Steven Hayes and Joshua Komisarjevsky |
HARTFORD, CT -- Joshua Komisarjevsky was formally sentenced to death Friday for the home invasion attack that left Jennifer Hawke-Petit and her daughters, Hayley and Micahela, dead in their Cheshire home in the summer of 2007.
On the day he was sentenced to execution Komisarjevsky insisted that no one was supposed to die during the July 2007 deadly home invasion.
"I was a condemned man long before this day," Komisarjevsky, dressed in an orange prison jumpsuit, said while standing before the judge.
"Millions have judged me guilty of capital offenses I did not commit. I did not intend for those women to die. They were never supposed to lose their lives. I don't need 12 people to tell me what I'm guilty or not guilty of. None of them were there that morning."
Jurors convicted Komisarjevsky, 31, in October of the 2007 murders of Jennifer Hawke-Petit, 48, and her two daughters Hayley Petit, 17, and Michaela Petit, 11.
The girls' father was the sole survivor of the attack.
Komisarjevsky's accomplice, Steven Hayes, was convicted separately of similar charges and has also been sentenced to death.
Komisarjevsky and Hayes were convicted of an attack that began after Komisarjevsky spotted Jennifer Hawke-Petit and her younger daughter in a supermarket and followed them to their home in Cheshire, Connecticut.
For several hours, the pair held the family captive, although at one point Hawke-Petit was forced to drive to a bank and withdraw $15,000.
After she returned, she was raped and strangled. The girls, tied to their beds, died of smoke inhalation as the home was set on fire. The younger girl was sexually assaulted.
The sole survivor of the attack, Dr. William Petit, was badly beaten and tied up in the basement but managed to escape as the house went up in flames.
He has attended both men's trials.
Connecticut has only executed one person, in 2005, since the death penalty was reinstated in the United States in 1976, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
During six weeks of the sentencing phase of the case, the defense said Komisarjevsky was molested as a child and that his extremely religious parents relied on prayer and failed to get him clinical help for his troubled behavior.
The defense presented a list of more than 40 mitigating factors arguing against a death sentence, which the jury must weigh against aggravating factors cited by prosecutors.
The mitigating factors included a biological predisposition to mood disorders, strict religious upbringing, sexual assault as a child, his parents and the state's inability to obtain clinical treatment for sexual assaults, mental health disorders and a series of concussions.
The defense attorneys also argued that Komisarjevsky's role in the home invasion was smaller than that of Hayes.
On the day he was sentenced to execution Komisarjevsky insisted that no one was supposed to die during the July 2007 deadly home invasion.
"I was a condemned man long before this day," Komisarjevsky, dressed in an orange prison jumpsuit, said while standing before the judge.
"Millions have judged me guilty of capital offenses I did not commit. I did not intend for those women to die. They were never supposed to lose their lives. I don't need 12 people to tell me what I'm guilty or not guilty of. None of them were there that morning."
Jurors convicted Komisarjevsky, 31, in October of the 2007 murders of Jennifer Hawke-Petit, 48, and her two daughters Hayley Petit, 17, and Michaela Petit, 11.
The girls' father was the sole survivor of the attack.
Komisarjevsky's accomplice, Steven Hayes, was convicted separately of similar charges and has also been sentenced to death.
Komisarjevsky and Hayes were convicted of an attack that began after Komisarjevsky spotted Jennifer Hawke-Petit and her younger daughter in a supermarket and followed them to their home in Cheshire, Connecticut.
For several hours, the pair held the family captive, although at one point Hawke-Petit was forced to drive to a bank and withdraw $15,000.
After she returned, she was raped and strangled. The girls, tied to their beds, died of smoke inhalation as the home was set on fire. The younger girl was sexually assaulted.
The sole survivor of the attack, Dr. William Petit, was badly beaten and tied up in the basement but managed to escape as the house went up in flames.
He has attended both men's trials.
Connecticut has only executed one person, in 2005, since the death penalty was reinstated in the United States in 1976, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
During six weeks of the sentencing phase of the case, the defense said Komisarjevsky was molested as a child and that his extremely religious parents relied on prayer and failed to get him clinical help for his troubled behavior.
The defense presented a list of more than 40 mitigating factors arguing against a death sentence, which the jury must weigh against aggravating factors cited by prosecutors.
The mitigating factors included a biological predisposition to mood disorders, strict religious upbringing, sexual assault as a child, his parents and the state's inability to obtain clinical treatment for sexual assaults, mental health disorders and a series of concussions.
The defense attorneys also argued that Komisarjevsky's role in the home invasion was smaller than that of Hayes.
