Facts about the Cheshire Murders

The Cheshire murders were the Connecticut home invasion that occurred on July 23, 2007. Jennifer Hawke-Petit, wife of Dr. William Petit and her two daughters were brutally killed. Her daughter was raped and killed while Dr. William managed to escape, although, he was injured during the home invasion. (Daily Mail). Typically, the case was the most widely publicized case in the history of Connecticut because of the nature of the killings. The two daughters of the couple were Hayes aged 17 and Michael 11, were tied to the bed, suffocated and the house was set on fire. The Haye's confession proved that the two criminals had planned to rob the house in the dark. However, the police were able to arrest the penetrator named Steven J. Hayes and Joshua A. Komisarjevsky.

Sentence Defendants Receive

During the trial, the jury deliberated on the evidence against them. The deliberation was whether to sentence them to life imprisonment or death sentence. After the deliberation, they sentenced Komisarjevsky to death on December, 9 2011 after found him guilty of the offense. Komisarjevsky was given the lethal injection and sentenced to death on January 27, 2012. On the other hand, Hayes' trial composed of 7 women judges and 5 men judges. After the trail, the member of the jury deliberated about the case for four hours and they found Hayes guilty, and sentencing started on October 18, 2010.... The deliberation was a focus on whether to execute Hayes or sentence him to life imprisonment. While Attorney Thomas Ullman believed that life imprisonment would be the hardest punishment for Hayes, which would make him be incarnated and tormented in prison.. The life imprisonment with an option of no release will be the hardest punishment for Hayes. However, all the member of the jury recommended that Hayes should be sentenced to death, and he was later convicted to death.

Aggravating and Mitigating Factors Present in the Case

The capital punishment is intended for people who commit the worst crime. To determine whether the defendants deserve a death sentence, the jury must weigh all the evidence given the reasons for sparing the criminals. However, Cheshire's murders were considered aggravating because of the following reasons:

• The defendants raped and killed the innocents people without defense.

• They turned the life of Dr. William Petit into sorrowful making him consider committing suicide. Moreover, both Komisarjevsky and Hayes had once been convicted of offenses that include sexual assault, capital felony, murder, arson and kidnapping.

Thus, such category of people has a tendency of committing other crimes if they are allowed remix into the society. However, the mitigation is essential to the capital punishment. Mitigation specialists consider the employment background, and medical…