In a recent op-ed in the Washington Post, a victim’s family member in Missouri described her mixed feelings about the death penalty and the executions that have occurred there. Laura Friedman wrote, “Death penalty supporters talk of closure. That may work as a matter of process — execution rids the state and the justice system of any further involvement — but it is much more complicated for families of victims. Each envelope from the Department of Corrections, each anniversary when the crime is recounted in the paper, every discussion about the death penalty on TV — those are reopenings, not closings.” Friedman said many aspects of the death penalty were disturbing: “I am troubled by the number of minorities on death row (more than half), by the preponderance of whites among their victims (about 80 percent, even though blacks and whites are victims in roughly equal numbers). I am troubled by the evidence that juries and judges make unconscionable mistakes (144 death-row inmates exonerated since 1973). And I am troubled by the pretense of execution as a medical procedure: As drug makers and medical personnel back away from participating in lethal injections, states are experimenting on condemned men with untested drug combinations and inadequately trained personnel while concealing the source, skills and methods used.” She concluded with the uncertain hope that the process “will finally bring an end to killing in our lives.”

(L. Friedman, “Death penalty debate isn’t simple for families of victims,” Washington Post, op-ed, August 22, 2014). See Victims and New Voices.

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