William Petit '78 said in a statement Friday that he will not testify at the sentencing of Steven Hayes, who was convicted last week of murdering Petit's wife and two daughters in a July 2007 home invasion, CNN reported. Although he has lobbied strongly for the death penalty to be used against Hayes and fellow defendant Joshua Komisarjevsky, Petit said he "regretfully decided" not to testify because doing so could give Hayes cause to file an appeal.
William Petit's daughter, Hayley, would have matriculated with the Class of 2011, but was murdered when Hayes invaded her home in Cheshire, Conn., in July 2007. Petit's home was subsequently burned as Hayes and Komisarjevsky attempted to flee the scene.
On Wednesday, the court convicted Hayes on 16 of 17 charges against him including rape, assault, murder and kidnapping six of which make him eligible for the death penalty, The Dartmouth previously reported.
Hayes was acquitted of arson.
The sentencing portion of Hayes's trial will begin Oct. 18, and may take up to one month. Komisarjevsky will likely be tried separately next year.
William Petit said that while he would have preferred to make a statement during sentencing, he decided against it because Connecticut law is unclear regarding the admissibility of "victim impact statements," CNN reported.
"This lack of clarity in the law is a crippling disincentive to surviving family members of victims in capital murder cases to make a statement," he told reporters Friday.
According to the current version of the law, Petit said, statements by victims of crimes could be construed as a violation of the law, giving convicted criminals "a basis for appeal and possibly even a new sentencing trial."
The law is also ambiguous as to who is allowed to give victim-impact statements, according to Petit, and does not outline the proper time during a trial when they may be given. Such statements should be part of the conviction process, Petit said in his statement.
"Just as a capital murderer is permitted to seek to humanize' himself by presenting all manner of mitigating evidence about his own background and circumstances, the prosecution should also be permitted equally to humanize' the lives of a defendant's victims," he said.
Gary Rose, chair of the government and politics department at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, Conn., said that Petit is right not to testify due to concerns that the defense could use his testimony as grounds for appeal.
"Quite frankly, I don't think he needs to say anything more," he said in an interview with The Dartmouth. "The jury is well aware of what this man has gone through."
Hayes's sentencing could affect the results of the Connecticut midterm elections, according to Rose. He added that because of state laws that allow for a lengthy appellate process, capital punishment is typically "not a workable penalty" in the state.
Petit has strongly lobbied for the use of capital punishment and praised Connecticut's Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell for vetoing a June 2009 bill that sought to ban the death penalty.
"Thankfully, [Governor] Rell has a sense of what is required to maintain the fabric of our society," he said in a 2009 interview with the Hartford Courant. "I want to thank Governor Rell for her moral courage and clarity to stand up for what is right and just with her veto of the bill to abolish the death penalty."
Rell is not running for re-election this year.
If Democratic gubernatorial candidate Dan Malloy is elected governor, the death penalty will most likely be overturned, Rose said. Regardless of the outcome of the election, Rose predicted that Democrats will retain control of the state legislature, making the death penalty a highly inefficient option for prosecutors in Connecticut.
