If I were unlucky enough to be called to jury duty in the Steven Hayes murder trial in New Haven, I would bring along a toothbrush and a change of underwear — just in case.
At some point in the jury selection process, I might be asked if there was any reason why I shouldn’t be chosen to serve on the jury. My response: Yes, I think capital felony murder cases in Connecticut are a disgrace and a fraud and a terrible injustice to jurors, because even if we go through the wrenching process of finding the defendant guilty, the State of Connecticut has no intention of actually executing him.
That would get me off the jury — but it might well also get me slapped with a contempt citation and a few days in the slammer. Can’t tell the truth about the death penalty. That borders on a felony.
The horrific 2007 murder-rape incident in Cheshire captured the public imagination at the time — well-known, popular doctor, wife and two sweet daughters, victimized by two creeps. It’s now 2010, of course, and a trial for creature number one, Stephen Hayes, hasn’t even gotten through jury selection.
Given that Hayes is only 46 years old, he is likely to outlive many of the people involved in is prosecution.
The trial has been delayed by squabbles about conditions in his cell, his competency to stand trial, and, of course, there was that messy business of Hayes trying to commit suicide — prompting the state to work very hard to bring him back to life — so it could continue to pretend that it wants to execute him.
Since there are men on “death row” in Connecticut with convictions dating back to the 1980s, there is a very strong chance that Hayes will be eligible for senior citizen discounts long before he is ever threatened with a needle in the arm.
Every year or two, the legislature mumbles about perhaps, maybe, ditching or clarifying that silly death penalty business — but, of course, it never happens. How much better it is to be “tough on crime” by pretending to support a death penalty that never seems to involve actually executing anyone.
The timing of the Hayes pill overdose has its lovely irony. At the same time Washington has twisted itself into all manner of philosophical pretzel about medical care for the poor and dislocated and confused and shakily employed middle class, there was the creepy Mr. Hayes being tended to with all due speed and diligence at the UConn medical center — so that he could be prettied up once more for his capital murder case and theoretical execution.
It’s been an interesting year to mull the gutlessness of politicians who ignore the rule of law for their own political purposes. In February, Viva Nash, a murderous, amoral creature who, among his string of lovely crimes, murdered a Connecticut police officer in 1947, died as a death row inmate in Arizona — at the age of 94. It’s not easy to be executed in America — quite aside from what the statutes might say in any particular jurisdiction. Nash was sentenced to death in 1983.
As with Stephen Hayes in Connecticut, the occasional murderous creature will attempt to save the politicians the bother of all that death penalty versus life-in-prison rhetoric and debate. Earlier this month, a prisoner in Texas who pleaded guilty to killing his common-law wife and his mother committed suicide in his cell.
The government costs of pretending to try someone for a death-penalty crime can run into the millions of dollars. The alternative is often to negotiate a deal and avoid the embarrassment.
Reasonable folks can differ about the merits of a death penalty. But to pretend to have a death penalty — and not mean it — commits a fraud upon the citizens who expect justice to be done.
Laurence D. Cohen is a freelance writer.
