Dr. William Petit stood
on the steps of the New Haven Superior Court House in early November. A jury had
just recommended the death penalty for one of the men who had assaulted and
murdered his wife and daughters.
Though it was not his
intent, he made such a compelling case for capital punishment that his remarks
may well be regarded as having significantly stopped any momentum that the
anti-capital punishment advocates have achieved in the last 45
years.
Dr. Petit poignantly
referred to the “jagged hole” left in his life and his family’s lives by the
brutal sexual assaults and murders of his two young daughters and his wife,
carried out by two men who began their murderous activities as a
robbery.
In 25 minutes of
comments that were sometimes interrupted when obvious waves of emotion overcame
him, Dr. Petit managed to effectively counter the well-orchestrated and
sentimental arguments against capital punishment that have been made since the
1960s.
What are those
arguments, and how did Dr. Petit courageously manage to refute
them?
The first is that
society’s sympathy ought to be focused on the murderers themselves instead of
their victims. This is view subtly encouraged by books like Truman Capote’s “In
Cold Blood” as well as a collection of death-row films that dramatize the
suffering of those awaiting execution.
Dr. Petit’s statements
properly reminded us of the victims and their suffering. In this case, there was
the horror, fear, and pain of Michaela, his 11-year-old daughter, who was
sexually assaulted, tied to her bed, forced to witness her attackers pouring out
gasoline around her, and then setting fire to the room.
As Dr. Petit pointed
out, she died without the protection of her dead mother or her bound and beaten
father. She died in her own bedroom surrounded by stuffed
animals.
Nearly the same was
done to her older sister Hayley, an extremely talented young lady whose
potential as a 17-year-old had just begun to be realized.
As if that were not
enough, imagine the unspeakable fear which filled Dr. Petit’s wife, who tried to
placate the hoodlums by driving to the bank, returning with money only to be
sexually assaulted and strangled.
We don’t know if she
knew or witnessed the plight of her helpless daughters, but that is probable.
So, Dr. Petit, by quietly referring to the outrageous, barbaric, inhuman conduct
of the killers, pulled back into the public’s mind the anguish experienced by
the victims of such dastardly crimes.
The second argument
that has been raised against capital punishment, under the guise of the Eighth
Amendment, is that it is “cruel and unusual.” This position has been most
forcefully stated by the late Supreme Court Justice, William
Brennan.
As Brennan wrote about
convicted killers in 1985, “The calculated killing of a human being by the State
involves, by its very nature, an absolute denial of the executed person’s
humanity ... even the most base [sic] criminal remains a human being possessed
of some potential, at least, for common human dignity.”
Dr. Petit’s answer to
that was pointed, although stated only by implication through the content of his
remarks and his measured demeanor. Where was the “humanity” shown to his loved
ones and to himself? Where was there even a shred of evidence showing that the
two killers were “human” in their conduct? Where was there any sign of the
potential for “common human dignity” in their senseless, grotesque
actions?
And yet, under the
system of justice that Dr. Petit relied upon, such killers received or will
receive a lengthy set of legal protections unmatched anywhere in the world. They
will receive free legal counsel and be tried under the presumption of innocence.
No count against them will stand without the support of evidence beyond a
reasonable doubt.
These slayers will have
appeals upon appeals extending their lives for years, even though they failed to
grant their innocent victims even additional minutes of life and whose crying
appeals for mercy fell upon their hearts of stone.
And then, under the
system of justice which Dr. Petit and all of us depend upon, the murderers will
be put to death in the most benign and humane way that modern science can
devise, even though they consigned their victims to a death that was horribly
cruel.
In closing, Dr. Petit
stated that what will be done to these murderers, and the way in which it will
be done, is justice — not revenge.
And as he properly
reminded his listeners, there will be for these two an eternal punishment that
is much worse than any the state of
May Dr. Petit’s
daughters and his wife rest in eternal and heavenly peace, and may their
attackers be consigned to eternal torment. Justice will then have been truly
done.
[Dr. John A. Sparks is
dean of the
http://www.thecitizen.com/blogs/dr-john-sparks/11-30-2010/justice-done-connecticut