As Maryland pre­pares for the exe­cu­tion of Steven Oken this week, two Maryland par­ents whose daugh­ter was mur­dered six years ago pro­vid­ed a vic­tims’ fam­i­ly per­spec­tive on cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in The Washington Post:

​“Oken com­mit­ted the crimes for which he is sen­tenced to die back in 1987. Anyone who has seen the sur­vivors of vic­tims feels sor­row for the pain they have had to bear as the case has worn on. But the death penal­ty holds lit­tle promise of help­ing sur­vivors deal with their emo­tion­al dam­age. The vic­tim remains lost to them whether the killer lives or dies.
…
​“Our expe­ri­ence sug­gests that the death penal­ty in this coun­try is not serv­ing its intend­ed goals. No mat­ter how hard we try to make sure we have the most strin­gent rules for impos­ing the death penal­ty, it is still a process man­aged by peo­ple. Having now met three free men who served near­ly 30 years of their col­lec­tive lives on death row before being exon­er­at­ed, we are mind­ful that the right­ful appli­ca­tion of this sen­tence is far from per­fect.

​“One tragedy of the death penal­ty is that it turns society’s per­spec­tive away from the vic­tim and cre­ates an out­pour­ing of sup­port for those who have per­pe­trat­ed a crime. The meet­ings now being held in Maryland in search of ways to stop Oken’s exe­cu­tion focus on him, not on his vic­tims.

​“We need to deal with vio­lent offend­ers in a way that takes them out of cir­cu­la­tion quick­ly, secures our safe­ty and helps sur­vivors heal. But it also must be a way that leaves us on high­er moral ground than the death penal­ty does.”

Oken is sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed dur­ing the week of June 14 – 18th.

(Op-ed by Sylvester and Vicki Schieber, Washington Post, June 13, 2004) See Victims.

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