Convicted Killer Steven Hayes on Food Strike Over Kosher Diet

Convicted killer Steven Hayes, one of the men on death row for the 2007 Cheshire home invasion triple homicide, has been on a food strike since Aug. 24 and has lost about 50 pounds, according to WTNH.com.

WTNH reports that Hayes, who is 5-foot-7, hasn’t eaten any non-kosher food since Aug. 24 and now weighs less than 120 pounds after weighing 170 pounds in 2007.

Hayes, 51, sued the state Department of Correction in August, claiming his rights are being violated because he isn’t being given a kosher diet to conform to his religious beliefs. He filed an amended complaint on Nov. 7, which was made public on Wednesday, detailing what he describes as “extreme weight loss,” according to the New Haven Register.

Hayes, via the Register, says he has suffered “almost two years of emotional injury from having to choose between following God and starving or choosing sin to survive.”

In August, Hayes described himself in a hand-written civil rights complaint as an orthodox practicing Jew and claims that he has been continuously denied the kosher diet he has been requesting since May 2013.

According to WTNH, the department offers kosher food, but Hayes contends it isn’t kosher because of cross-contamination.

Hayes and Joshua Komisarjevsky were both convicted, in separate trials, with felony murder and sentenced to death for the 2007 killings of Jennifer Hawke-Petit and her children, Michaela, 11, and Hayley, 17. Both Komisarjevsky and Hayes are appealing their convictions.

In his August complaint, Hayes wrote that his First Amendment and Eighth Amendment rights are being violated.

Hayes wrote that the denial of a kosher diet is “a clear violation of my 1st Amendment Right to freely practice my religion of choice, Judaism.”

Hayes wrote that it is also cruel and unusual punishment since “the denial of the kosher diet forces me to eat non-kosher food in order to survive (food is a basic need). I have also experience (sp) ‘secondary’ weight loss due to refraining from eating non-kosher products.”

Hayes also wrote that he suffers a metabolic allergy to soy and his acceptable food choices are severely limited.

“I have been suffering almost starvation for the past year,” Hayes wrote.

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