By Pat Eaton-Robb
Associated Press
HARTFORD, Conn. — Two former Connecticut death-row inmates convicted of killing a mother and her two daughters during a 2007 home invasion have been transferred to separate maximum-security facilities in Pennsylvania.
Joshua Komisarjevsky and Steven Hayes were convicted in the slayings of Jennifer Hawke-Petit and her two daughters in a home invasion in Cheshire.
Both were recently resentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole after the Connecticut Supreme Court ruled last year that the death penalty violated the state constitution’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment and was out of step with contemporary standards of decency.
State prisons officials gave no reason for the Aug. 16 transfers, other than saying it was done as part of an interstate corrections compact for “reasons of safety and security.”
“Hayes and Komisarjevsky will serve six consecutive life terms in prison without the possibility of release and will be housed out of state for an indefinite period of time,” the department said.
Thomas Ullmann, the public defender who represented Hayes, said there were concerns that the two would be in danger in Connecticut’s prison population because of their notoriety.
“I’m pleased with the move and I think Mr. Hayes is pleased with it,” he said. “But it’s not like life will be easy in Pennsylvania either.”
Moira Buckley, an attorney for Komisarjevsky, declined to comment on the move, noting his case is still under appeal.
The two men were at the center of Connecticut’s debate over its death penalty.
A 2012 law passed by Democratic Gov. Dannel P. Malloy and the Democrat-controlled legislature abolished the death penalty for future cases, but left the 11 men already convicted of capital crimes on death row after a debate that focused on the Cheshire home invasion.
Hayes and Komisarjevsky were among the first to be resentenced. The other former death-row inmates all remain in Connecticut’s Northern Correctional Institution, the state’s highest-security facility, which housed death row.
Connecticut currently has 58 inmates housed in other states as part of the interstate compact, which has been in effect since 1973.
Dr. William Petit, who survived the home invasion, has been traveling out of the country and did not immediately reply to a message seeking comment.
He had called the decision to overturn their death penalties an insult.
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