New Haven State Attorney Michael Dearington filed the motion requesting a single trial in early July. Under this procedure, both suspects in the investigation would still be evaluated by separate juries, Dearington told The Dartmouth. If a specific piece of evidence were admissible for just one of the suspects, Dearington said, the other jury would leave the courtroom.
"Having two trials can take an incredible amount of time," Dearington said. "By and large, the majority of the evidence is admissible against both."
Incorporating two trials into one is not very common in Connecticut, Dearington said, but is a method utilized in federal courts across the country.
Dearington said he expects to know by Tuesday when the judge will make his decision regarding the motion, he said, adding that he could not comment on the details of the case or the evidence.
William Petit Jr. '78, Hayley Petit's father and the only survivor of the attack, will testify at the trial, according to a July 6 letter to the editor of the Hartford Courant written by Joseph and Johanna Ierna, William Petit's uncle and aunt. The letter advocated for a single trial to spare Petit unnecessary trauma.
William Petit was hospitalized following the attack for injuries he sustained during the home invasion.
"The disclosure of all of the events that took place while Jennifer and her daughters were being held hostage will be devastating to those who loved them dearly," the Iernas wrote. "The Petit family will be in attendance and will hear what no one would ever want to hear."
State victim advocate Michelle Cruz filed the other motion, a no-contact order, last week, according to Dearington. The no-contact order is meant to ban any attempts by the defense team to communicate with the Petit family, the Hartford Courant reported.
The motion is a response to the actions of a defense attorney who hired a grief counselor to contact the Petit family, an action that offended family members, Dearington said.
The victim liaison, a North Carolina attorney, claimed she could establish a line of communication between the two parties in the case, the Courant reported.
Jeffrey A. Meyer, a professor at Quinnipiac University School of Law, told the Courant that the gesture might be a "sinister... way for the defense to try and collect information from someone who may be a key witness at trial."
A judge will rule on this motion Tuesday afternoon, Dearington said.
The motion also includes a request for an articulation of why the trial is not starting until January 2010, he said.
The two suspects in the case, Joshua Komisarjevsky and Steven Hayes, remain in custody and have pleaded not guilty to a slate of charges, including murder, kidnapping, arson and sexual assault.
In the early hours of July 22, 2007, the two men allegedly entered the Petit family's home and demanded that Hawke-Petit withdraw $15,000 from the family's bank. Hawke-Petit managed to alert bank employees that her family was being held hostage, but Hayley, her mother and her sister had been murdered by the time police made it to the Petit home. Hawke-Petit was allegedly strangled to death by one or both suspects, before they allegedly poured gasoline around her and her daughters, who were tied to a bedpost. The suspects then allegedly set fire to the home.
Autopsies revealed that the Petit daughters died of smoke inhalation, while Hawke-Petit died of asphyxiation.
Dearington confirmed in an interview with The Dartmouth that he plans to seek the death penalty for both suspects if they are convicted.
William Petit, Jr. recently presented the Hayley's Hope and Michaela's Miracle scholarship for the first time to two Connecticut teenagers, according to The News-Times of Danbury, Conn. The scholarship will be given to high school seniors who have a parent who suffers from multiple sclerosis or who have MS themselves. Jennifer Hawke-Petit suffered from MS, and both her daughters were active in fundraising to find a cure for the condition.
Hayley Petit, who had been accepted early decision to Dartmouth and was recruited for the women's crew team, planned to pursue her interest in medicine, following in the footsteps of her father, a well-respected endocrinologist and diabetes expert.
