Judge Rejects Convicted Cheshire Killer Steven Hayes' Kosher Diet Complaint

A federal judge in Connecticut has rejected convicted killer Steven Hayes’ motions for a hearing and temporary injunction following a complaint he filed that he hasn’t been given a kosher diet to conform to his religious beliefs, according to the New Haven Register.

U.S. District Court Judge Alvin Thompson, in a ruling dated Tuesday, wrote that Hayes (one of the men on death row for the 2007 Cheshire home invasion triple homicide) is offered kosher meals, and the state Department of Correction has two rabbis who periodically monitor the preparation of kosher foods in the prison system, according to the Register, and that both certify the food and the preparation process comply with Jewish dietary laws.

While Thompson didn’t throw out the lawsuit, in rejecting the motions he found there is not a likelihood that it will succeed, according to the Register.

Read more at the New Haven Register here.

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.

According to multiple reports, Hayes went on a food strike on Aug. 24 and had lost about 50 pounds. He filed an amended complaint on Nov. 7 in which he described “extreme weight loss,” according to the New Haven Register.

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

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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