtub after her husband leaves for work. Was this an act of a cold calculating killer, or was this the act of a woman who lost touch with reality. Is this a case of medical neglect, and psychological dysfunctions, or is this a battle of ethics and deviant behavior exploiting medical and legal loop holes?

    Read More

  • Is There A Duty To Die?

    957 Words  | 2 Pages

    Tracy’s father was faced with an unfortunate decision, and in his decision, I cannot condemn him for his actions. Now saying this I don’t believe what he did was particularly the right decision or particularly the wrong decision. As for his life sentence, it’s quite outrageous. My reasoning for this is because of his actual intentions and his mental rationale in doing so. He claims that he did it out of love and mercy, which I whole-heartedly agree with. With Tracy’s condition already being a significant trouble to live with and the fact that her surgeries brought her much pain and suffering is something that would be hard to bear. They claimed that she had the mental capacity of a four month old baby, so in that sense, it’s almost like watching an innocent baby constantly in pain. One part of the case says that Tracy’s mother believed that the many surgeries especially the one that removed her upper thigh bone were not surgeries but mutilations. I can see why her mother would think this. I can only imagine what it would be like to watch your loved one constantly be mutilated and going under the knife. Surgery and visits to the doctor alone can be stressful enough in itself, let alone ones that can be perceived as mutilations. Additionally the case states that Tracy had 5-6 seizures a day, which would imaginably be hard to watch and care for. Ultimately, I cannot in any way condemn Tracy’s

    Read More

  • Pro Capital Punishment Speech

    1084 Words  | 3 Pages

    It was midnight when it all happened. Tom Peterson was sleeping in bed next to his wife after a tiring day at work, while his two little daughters slept in the next room. Suddenly he was violently awakened by the terrified screams of his wife only to get a glance of a huge man standing over him with a butcher's knife. Tom was stabbed thirteen times, one of his daughters was killed and his wife was severely injured. Now, the Peterson family has just exited the supreme court of justice in which the judge has condemned the murderer of their little girl to the death penalty, for as it turns out the Peterson family had not been the first victim of this murderer.

    Read More

  • Persuasive Essay On The Death Penalty

    1343 Words  | 3 Pages

    In March of 1985, Kirk Bloodsworth was convicted and sentenced to death for viciously killing and raping a 9 year old girl. Several eyewitnesses claimed to have all of the evidence the prosecution would need for a conviction and death sentence. However, 9 years later DNA evidence proved that Bloodsworth had not actually committed a crime at all. After being forced to waste 9 years of his life in prison, Bloodsworth was finally released. The Guardian reports that “at least 4.1% of all defendants sentenced to death in the US in the modern era are innocent” (Pilkington). This is a compelling statistic when lives are in the balance. The death penalty has posed countless problems to the United States’ judicial system that could easily be avoided

    Read More

More about The Crimes and Trial of Steven Hayes and Joshua Komisarjevsy

Open Document