Opinions

When is capital punishment appropriate? Ask the Petit family.

On the morning of July 23, 2007, two men fled a flame-engorged home containing the raped and strangled corpses of their victims. After stealing the family’s SUV and slamming into a police vehicle, only then were they contained, brought into custody and set to begin their trial in the murder of the Petit family.

This particular morning, Steven Hayes and accomplice, Joshua Komisarjevsky, randomly selected wife and mother of two, Jennifer Hawke-Petit, at a local grocery store as the women they would soon follow and ultimately burglarize. After breaking into their Cheshire, Conn. home and confronting her, Hayes and Komisarjevsky demanded that Jennifer accompany them to the bank and withdraw $15,000. If she were to call for help, Hayes promised to kill her husband and children. Jennifer complied and yet later that night, Petit’s body — along with those of her daughters, Michaela and Hayley — were fatally set ablaze by Hayes and Komisarjevsky.

Three years after this absolutely heinous crime, neither of the men convicted have been sentenced to death. Our justice system moves at a snail’s pace, yes, but even when we’ve reached the final verdict — however many years later — I feel that we are still no closer to restoring justice. Have we simply lost our call to it? Or have our cries for what is right instead been muffled by our own cowardice?

It is not death that capital punishment advocates, but life itself. I believe those in favor of the death sentence must remember this, especially when up against opponents calling you the murderer. More specifically, the penalty protects the lives of the innocent. I fear that we have disguised the face of evil with claims of mental illness for far too long. These men, Hayes and Komisarjevsky, met in rehab; they came from meager means. Hayes became broke after spending his life savings feeding his addiction to crack cocaine, which is indeed pitiful. However, as the driving force behind the evidently premeditated murders, Hayes demonstrated enough awareness to massacre an entire family.

With present-day juries, which focus now on the soul of the criminal, rather than the lost lives of the innocent, we too have fallen victim to the criminals’ plot. There would be no question of this man’s life had he not cost the lives of three others, and that is what we cannot forget when deciding a convicted criminal’s fate.

In the case of the Petit family, think of the heartbroken father. Think of your own father. When jurors continue to fight for these murderers lives, are they not also fighting against the honor of those deceased? His family is dead and yet William Petit continues to fight. All he has left to fight for is their memory. Hayes and Komisarjevsky played God (or more arguably, the devil) and put a $15,000 price tag on life. Yet we find sympathy for these men. It would seem that we have let the gray area between merciless and merciful leak into our courtrooms.

Haley Pearson is a freshmen industrial design major and a contributing writer for the Daily 49er.


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