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USA: MURDER VICTIMS’ FAMILY MEMBERS SPEAK OF MOVING FORWARD WITHOUT THE DEATH PENALTY

January 9, 2018:

Two recent publications illustrate that a growing number of family members of murder victims are now advocating against capital punishment.
In From Death Into Life, a feature article in the January 8, 2018 print edition of the Jesuit magazine America, Lisa Murtha profiles the stories of how several prominent victim-advocates against the death penalty came to hold those views. And in a recently released compilation of essays, Not in Our Name (Oregonians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty), nine family members of murder victims share their stories of coping, grieving, and reconciliation in the face of losing a loved one to murder, and tell how their experiences transformed their views about capital punishment.
“While each has endured the extreme pain of losing a loved one to murder, they all are staunchly opposed to what they say is more violence in the form of a state-sanctioned execution and a death penalty,” said Ron Steiner, leader of Oregonians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, which released the essays in November.
The death penalty is often characterized as providing justice and closure for family members of the victims. But, Murtha writes, "for many, the death penalty provides neither the closure nor the healing that legal and political systems oftentimes promise. Instead, a growing number of victims’ families are saying it inhibits that healing." Murtha reports on the different reasons offered by five different victims’ families who spoke out against the death penalty in 2016.
"One learned how profoundly the murderer had changed in prison, another just wanted the appeals to stop and another discovered that the men originally convicted of the crime were actually innocent," she writes. Murtha also recounts the emotional journeys of Bob Curley, Marietta Jaeger Lane, and Bill Pelke, who are now vocal opponents of the death penalty. After his 10-year-old son Jeffrey was murdered, Curley launched a years-long crusade to reinstate capital punishment in Massachusetts, believing the death penalty might prevent something like this from happening again.” He came to oppose the death penalty after seeing that the man he believed was less culpable for the death of his son received a harsher sentence and became convinced that "the system is just not fair" and could not be trusted to reach the right result in capital cases. Lane, a lifelong practicing Catholic, said she initially wanted to kill the man who abducted and murdered her 7-year old daughter, but she said, "I surrendered and did the only thing I could do, which was give God permission to change my heart.” Pelke's 78-year-old grandmother was robbed and murdered by a group of teenage girls, and 15-year-old Paula Cooper was sentenced to death. Pelke was convinced his grandmother "would have had love and compassion for Paula Cooper and her family and that she wanted me to have that same sort of love and compassion. I learned the most important lesson of my life .... I didn’t have to see somebody else die in order to bring healing from Nana’s death.”
A University of Minnesota study ("The Incremental Retributive Impact of a Death Sentence Over Life Without Parole," University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform, Volume 49, Issue 4, 2016.) found that just 2.5% of victims' family members reported achieving closure as a result of capital punishment, while 20.1% said the execution did not help them heal.
Another study published in the Marquette Law Review (“Assessing the Impact of the Ultimate Penal Sanction on Homicide Survivors: A Two State Comparison,”), found that family members in homicide proceedings in which the death penalty was unavailable were physically, psychologically, and behaviorally more healthy and expressed greater satisfaction with the legal system than family members in death-penalty cases.

(Source: DPIC, 09/01/2018)

IRAN: PRISONER EXECUTED AT SHIRAZ PRISON
EGYPT COURT SENTENCES 3 TO DEATH OVER OFFICER’S DEATH
BELARUS: TWO PERSONS SENTENCED TO DEATH FOR MURDERING YOUNG COUPLE
JORDAN: TWO BROTHERS SENTENCED TO DEATH FOR KILLING PREGNANT SISTER IN NAME OF ‘FAMILY HONOUR’
TEXAS (USA): ANTHONY ALLEN SHORE EXECUTED
MALAYSIA: MALAYSIAN, FOUR INDIAN NATIONALS SENTENCED TO DEATH FOR DRUG TRAFFICKING
IRANIAN AUTHORITIES CUT OFF A MAN'S HAND FOR STEALING
IRAN: TWO PRISONERS EXECUTED AT KARAJ CENTRAL PRISON
BOTSWANA BRUSHES OFF CALLS TO SCRAP DEATH PENALTY
MOROCCO: ABDELLATIF MERDAS’ MURDERER SENTENCED TO DEATH
IRAN: PRISONER EXECUTED AT BABOL PRISON
INDIA: MAN GETS DEATH SENTENCE FOR MURDERING MINOR GIRL
MALAYSIA: DEATH SENTENCES UPHELD FOR NINE FILIPINOS OVER 2013 INCURSION
BANGLADESH: 9 TO WALK GALLOWS FOR KILLING NARAIL AL MAN
JORDAN: MAN SENTENCED TO DEATH FOR MURDER OF MADABA TAXI DRIVER
DR CONGO: REBEL LEADER SENTENCED TO DEATH
CHINA: MURDERER SENTENCED TO DEATH AFTER 8 YEARS AT LARGE
IRAN: PRISONER PUBLICLY HANGED IN SALMAS
NIGERIA: KILLERS OF KACHIKWU’S UNCLE SENTENCED TO DEATH
IRAN: MAN EXECUTED IN QAZVIN FOR MURDER
IRAN: EXECUTIONS SUSPENDED AFTER RELAXING LAW ON DRUG OFFENCES
BAHRAIN: MILITARY COURT UPHOLDS 1ST DEATH PENALTY
EGYPT COURT SEEKS EXECUTION OF 13 EGYPTIAN, YEMENI DRUG DEALERS
BANGLADESH: 2 MOULVIBAZAR WAR CRIMINALS GET DEATH PENALTY
NIGERIA: MAN SENTENCED TO DEATH FOR ARMED ROBBERY
ZAMBIA: THREE TO HANG FOR BURYING AUNT ALIVE
IRAN: TWO PRISONERS EXECUTED IN NORTHERN CITY OF SARI
IRAN HANGS MAN FOR RAPE, MURDER OF SIX-YEAR-OLD GIRL
SOMALIA: FIVE ACCUSED OF TERROR ATTACK ARE SENTENCED TO DEATH
ISRAEL: DEATH PENALTY BILL PASSES PRELIMINARY KNESSET VOTE

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