Death penalty stance tests grieving Conn. church
Homicide victim believed to have opposed execution
CHESHIRE, Conn. - The United Methodist Church here is the kind of politically active place where parishioners take the pulpit to discuss poverty in El Salvador and refugees living in Meriden. But few issues engage its passions as much as the death penalty.
The last three pastors were opponents of capital punishment. Church-sponsored adult education classes promote the idea of "restorative justice," advocating rehabilitation over punishment. Two years ago, congregants attended vigils at the prison where Connecticut executed a prisoner for the first time in 45 years.
So it might have been expected that United Methodist congregants would speak out forcefully when a brutal triple murder in July led to tough new policies against violent criminals across the state and a pledge from prosecutors to seek capital punishment against the defendants.
But the congregation has been largely quiet, not out of indifference, but anguish: The victims were popular and active members of the church - Jennifer Hawke-Petit, 48, and her two daughters, Hayley, 17, and Michaela, 11. On July 23, two men broke into the family's home. Hawke-Petit was strangled, and her daughters died in a fire that was set by the intruders, police say.
The killings have not just stunned the congregation, they have spurred quiet debate about how it should respond to the crime and whether it should publicly oppose the punishment that may follow. It has also caused a few to reassess how they feel about the punishment.
At the heart of the debate are questions about how Hawke-Petit's husband, William, who survived the attack, feels about the death penalty. The indications are conflicting. Sensitive to his grief, many of the church's most ardent capital punishment opponents have been hesitant to speak against the capital charges brought against two parolees charged with the killings, Joshua Komisarjevsky and Steven Hayes.
"I'm treading lightly out of respect for the Petit family," said the church's pastor, the Rev. Stephen E. Volpe, a death penalty opponent. "I do not feel we, in this church, ought to make this tragedy the rallying cry for anything at this point."
At the same time, there is widespread belief that Hawke-Petit was opposed to capital punishment. Having her killers put to death would be the last thing she would want, many say.
"It'd be so dishonoring to her life to do anything violent in her name," said Carolyn Hardin Engelhardt, a church member who is the director of the ministry resource center at Yale Divinity School Library. "That's not the kind of person she was."
At least two church members think that Hawke-Petit endorsed an anti-death-penalty document known as a Declaration of Life. The declaration states a person's opposition to capital punishment and asks that prosecutors, in the event of the person's own death in a capital crime, not seek the death penalty. The documents have been signed by thousands of people, including Mario M. Cuomo, former governor of New York, and actor Martin Sheen.
"She was a nurse and she would not cause harm to anyone," said Lucy Earley, a congregant who notarized at least a dozen declarations during an appeal at the church and said she thought Hawke-Petit's was among them.
Declarations of Life are often kept with a person's will or other important papers, and are sometimes filed with registries. But it could not be determined whether Hawke-Petit had signed one. Although the family's home was heavily damaged in the fire and no independent copies have surfaced, death penalty opponents inside and outside the church have been trying to find one. A clear indication that Hawke-Petit rejected capital punishment could help them mobilize, they say, not only in the Cheshire case but also on behalf of the nine people on Connecticut's death row in Somers.
The opponents also say a signed declaration by Hawke-Petit opposing capital punishment could help counter the public outrage to the killings - outrage that has pressured state officials to suspend parole for violent criminals.
Still, if proof of Hawke-Petit's sentiments did surface, it would have little standing in court, lawyers and prosecutors say.
"Our job is to enforce the law no matter who the victim is or what the victim's religious beliefs are," said John A. Connelly, a veteran prosecutor in Waterbury who is not involved in the Cheshire case. "If you started imposing the death penalty based on what the victim's family felt, it would truly become arbitrary and capricious."
Michael Dearington, the state's attorney who is prosecuting the suspects in the Petit killings, said he did not know whether Hawke-Petit had signed a Declaration of Life. Asked if he knew Petit's views on the death penalty, he replied, "I have a no comment on that."
Not surprisingly, there has been much speculation within the church about whether William Petit, a physician, supports capital punishment.
Though he has participated in tributes to his family and has attended church in recent weeks, Petit has not granted interviews since the killings. "He's just not ready," his mother, Barbara, said recently. 