Dan Glode, a for­mer dis­trict attor­ney in Lincoln County, Oregon, recent­ly crit­i­cized the death penal­ty for ​“the enor­mous expense in dol­lars and emo­tion­al cap­i­tal [it takes] for the fam­i­lies of homi­cide vic­tims.” Writing in the Newport News-Times, he expe­ri­enced crime both as a pros­e­cu­tor and as a rel­a­tive of a mur­der vic­tim: ​“The emo­tion­al cost on the fam­i­lies of the vic­tim is also enor­mous. I have some knowl­edge of this, as a close rel­a­tive of mine was mur­dered back in the 1980s. It took sev­er­al years to final­ly catch those respon­si­ble, and I real­ized I just want­ed it over. When they were final­ly tried and incar­cer­at­ed, I knew I could move on. The jus­tice sys­tem, as good or imper­fect as it may be, can­not make the victim’s fam­i­ly whole again, but it can reduce the trau­ma by not drag­ging things out inter­minably. In these cap­i­tal cas­es, the process goes on and on. Sometimes these fam­i­ly mem­bers have to go through addi­tion­al tri­als if the cas­es get kicked back for re-tri­al, and the hurt begins anew. The wound nev­er heals; it doesn’t even scar over.”

Glode spent 12 years as a dis­trict attor­ney and real­ized that crit­i­cism of the death penal­ty is not always pop­u­lar: ​“I real­ize it may not be polit­i­cal­ly cor­rect for an elect­ed (or an ex-elect­ed in my case) dis­trict attor­ney to admit this, but I feel com­pelled to do so at this time. Some cur­rent dis­trict attor­neys may think it polit­i­cal sui­cide to do so because they fear they would be con­sid­ered ​‘soft’ on crime. Nothing could be fur­ther from the truth. Let me say that my com­punc­tions pri­mar­i­ly are not on moral or eth­i­cal grounds involv­ing putting a con­vict­ed mur­der­er to death, but on the way it is used (or not used) in this state, and the enor­mous expense in dol­lars and emo­tion­al cap­i­tal for the fam­i­lies of homicide victims.”

(D. Glode, ​“Death penal­ty con­flicts,” Newport News-Times, June 25, 2010). See New Voices and Victims.

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