When Missouri executed Jeff Ferguson in 2014 for the rape and murder of Kelli Hall, her father said the Hall family “believed the myth that Ferguson’s execution would close our emotional wounds.” At that time, Jim Hall told reporters “It’s over, thank God.” But, he now says, it wasn’t. In an op-ed in the Columbia Daily Tribune, Mr. Hall writes that his family has “come to deeply regret [Ferguson’s] execution” and appeals to Governor Jay Nixon to commute the death sentences of the 25 men remaining on the state’s death row. Hall says that several weeks after Ferguson was executed, his family viewed a documentary film that featured comments from Ferguson that “conveyed such genuine remore for the pain he caused both our family and his because of his horrible actions.” A few months later, the Halls also learned that Ferguson had been a leader in the prison’s hospice, GED, and restorative justice programs, including one in which prisoners listened to victims share the devastating impact the crimes had on their lives.The Hall family was able to forgive Ferguson as soon as they saw the film, and Mr. Hall says “my family wishes we had known of his involvement in these programs and been invited to participate. … I’m convinced significant healing would have occurred for us all if our family had engaged in a frank conversation with him at the prison. I wish I had had the chance — consistent with my Christian beliefs — to have told him in person that I forgave him for what he did to our innocent and precious daughter.” While applauding Governor Nixon for “his strong advocacy of restorative justice,” Mr. Hall writes “[t]he death penalty … stands as the concept’s polar opposite.” Commuting all of Missouri’s death sentences to life in prison without parole, he says, “would be a true gesture of restorative justice.”
(J. Hall, “Commute all death sentences,” Columbia Daily Tribune, December 27, 2016.) See New Voices and Victims.
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