Today here in Connecticut the high-profile, emotionally wrenching Petit murder trial for defendant Stephen J. Hayes has been temporarily halted. His chief lawyer Thomas J. Ullmann reported to Superior Court Judge Jon C. Blue that Hayes had suffered a seizure. Then Ullmann asked for this time-out. The way he framed his account of the medical event could indicate his strategy is to avoid the death penalty for his client. Throughout this state, which has not recovered from the horror of the triple homicide, there is a kind of Greek Chorus reassuring everyone that the death penalty is the right thing to do in this particular situation.
In THE NEW YORK TIMES, William Glaberson reports:
"Mr. Ullmann suggested that the medical event was Mr. Hayes's reaction to the presentation to the jury on Wednesday of photographs showing the dead bodies of the three victims."
Such a visceral response could be construed as a sign of anything from a bit of humanity in a creature we deem a sociopath to remorse. However, in the sentencing part of these legal proceedings, there is not bound to be many who would plead for mercy for an entity so many label a "monster."
This would be an interesting case for David Dow, who recently published the book AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN EXECUTION, to analyze and write about. Dow has worked on the defense of numerous inmates on death row.
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