September 21, 2004: Newsday

AVOID DEATH SENTENCES

Give cop killers life with­out parole

The recent slay­ing of two detec­tives does not war­rant restora­tion of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in New York State

Op-Ed By Kathy Dillon [Kathy Dillon, a for­mer social work­er from Syracuse, is a mem­ber of New Yorkers Against the Death Penalty.]

The recent trag­ic mur­der of two police detec­tives in Brooklyn left many peo­ple reel­ing, includ­ing me. When I was 14 years old, my father was shot and killed in the line of duty on the New York State Thruway. He had been a state troop­er for 16 years.

So news of the Brooklyn shoot­ing awak­ened some very painful mem­o­ries for me. The crime also left some peo­ple call­ing for restora­tion of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, after Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes said it could not be sought in this case because of a recent Court of Appeals rul­ing strik­ing down the state’s death-penal­ty law. Some said the death penal­ty is the only way to pro­tect police offi­cers who risk their lives every day to pro­tect us.

But I’m not so sure. New York had the death penal­ty in 1974, when my father was mur­dered, but it did­n’t pro­tect him. And since the death penal­ty was rein­stat­ed in New York in 1995, police offi­cers con­tin­ue to be shot and some have been killed. Some might believe that the death penal­ty is a deter­rent to crime, but these events sug­gest oth­er­wise.

Ten years after my father’s mur­der, my boyfriend of four years was also mur­dered. Issues relat­ed to crime and pun­ish­ment are woven into the fab­ric of my life. We all seek a more peace­ful and just soci­ety, yet I have found that there are no easy answers.

Some say the death penal­ty is the answer. I have fam­i­ly mem­bers who share this view, but it is not the answer for me. Executing the man who mur­dered my father would not have brought me peace. Whereas some advo­cates of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment claim that an exe­cu­tion brings ​“clo­sure” to sur­viv­ing loved ones, I think most of us feel that there is no clo­sure. I’ll always miss my father; an exe­cu­tion would nev­er change that.

Far from bring­ing clo­sure, a cap­i­tal pros­e­cu­tion may do the oppo­site. After a death sen­tence is hand­ed down, the legal pro­ceed­ings drag on for years with the out­come left uncer­tain at best. The emo­tion­al wounds of vic­tims’ fam­i­ly mem­bers are opened again and again.

One thing I know clear­ly: In my life­time, I must give voice to my oppo­si­tion to the death penal­ty. In the wake of a mur­der, we all feel deep sad­ness, out­rage and vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty. But the anti­dote to vio­lence is not more vio­lence. For me, an exe­cu­tion in response to a mur­der in my life would only have added to the hor­ror and the trau­ma of the whole expe­ri­ence. I know too well the far-reach­ing, dam­ag­ing effects of vio­lence to want any more vio­lence.

I would­n’t want to spend 10 or 20 years wait­ing for some illu­so­ry ​“clo­sure.” If one of my loved ones’ mur­der­ers had been exe­cut­ed, it would­n’t have made me feel any bet­ter. Rather, it would have dri­ven home the truth that no num­ber of state-sanc­tioned killings could com­pen­sate for the loss of my loved ones. A life tak­en by exe­cu­tion would not have replaced the pre­cious life lost.

New York’s 1995 law is usu­al­ly referred to as the death-penal­ty statute. But the real val­ue of that leg­is­la­tion was not the death penal­ty — which has proved inef­fec­tive, cost­ly, unjust, and (accord­ing to the recent Court of Appeals rul­ing) uncon­sti­tu­tion­al. The bil­l’s real achieve­ment was the pro­vi­sion for life impris­on­ment with­out the pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole. With no exe­cu­tions and mil­lions of dol­lars wast­ed, the death penal­ty has been a fail­ure. But, with 143 mur­der­ers locked up for good since life with­out parole went into effect, New Yorkers can feel safer. The man who shot my father might some­day walk free because life with­out parole was­n’t an option in 1974. Now it is. Life with­out parole is suf­fi­cient to keep New Yorkers safe while guar­an­tee­ing that no inno­cent per­son will be exe­cut­ed by mis­take. It’s a viable, effec­tive alter­na­tive to the death penal­ty — one that rein­forces the val­ue of human life.

I belong to a nation­al orga­ni­za­tion called Murder Victims Families for Reconciliation, ded­i­cat­ed to abol­ish­ing the death penal­ty. The words of Marietta Jaeger Lane, a fel­low mem­ber whose 7‑year-old daugh­ter was mur­dered, stay with me. She said, ​“Our loved ones deserve more beau­ti­ful, noble and hon­or­able memo­ri­als than pre­med­i­tat­ed state-sanc­tioned killings.“

Copyright © 2004, Newsday, Inc.