Yesterday, the Philadelphia Inquirer carried the following op-ed piece, written by Lorry Post. As Tennessee moves at break neck speed toward executing two men in a single night (June 28th), as we think about Paul House still sitting on death row after 21 years (although with a new sense of hope), I think we should take some time to reflect on the true effects of capital punishment. So read, reflect, pray, and think about the following statement:

Death Penalty is Unfair –
To Victims’ Families

By Lorry Post

My wife, June, and I are among family members of murder victims who believe life in prison without parole is more just than the death penalty.

Those of us who have endured a loved one’s murder need support and justice. We don’t want excuses when the system doesn’t deliver, and we certainly don’t want to be used to promote someone else’s agenda.

Unfortunately, we often are. But some answers may soon be on the horizon.

A legislatively mandated commission to study the death penalty in New Jersey embarked on its work last week.

The commission is looking at whether the death penalty is worth maintaining in the face of mounting concerns about the risk of executing the innocent.

I hope the commission will ask a key question: How can our criminal justice system best accomplish the ends of public safety, punishment, and the needs of victims?

My wife and I know firsthand the tragedy of losing a family member to a killer.
In 1988, my daughter, Lisa, was stabbed to death by her husband in Georgia. Her slaying took her away not only from my wife and me, but tragically from my granddaughter, who has grown up without her mother and with her father in prison.

Living through this ordeal – Lisa’s death, the trial, and life without my daughter – has driven home the harsh realities of our criminal justice system.

More than anything, victims’ families need emotional, and sometimes financial, support from their community.

In New Jersey there are systems in place, but, as often is the case, funding is limited.
The death penalty, meanwhile, has cost the state a quarter of a billion dollars more than life without parole would have cost since 1982, according to a 2005 study by New Jersey Policy Perspective.

This has diverted funds from victims’ services and from critical areas of law enforcement.
Some say victims’ families want “closure.” There is no closure when someone you love is murdered. But there should be justice and certainty – certainty that the right person has been convicted and sent to prison and certainty that when the trial is over, it’s really over.

The death penalty accomplishes neither of these goals.

As we have learned in recent years, the wrong person too often is sentenced to death, and according to surveys most Americans believe innocent people have been executed.

What’s worse is that the death penalty prolongs the tragedy for victims’ families, with seemingly endless appeals and high-profile legal proceedings.

It can be decades before a killer is executed, and when that occurs, the lawyers, the politicians and especially reporters painfully rehash the entire case. The victims are forced to live through the ordeal once again.

Some suggest expediting the process to make it more amenable to the concerns of victims’ families and to save the state’s resources. But the Catch-22 inherent in the death penalty is that if we speed up the process, we increase the risk of executing the innocent.

Cutting costs and time would mean cutting corners in the investigation and trial phase or accelerating the inmate’s appeals. Both are sure-fire ways to ensure that even more mistakes are made.

The death penalty is about exorbitant costs, unacceptable risks, fatal flaws and gross inequities. Excuses for keeping this broken system are running out.

Lorry Post is the founder and former executive director of New Jerseyans for Alternatives

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