New Voices: Woman Who Lost Mother and Husband in Separate Murders Calls on Wyoming to Repeal Death Penalty

A Wyoming woman whose moth­er and hus­band were mur­dered in sep­a­rate inci­dents is call­ing on the state to repeal its death penal­ty for the ben­e­fit of vic­tims’ family members.

In an October 17 op-ed in the Casper Star Tribune, Christal Martin (pic­tured) described the deep emo­tion­al trau­ma caused to fam­i­ly mem­bers of mur­der vic­tims dur­ing court pro­ceed­ings and the inad­e­qua­cy of sup­port ser­vices fam­i­lies receive in the state’s jus­tice sys­tem. Contrasting the high costs of the death penal­ty with the mea­ger resources pro­vid­ed her fam­i­ly after the mur­ders, Martin argued that “[i]nstead of main­tain­ing a cost­ly death penal­ty that throws mil­lions of dol­lars at just a few cas­es, Wyoming should com­mit to pro­vid­ing ade­quate sup­port to fam­i­lies of mur­der vic­tims like mine.”

Martin was a child when her moth­er was kid­napped, raped, and mur­dered. She explains that even though the killer con­fessed and the pros­e­cu­tion did not seek the death penal­ty, court pro­ceed­ings nev­er­the­less dragged on for more than a year. ​“I don’t think I would have sur­vived those teenage years if we were dragged back to court year after year, hear­ing after hear­ing, appeal after appeal, as hap­pens with cap­i­tal cas­es,” she wrote. ​“And I’m not sure I could have han­dled the state putting anoth­er fam­i­ly through the kind of loss that my fam­i­ly had endured.” 

When her hus­band was also mur­dered years lat­er, she was forced to relive that expe­ri­ence. ​“Each time I walked into a court­room for anoth­er hear­ing or had a con­ver­sa­tion with the prosecutor’s office about the next steps in the case of my husband’s mur­der, my chil­dren and I were re-trau­ma­tized,” she recalled. ​“The vision of what hap­pened to my hus­band replayed over and over in my mind.”

Martin’s focus shift­ed to help­ing her chil­dren cope with their grief but faced a vic­tim ser­vice bureau­cra­cy that she says was ​“per­pet­u­al­ly under­fund­ed and extreme­ly dif­fi­cult to nav­i­gate.” ​“Going through the process has reaf­firmed for me just how much our cur­rent jus­tice sys­tem fails mur­der vic­tims’ fam­i­lies, right at the moment when they need sup­port the most,” Martin wrote. ​“Many sur­vivors face trou­ble just get­ting out of bed (I know I did), much less fig­ur­ing out where to find grief coun­sel­ing and oth­er need­ed ser­vices.” Attempting to address this tragedy by pur­su­ing the death of anoth­er per­son, she argues, is not the solution. 

Ultimately, Martin con­cludes, “[i]t’s time to end the Wyoming death penal­ty. … Cost sav­ings from end­ing the death penal­ty could be used towards pro­grams that actu­al­ly keep our com­mu­ni­ties safe, pre­vent­ing vio­lence before it occurs, and that pro­vide heal­ing resources for vic­tims’ fam­i­lies like mine.” 

“The emo­tion­al and finan­cial costs are too great for Wyoming to bear,” she wrote. ​“Repeal Wyoming’s death penal­ty for vic­tims’ fam­i­ly mem­bers like me and my children.”