How to Write a Persuasive Letter for Victims Family Against a Parole
Proponents of capital punishment accept long argued for the capital punishment as necessary to "do justice" for and bring closure to family members of homicide victims. Just science suggests that achieving closure through execution may be a myth and growing numbers of family members of homicide victims oppose death penalty or do non want it pursued in the deaths of their loved ones.
Family unit members of murder victims have become increasingly outspoken over the years in their opposition to the death penalty. The 2019 successful repeal of New Hampshire'southward decease punishment was led past State Rep. Renny Cushing, whose father and brother-in-police were murdered in ii carve up incidents years apart. Cushing has described the death penalty as a "ritualized killing" that does cypher to compensate for a victim's family'due south loss. State Sen. Ruth Ward, whose father was killed when she was 7 years sometime, spoke briefly on the floor of the Senate before casting her vote. Her male parent, she said, "never saw u.s. abound upwardly. [But] my female parent forgave whoever information technology was, and I will vote in favor of this bill."
In Iowa, John Wolfe – the begetter of State Rep. Mary Wolfe – gave highly emotional testimony opposing efforts to reintroduce the capital punishment in that state. Ii of his other daughters had been murdered, and if prosecutors had sought the death penalty against their killer, information technology would have dragged on the family'south desperation. Besides, he added, "Justice is not infallible." (Death penalty pecker dying in Iowa House, The Gazette, February ane, 2018.)
Before Connecticut repealed the capital punishment, 179 murder victims' families signed a letter to legislators advocating abolition of the death penalty. The letter stated:
Our direct experiences with the criminal justice arrangement and struggling with grief take led us all to the same conclusion: Connecticut'south expiry penalty fails victims' families…. In Connecticut, the death penalty is a imitation hope that goes unfulfilled, leaving victims' families frustrated and angry after years of fighting the legal organisation. And as the state hangs onto this cleaved system, it wastes millions of dollars that could go toward much-needed victims' services.
See below for some examples of new family-fellow member voices speaking out on death sentence.
Beth Kissileff (pictured), a writer and the married woman of a rabbi who survived the shooting rampage that killed eleven worshippers at Pittsburgh's Tree of Life synagogue, has asked the U.Southward. Department of Justice not to seek the death sentence against the man charged with committing those murders. In an stance article for the Religion News Service, Kissileff wrote that she and her married man, Rabbi Jonathan Perlman of Pittsburgh'due south New Light Congregation, engaged federal prosecutors and a social worker who had come to talk over the trial of the white supremacist accused of the act of domestic terrorism in "a discussion of Jewish concepts of justice." Three members of the New Light Congregation were amongst those murdered in the synagogue. Rabbi Perlman, Kissileff wrote, told the prosecution team: "Our Bible has many laws nigh why people should be put to expiry. … But our sages and rabbis decided that afterward biblical times these deaths mean decease at the hands of heaven, not a human court." She writes, "if as religious people we believe that life is sacred, how can nosotros be permitted to have a life, even the life of someone who has committed horrible deportment?"
Kissileff bases her decision that a sentence of life without parole for the synagogue shooting is more appropriate than death both on Jewish teachings against the death penalty and on her hope that the killer might yet modify his white supremacist behavior. She wrote in an article for The Jerusalem Post that "[due west]hen Jews are killed only for being Jewish, nosotros commemorate them with the words 'Hashem yikom damam,' may God avenge their blood. This conception absents u.s. from the equation since information technology expresses that it is God's responsibility, not ours, to seek ultimate justice. As humans, we are incapable of meting out true justice when a monstrous crime has been committed." She explains that, although the Torah calls for a death sentence for some crimes, Jewish tradition teaches that death sentences should be very rare, if they are allowed at all. She writes that "a Jewish court is considered bloodthirsty if it allows the death sentence to be carried out [even] once every 70 years."
Though recognizing that repentance is rare, Kissileff said nonetheless "[t]hither is e'er a chance for redemption. Calling for the death penalty means there is no possibility for the shooter to repent, to change or to improve. I would rather non prevent that possibility of change, slim equally it may exist, by putting someone to expiry." She recounted the cases of white nationalists Derek Black, who renounced his hatred of Jews afterwards being invited to Shabbat dinners by Jewish students at his higher, and Arno Michaelis, a onetime skinhead leader who later co-authored a volume on forgiveness with a homo whose male parent was amid the seven congregants murdered in a hate set on on a Sikh temple in Wisconsin. Referring to these examples, Kissileff said "[n]either [homo] might have been expected to change their beliefs, and yet they take."
Kissileff's articles describe the legacy of those who were killed in the Pittsburgh assail and how the shooting has inspired others to become more involved in the synagogue and to learn more about their Jewish faith: "Creating more knowledge of what Judaism and Jewish values are, and encouraging more Jews to commit to them, is the almost profound manner to avenge their blood." She writes that, "rather than seeking the shooter'southward death," a improve response for Jews would exist "strengthening other Jews and Jewish life in Pittsburgh and effectually the world. Doing so volition mean that Jews, not forces of evil, have the ultimate victory." She concludes: "The most important vengeance for the murder of xi Jews or 6 1000000 is for the Jewish people to live and the Torah to live, not for their killer to die."
(Beth Kissileff, Married woman OF PITTSBURGH RABBI: NO Capital punishment FOR ANTISEMITIC SHOOTER, The Jerusalem Mail service, Feb 20, 2019; Bob Bauder, Wife of rabbi who survived Tree of Life shooting opposes death penalty, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, February twenty, 2019; Beth Kissileff, The Jewish answer to how to punish the Pittsburgh synagogue shooter, Religion News Service, Feb 27, 2019.) Encounter Religion, Victims, and Federal Expiry Penalty.
Mark Heyer, whose daughter, Heather Heyer (pictured), was killed in 2017 while protesting a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, says he does not desire federal prosecutors to pursue the death sentence against the homo who killed his daughter. James Alex Fields, Jr., a 21-year-quondam who identifies as a neo-Nazi, was tried in Virginia state court and convicted of murder and a litany of other crimes for driving a car into a crowd of protesters, killing Heather Heyer and injuring many others. On December 11, the state-court gauge accepted the jury's sentencing recommendation and sentenced Fields to life in prison house plus 419 years and a fine of $480,000. However, Fields still faces federal detest crime charges arising out of the incident, including i murder charge for which prosecutors could seek the death penalty.
Mark Heyer told BuzzFeed News, "I don't relish the thought of [Fields] getting the death penalisation. That's my belief. I'd rather him become his heart directly and get life [in prison]." On the outcome of Fields's hateful behavior, Heyer wondered, "What happened to brand him hate that much? You don't just wake up in the morning time like that. He had hatred building up in him for years." Heyer expressed sympathy for Fields'southward family, saying, "He was too stupid and too young to realize what he was almost to do would change his whole life. I think about his mother and what she'due south having to go through." During the land court trial, Fields's lawyers presented prove that he had suffered from psychiatric disorders dating back to his early on childhood. Heather Heyer'south mother, Susan Bro, has not publicly shared her views on the appropriate penalisation for Fields, only has promoted her daughter'due south legacy of fighting racism. In an email to BuzzFeed News, she wrote that killing Fields "would not bring Heather back."
Federal prosecutors have not yet announced whether they will seek the expiry punishment against Fields. Whether they are able to practice so may depend, in part, upon the outcome of an unrelated example being considered past the U.South. Supreme Court. On December vi, 2018, the Court heard argument in Take a chance v. United States, a claiming to a legal concept known equally the "split sovereigns" doctrine, which allows a defendant to be tried in state and federal court for the aforementioned behave. Terance Run a risk, who was charged in both land and federal court with being a felon in possession of a firearm, argued that facing both country and federal charges violated the Constitution'due south double jeopardy clause, which protects against being "twice put in jeopardy" "for the same offence." If the Courtroom rules in Chance's favor, it could block Fields from beingness tried in federal courtroom on at least some of the federal charges. Court watchers said subsequently the argument that the Court did not appear inclined to strike downwardly the separate sovereigns doctrine.
(Blake Montgomery, Heather Heyer's Male parent Doesn't Want Her Killer To Get The Death Penalty, BuzzFeed News, December 7, 2018; Paul Duggan, James A. Fields Jr. sentenced to life in prison in Charlottesville car assault, Washington Post, December 11, 2018; Vanessa Romo, Charlottesville Jury Recommends 419 Years Plus Life For Neo-Nazi Who Killed Protester, NPR, Dec 11, 2018; Amy Howe, Argument analysis: Majority appears ready to uphold "separate sovereigns" doctrine, SCOTUSblog, December half-dozen, 2018.) See Victims.
Family members of murder victims share no single, uniform response to the death penalty, just ii recent publications illustrate that a growing number of these families are now advocating against uppercase punishment. In From Decease Into Life, a characteristic article in the January 8, 2018 print edition of the Jesuit mag America, Lisa Murtha profiles the stories of how several prominent victim-advocates against the capital punishment came to hold those views. And in a recently released compilation of essays, Non in Our Name , nine family members of murder victims share their stories of coping, grieving, and reconciliation in the face of losing a loved i to murder, and tell how their experiences transformed their views virtually 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 Nov. The death penalisation is often characterized equally providing justice and closure for family unit 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 punishment 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 too recounts the emotional journeys of Bob Curley, Marietta Jaeger Lane, and Neb Pelke, who are now vocal opponents of the death penalty. After his x-twelvemonth-erstwhile son Jeffrey was murdered, Curley launched a years-long crusade to reinstate capital letter punishment in Massachusetts, believing the expiry penalty might forestall something like this from happening [again]." He came to oppose the death penalty later seeing that the man he believed was less culpable for the expiry of his son received a harsher judgement and became convinced that "the organisation is just non fair" and could not exist trusted to accomplish the right issue in majuscule cases. Lane, a lifelong practicing Catholic, said she initially wanted to kill the man who abducted and murdered her 7-year former daughter, but she said, "I surrendered [and] did the only affair I could exercise, which was [give] God permission to change my centre." Pelke's 78-year-former grandmother was robbed and murdered past grouping of teenage girls, and 15-year-old Paula Cooper was sentenced to death. Pelke was convinced his grandmother "would take had love and compassion for Paula Cooper and her family and that she wanted me to have that aforementioned sort of love and compassion. I learned the nearly important lesson of my life …. I didn't have to see somebody else die in gild to bring healing from Nana's death."
A University of Minnesota study found that but 2.v% of victims' family members reported achieving closure every bit a upshot of capital letter penalization, while 20.ane% said the execution did not help them heal. Some other written report, published in the Marquette Law Review, found that family members in homicide proceedings in which the death penalty was unavailable were physically, psychologically, and behaviorally more salubrious and expressed greater satisfaction with the legal arrangement than family members in death-penalization cases.
(Lisa Murtha, These families lost loved ones to violence. Now they are fighting the death penalty., America Magazine, December 28, 2017; Family of murder victims write in opposition to death punishment, Catholic Sentinel, Jan ix, 2018.) See Victim Resources.
Source: https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/facts-and-research/new-voices/victims-families
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