Brian McDonald

out of all the reasons joan ellis, the administrator of the Freedom of Information Office of the Ct. DOC., gave for refusing the FOIA request by the New Haven Register for documents concerning steven Hayes' suicide attempt she forgot the most important one: releasing the documents would make the Connecticut jail system look like they have the Marx brothers in charge. (more…)

ok, one of three scenarios will begin to play out Thursday at steven hayes' competency hearing in New Haven Superior Court: One, hayes will be found competent, in which case the trial will start up again. Two, hayes will be found incompetent, in which case the trial will be postponed and a treatment of psychotropic drugs and therapy proscribed to help him back to competency, or, Three, defense will argue that steven hayes is permanently incompetent, and that the charges against him should be dropped. (more…)

though it seems like it is taking forever, in the big book of the execution business, the hayes murder trial hasn't even turned a page. last month the poster boy of death row longevity, Viva Leroy Nash, died at the tender age of 94. he had been waiting to be executed in an Arizona prison (more…)

so as we turn the corner on March and head into April and presumably the restart of Steven Hayes' trial, I thought I would take this time to list some of the key players in Act 1 of The New Haven drama. As Shakespeare said...

Principals:
1. Thomas Ullman: Hayes' attorney, death penalty opponent and master of the four-corner offense
2. Michael Dearington: state's attorney, and tepid death penalty crusader
3. Judge Jon C. Blue: his honor
4. Dr. William Peit: survivor, victim's rights spokesperson
5. Steven Hayes: accused, suicidal and incompetent?
6. The jury (so far, six have been chosen) (more…)

though the cop union charges the cheshire chief with incompetence, the allegations stop short of blaming him for the tactical response to the Petit home on the morning of July 23, 2007 (more…)

More FOIA fun, this time in this story in the New Haven Register. Seems there is an internal squabble in the Cheshire P.D. stemming from the fallout of the Petit murders investigation and aftermath.

ok, so several law experts (i.e. lawyers) have taken time out of their busy billing schedules to teach us, like we're 8-year-olds, the difference between "insanity" and "competency." you see, hayes is not insane, which, in the eyes of the law, can only happen during the commission of a crime. he's just incompetent, which means he's (more…)

so suzanne ducate, the Ct. DOC shrink, formerly of the Texas DOC, tells Judge Jon Blue that hayes is fine and ready to go and after just ONE DAY back in court, thomas ullman, hayes' attorney, has the judge slam the breaks on the process to have hayes' competency checked out by some other psychiatrist. maybe suzanne should have stayed on vacation. (more…)

judge Jon Blue scheduled the next court hearing in the wandering preamble of steven hayes' triple murder trial for April 1. in the meantime, a crack team of psychiatrists and social workers will try to get to the bottom of the defendant's suicidal depression and determine whether or not he's fit to be tried.

just a layman's opinion, but maybe he's depressed because he has to live the rest of his life thinking about the lives that he ended.

lost in yesterday's headlines: a sixth juror was chosen, only 14 to go.

hindsight is 20/20. the reason the state chose to prosecute hayes first is because they believe, as joshua komisarjevsky told me, that hayes committed the first murder that rainy morning, raping, then choking to death Jennifer Hawke-Petit. the murders of the two Petit girls, who died of smoke asphyxiation, could be seen as occurring during (more…)

like an old hammer hanging in the garage, the FOIA request proves itself once again as a slow, but reliable tool for the journalist. the Republican-American, a newspaper out of Waterbury, Ct., filed a FOIA (freedom of information act) request for the cost of defending Steven Hayes. the resulting documents reveal that Connecticut taxpayers have already ponied up over $800,000 for court costs, pretrial preparation and investigations. and that figure (more…)

so now Judge Jon Blue's Superior Court has six months to pick 16 jurors (for the requisite 20) to meet the proposed court calender date of mid September.

let's see if this portion of jury selection can go a little smoother than the first month.

i'll update you later on how the first day back went

the Connecticut DOC continues to thumb its nose at the press, the court and the law. the latest episode occurred last week when no one from the DOC bothered to attend a court hearing about the jail system's use of the gag order. (more…)

republicans in the Ct. legislature have proposed a bill that would streamline the death penalty process by limiting appeals. the bill would also allow victim's family members to address the jury before sentencing, instead of after as the process stands now. this past week, Dr. Petit spoke in front of the General Assembly's Judiciary Committee in support of the legislation.

hayes will remain in the observation cell in Mac-Walk infirmary until further notice. (more…)

over the past six weeks, steven hayes' suicide attempt and the conduct of the Ct. DOC has generated hundreds of news stories, dominated local headlines, and has been featured on morning network tv. so will Thomas Ullman, the master of delay, ask that the four jurors already picked be requestioned? or excused?

i'm betting he'll argue that jury selection should start from scratch.

the prison shrink testified yesterday that hayes told her he's hopeless, and that his plan now is to wait for the State to put him to death. if the speed of the trial is any indication, hayes has a long life ahead of him. (more…)

judge, lawyers to meet with prison psychiatrist again today to talk about hayes' treatment in jail. the psychiatrist being questioned is Suzanne Ducate who's been with the Connecticut DOC since 2006. seemingly not one to be trifled with, Ducate was a flight surgeon in the Air Force for seven years. but she was also a Director of Mental (more…)

launching the space shuttle is more predictable than the steven hayes' murder trial. hayes' attorney, Thomas Ullman, wants to ask the prison shrink more questions, and Judge Blue is going to let him. so resuming jury selection on march 15th is a big maybe.

it's going on six weeks since hayes tried to commit suicide.

yet another hearing is scheduled for tomorrow to determine if steven hayes is mentally fit to resume being tried for murder.

most insanity defenses bring into question the defendant's mental competency at the time of his crime. not so in this case. steven hayes' lawyer is arguing that his client is in "no condition to continue," due (more…)

so a guy gets pulled over in cheshire for driving while intox and later accuses the cheshire p.d. of roughing him up. but these days, DWI stops are videotaped and the tape has nothing FOX's "Cops" would be interested in. So no big deal, right? Except for one thing. (more…)

stacked one on top of the other, steven hayes' parole records are about six inches thick. they weigh as much as a library dictionary. as a body of work, they are the story of recidivist's voyage through the inept world of Connecticut's criminal justice.

for just about all of those years, most of his adult (more…)

according to news stories out of connecticut, steven hayes isn't talking to the prison psychiatrist because his lawyer told him not to. in response, the shrink is refusing hayes his meds, which include anti-psychotics and anti-depressants.

the attorney, thomas ullman, was able to stop the jury selection process for nearly a month by telling (more…)

after a tour of steven hayes' accommodations at macdougall-walker, judge jon blue said that jury selection should be able to resume on march 15th.

hayes is being held in what amounts to an observation cell in macdougall-walker's infirmary. with more square footage, and a window to the outside, his new digs are actually a (more…)

in case you haven't noticed, the hartford courant has new art on steven hayes. supplied by the DOC, the photo certainly gives the accused a far different appearance than his ubiquitous mug shot. in that photo, hayes looked like he could be working the local deli counter, or more like Uncle Fester, the nickname (more…)