Policy Issues
Victims’ Families
Murder victims’ families hold a variety of views on the death penalty. Studies suggest the death penalty does not bring closure and interferes with their healing process.
Policy Issues
Murder victims’ families hold a variety of views on the death penalty. Studies suggest the death penalty does not bring closure and interferes with their healing process.
Tragically, every capital murder case involves at least one deceased victim. Vindication for victims and closure for victims’ families are often held out as primary reasons for supporting the death penalty. However, many people in this circumstance believe that another killing would not bring closure and that the death penalty is a disservice to victims.
The families and associates of the victims (sometimes called “covictims”) can play a key role in how a case proceeds in the courts. The prosecution may consult with the families on whether to seek the death penalty or to accept a plea to a lesser sentence. If death is pursued, family members may be asked to testify at the sentencing phase to describe the impact the murder has had on their own lives. Victims’ families often speak at legislative hearings on the death penalty, both in favor of and in opposition to a death penalty statute.
Statistically, the race of the victim can be relevant to the issues of arbitrary application and racial discrimination in the death penalty. Studies have shown that death cases disproportionately involve white victims in the underlying murder.
Victims’ family members who oppose the death penalty are sometimes ignored if the prosecution is intent on seeking the most extreme punishment. In addition, victim impact statements at sentencing proceedings can be so dramatic and powerful as to overwhelm any mitigating factors presented about the defendant’s life history.
DPIC keeps track of the race and gender of all victims in cases where there has been an execution. The voices of victims’ families are highlighted as offering an important and unique perspective on the death penalty.
Jul 27, 2020
When Attorney General William Barr announced in July 2019 that the federal government planned to resume fede…
Read MoreVictims' Families
Mar 09, 2022
New Hampshire State Representative Robert “Renny” Cushing (pictured), a longtime victim-advocate who led the Granite State’s successful efforts to repeal the death penalty, died March 7, 2022 after a multi-year battle with prostate cancer.
Victims' Families
Mar 07, 2022
The U.S. Supreme Court has overturned a federal appeals court decision that had reversed the death sentences imposed on Dzhokhar Tsarnaev for his role in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings that killed three people …
Victims' Families
Feb 08, 2022
Children of family members who have been sentenced to death or executed are among the most hidden trauma victims of capital punishment. To help address their unique mental health needs, the National Child Traumatic Stress Network (NCTSN), an organ…
Victims' Families
Oct 27, 2021
Three years after the religiously-motivated attack on Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue, the status of the state and federal prosecutions in the case remains unsettled. As the three Jewish congregations who wors…
Deterrence
Sep 08, 2021
Efforts to end the death penalty in Utah edged forward on September 8, 2021 as two Republican legislators revealed plans to introduce legislation to “repeal and replace” the state’s capital punishment law and the prosecuting attor…
Victims' Families
Jul 08, 2021
A Jewish congregation whose members were among the eleven people killed by a white supremacist in an attack on Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue in October 2018 has renewed its request for the Department of Justice to drop the d…
Victims' Families
May 18, 2021
The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles has voted to deny clemency to Quintin Jones (pictured, right), disregarding the request by the family of Berthena Bryant, whom Jones killed in 1999, asking Texas Governor Gre…
Juveniles
May 03, 2021
Kentucky prosecutors have dropped capital charges against two defendants who had challenged the constitutionality of the death penalty for crimes committed by offenders younger than 21 years old. On April 21, 2021, prosecutors ann…
Arbitrariness
Mar 19, 2021
The movement to repeal capital punishment in Ohio has gained additional steam as former Governor Robert Taft and former state attorneys general Jim Petro and Lee Fisher
Costs
Mar 05, 2021
A Wyoming state senate committee has advanced to the full Senate a bill to repeal the state’s death penalty. After taking testimony from witnesses including the state public defender’s office, family members of murder vic…