The Perspective of Murder Victims' Families

Victims’ Family Members and Law Enforcement Speak Out

 

Recent editorials have summarized some important opposition to the use of the death penalty. The New York Times speaks for many co-victims (the families of murder victims) who report that executions do not bring about closure and that the entire process actually prolongs their suffering, as well as being a waste of money. The Dansbury (CT) News-Times, reacting to two recent studies of the attitudes and opinions of law enforcement professionals, wrote that “The majority of police chiefs said the death penalty does not deter violent crime, and they rank the death penalty dead last in effective tools to fight crime.”

 

 

Honoring Her “Love of Life and All People”

 

Sometimes, the family members of murder victims can give the most eloquent testimony against the death penalty.  Such was the case recently in North Carolina.  Eve Marie Carson, the very popular student body president at the University of North Carolina, was brutally murdered in 2008.  Her family accepted a life-without-parole plea agreement, saying in court that the "outcome is neither adequate nor good," but that "it honors Eve's love of life and all people."  In the words of a Charlotte News & Observer editorial, "A desire for revenge, an eye for an eye, would have been entirely understandable. Somehow, the Carsons managed to resist it in the name of their daughter. For their courage in even facing this day, they deserve the admiration of all. Their daughter was a very special person. The same may be said of those who raised her."

 

 

The Death Penalty is Unfair - to Victims' Families

 

“Some say victims' families want "closure." There is no closure when someone you love is murdered. But there should be justice and certainty - certainty that the right person has been convicted and sent to prison and certainty that when the trial is over, it's really over,” Lorry Post wrote recently in the Philadelphia Inquirer.  “The death penalty accomplishes neither of these goals.”

 

When Lorry says “there is no closure” he speaks from experience; his daughter was murdered by her husband.  Download his entire article by clicking here .

 

 

 

Does Killing Really Give Closure?

 

A recent column in the Washington Post argues that it does not.  Dahlia Lithwick quotes a murder victim’s mother who told a US Senate sub-committee that “a single-minded government focus on executions shifts the focus away from other, more meaningful legal reforms that might better honor victims and support their families.”  Referring to the trials of Slobodan Milosevic, Zacarias Moussaoui, Timothy McVeigh and others, Lithwick concludes that “(m)any, many victims of violent tragedy object to (the) assumption that their interest in justice is congruent with that of state prosecutors seeking the death penalty.”  Her column is available by clicking here .

 

 

 

Murder Victims' Families for Human Rights announces the publication of the first issue of the organization's newsletter, ARTICLE 3

 

The newsletter takes its name from Article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, "Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person." MVFHR hopes ARTICLE 3 will become an important new resource for their effort to change the public discourse about the death penalty from one that takes place in a criminal justice context to a discussion about Human Rights.

 

Highlights of this first issue include:

* A firsthand report on the death penalty debate at the UN Commission on Human Rights meeting in Geneva this past April

* The story of how MVFHR and other groups filed suit against the Connecticut Department of Corrections -- and won

* An interview with Sister Helen Prejean on the death penalty as a human rights issue

* Victims' testimony before lawmakers in Connecticut, New York, and Maryland

* News about the movement to oppose the death penalty in Korea

* A report from the first conference on the death penalty in Africa

* Information about a French group that assists victims of terrorism and publicly opposes the death penalty

* An invitation to join the death penalty caucus of the U.S. Human Rights Network

* Victims' voices in the aftermath of the US Supreme Court decision to end juvenile executions

* News of the Catholic Campaign to End the Use of the Death Penalty and how victims' family members can be involved

* Information about the upcoming Journey of Hope in Texas

 

To download a pdf file of the first issue of Article 3, visit www.murdervictimsfamilies.org

 

 

 

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