Connecticut: Supreme Court sets October date for Cheshire murderer’s request for new trial in Petit case
The state Supreme Court will hear arguments in October on whether convicted Cheshire triple murderer Joshua Komisarjevsky should get a new trial based partly on taped police calls from the morning of the 2007 murders that were never turned over to the defense. Komisarjevsky and Steven Hayes were convicted of murder in the July 23, 2007 home invasion slayings of Jennifer Hawke-Petit and her daughters Hayley Petit, 17, and Mikaela Petit, 11. Both men were originally sentenced to death, but re-sentenced to life in prison without parole after the legislature abolished the death penalty. John Holdredge and Moira Buckley, lawyers for Komisarjevsky, filed an appeal in 2017 based mostly on new evidence that a number of taped calls that came into the police dispatch center the day of the murders were never disclosed to the defense. Among the 41 calls they claim not to have heard previously were calls from SWAT officers told not to respond to Sorghum Mill Road and a call from the offi...