No Jurors Picked for Komisarjevsky Trial on First Day

The death penalty trial of Cheshire home invasion defendant Joshua Komisarjevsky is scheduled to start on Sept. 19 -- if a jury can be selected by then.

The first day of jury selection Wednesday didn’t move any closer to that goal. Thirty prospective jurors were excused, two by peremptory challenges by the defense and the prosecution, and none picked.

Jury selection will resume Thursday, with New Haven Superior Court Judge Jon C. Blue calling the remaining 10 prospective jurors for voir dire, in which prosecutors and defense lawyers question them about their suitability for the case.

The bulk of those excused Wednesday, 18 in all, claimed it would be a financial hardship to sit on the jury for the lengthy trial, which is expected to last about three months. Three others were sent home because they knew someone involved in the trial.

Judge Blue said the trial phase to determine guilt or innocence would probably take about four weeks, but if Komisarjevsky is found guilty, the penalty phase to determine if he should be executed might go on into December.

Komisarjevsky, 30, appeared in court with a short haircut and wearing a white shirt, tie and dark slacks.

He faces 17 counts, including capital felony murder, kidnapping, arson, larceny, burglary, assault and sexual assault, for the murders of Cheshire mother, Jennifer Hawke-Petit, and her two daughters, Hayley, 17, and Michaela, 11, in 2007.

Husband/father Dr. William Petit was beaten and tied up in his basement, but escaped before the kidnappers strangled the mother and set the house on fire. Police apprehended Komisarjevsky and co-defendant Steven Hayes, 47, a block away.

The court must pick 12 jurors, six alternates and three backup alternates. Jury selection for the Hayes trial took 10 weeks. He was found guilty and sentenced to death.

The most dramatic portion of the opening day of jury selection was the voir dire questioning of the two women, both residents of Wallingford, who were rejected by peremptory challenges.

Judge Blue frequently interrupted the lawyers and prosecutors to rephrase their questions so they didn’t leave jurors with misunderstandings that conflict with the law.

His corrections repeatedly made the point that whatever a juror may think about the defendant based on news reports or casual conversations, they must make their decisions on guilt and punishment based solely on the evidence and the trial judge’s instructions.

Seventeen jurors were excused by the judge after they admitted they had formed strong opinions and could not be impartial about the case.

One juror, a healthcare consultant, repeatedly claimed she could decide the case impartially, even after viewing "gruesome" crime scene photographs that defense attorney Walter Bansley III said had upset some of the jurors during Hayes' trial last year.

"If the judge instructed you on a principle of law, could you put aside your own personal opinion about what the law should be?" asked Bansley.

"Do you personally believe when we say life without the possibility of parole, it actually means that?" was another question.

The healthcare consultant repeatedly said she could be impartial but at the end of her voir dire, the defense lawyers used up one of their peremptory challenges and kept her off the jury.

Each side is allowed 40 peremptory challenges, in which they can reject a juror without stating why. State’s Attorney Michael Dearington declined to say if he and Senior State’s Attorney Gary Nicholson would have accepted the healthcare consultant as a juror.

The last prospective juror questioned for the day was a postal clerk whose father is a retired police officer. She was questioned at length by defense lawyer Jeremiah Donovan about how she follows the news.

Pretrial publicity is at issue in the case, with the defense lawyers arguing that the trial should be moved away from Cheshire to give Komisarjevsky a better chance for an impartial jury.

The postal clerk said she doesn’t follow the news much, doesn’t subscribe to newspapers or magazines and hardly pays any attention to the news on TV or radio. But she said she was aware of the Cheshire murders.

Nicholson questioned her about her view that life without parole might be a more severe punishment than death because, he said, death is over with quickly.

"It could be," she said.

Judge Blue cut in to state that Connecticut law considers the death penalty the most severe punishment.

After the lawyers finished questioning her, the defense team had a conference with their two jury consultants and decided to accept the postal clerk as a juror. But the prosecutors used one of their peremptory challenges to reject her.