"This lack of finality devastates the criminal
justice system. It diminishes the deterrent effect of state criminal laws, saps
state prosecutorial resources and continually reopens the wounds of victims and
survivors." - In a
1991 op-ed in The New York Times, William Barr argued that death row
inmates' ability to challenge their sentences should be limited to avoid cases
dragging on for years
We, the members of Unit 1012: The VFFDP, whose group
consists of murdered victims’ families and friends give our utmost thanks to US
Attorney General William Barr for carrying out the 7 executions of the killers
on Federal Correctional Complex, Terre Haute.
We send our utmost thanks and congratulation to the
Attorney General. He is our hero in showing his care and love for the murdered
victims’ families. We wish that more leaders can take his leadership example
and follow it. We will pray for him all the way.
We will write an article refuting Austin Sarat’s article,
“William
Barr Uses Victims and Their Families to Prop Up America’s Failing Death Penalty
System.”
As is often the case in America’s death
penalty system, this summer’s resumption of federal executions was accompanied
by high-minded
talk about the families of murder victims and their needs. In July 2019,
when Attorney General William Barr first announced his intention to put five
condemned men to death, the Department of Justice issued
a statement explaining that doing so would bring “justice to the victims of
the most horrible crimes.”
At the time, Barr added, “We owe it to the victims and their families to carry forward
the sentence imposed by our justice system.”
Last June, after prevailing in a
year-long legal struggle over whether federal executions could proceed, the AG reiterated
those sentiments. He again spoke of the government’s obligation to provide
justice for victims. And similar statements accompanied last month’s DOJ decision
to appeal a court ruling overturning
the death sentence of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the Boston Marathon bomber.
Barr’s invocation of an obligation
to victims is a refrain repeatedly heard from death penalty supporters. It
is part of their long-running effort to mobilize support for it by
accommodating victims and including their perspectives and experiences in the
death penalty process.
 |
Chief Justice Rayner Goddard |
RESPONSE: Barr is right, he is the one who truly
cares for murder victims’ families who want justice. As our hero, Rayner Goddard, the late Chief Justice of UK
said:
“My sentiments are more in favour of the victim
than they are of the murderer. There is a tendency nowadays when any matter of
criminal law is discussed to think far more of the criminal than his victim.” [Speech
in the House of Lords by Chief Justice Rayner
Goddard, 10 July 1956]
We will
quote as many murder victims’ families who support the death penalty, here is
one example:
Helle Jespersen with her daughter Louisa Vesterager Jespersen.
Helle Petersen, who is the mother of the Dane
woman, Louisa
Jespersen beheaded in Morocco supports
the death sentence for the killers. We stand with her and walk in her shoes
and we not only agree with her strongly but with also went through what she had
to go through and we will not forget her daughter. She wants justice and she is
not revengeful at all.
Here are two quotes from her.
"The
most just thing would be to give these beasts the death penalty they deserve, I
ask that of you," said Helle Petersen in a letter read by her lawyer in an anti-terrorist
court in Sale, near the capital Rabat. "My life
was destroyed the moment that two policemen came to my door on December 17th to
announce my daughter's death," the mother of 24-year-old Louisa
Vesterager Jespersen wrote in the letter, read out in total silence and with
the defendants' faces impassive.
“It
will bring some sort of justice to our daughters. They go around and kill
people, now they will feel what is like to be sentenced to death. That is the
bigger picture I try to focus on, justice for our girls and our families and to
prevent them from killing again.” – Helle Petersen, the
mother of Louisa Jespersen, told the news after the killers were sentenced to
death.
However, like other death penalty
supporters, Barr ignored important but inconvenient facts about murder victims’
families and their wishes concerning capital punishment.
One such fact is that those families are
by no means a unified or homogeneous group. Some ardently support capital
punishment, but many are
adamant in opposing it. Some want to see the person who killed their loved one
die; others publicly oppose such a course of action.
RESPONSE: William Barr did not ignore. It is the
bias leftist mainstream media who deliberately chose to cherry-pick those
murder victims’ families against the death penalty and ignore those who support
it.
Nathaniel and Cleo, the Parents of Hadiya Pendleton
The parents
of Hadiya
Pendleton wanted the killer to pay with his life but they were disappointed
that Illinois abolished the death penalty in 2011. See this article, ‘Illinois
Death Penalty was Abolished Based on a Lie Posted By Daniel
Greenfield’
“We
can only go speak to a grave. No. I think it's totally unfair,”
Nathaniel said. Hadiya’s father says that if the death penalty were available
in Illinois, Michaeil Ward would deserve it. Hadiya's mother agrees. “I don't think its cruel to say that you incited this on
these people, so why are you still able to live the rest of your days out and
have, possibly, the opportunity to enjoy the later part of your life?”
Cleo said.
In even the most high-profile cases and
in the most shocking crimes, families have spoken out against the death
penalty. They do not seek, or want, the kind of justice Barr promises to
deliver.
Thus, after Dylann Roof shot
nine people attending a Bible study group in a South Carolina church in
2015, several family members of the slain victims opposed his execution.
As the daughter of one of those who Roof
killed explained,
“Despite the anger I am still coping with from my
mother’s death, I don’t believe in the death penalty, even for the man who
killed her. That’s my conviction because of my faith. I’ve said the same thing
all along—I don’t believe as human beings that we should take away someone’s
life just because we have the power to do so. God is the only person, the only
being who decides our fate.”
RESPONSE: Please see this blog post of ours: ‘OPEN
LETTER TO SHARON RISHER: YOU ARE WRONG ABOUT THE SIXTH COMMANDMENT OF THE HOLY
BIBLE‘
Also, Sarat forget to
write that Malcolm
Graham, whose sister, Cynthia Hurd, was one of the nine people fatally shot
by Roof during a Bible study class at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal
Church supports the death penalty for Roof:
"If
there's any case in America where the death penalty is deserved, it is this
one," Graham said. "The crime was premeditated.
It was calculated. But most importantly, Graham said, Roof's crime "was an attack on a race of people."
"Those
who died that night simply died because they were there, and that they were
black. That type of hate, that type of discrimination, that type of just evil,
has no place in a civilized society, and has no place in America's jails," he emphasized.
In the Tsarnaev case, one of the
families who lost a son and who had a daughter horribly injured in the bombing
asked the government not to seek the death penalty. In a letter published in
the Boston Globe at the time of the original trial, they
wrote,
“We know that the government has its reasons for
seeking the death penalty, but the continued pursuit of that punishment could
bring years of appeals and prolong reliving the most painful day of our lives.”
RESPONSE:
Austin Sarat
fails to mention those survivors and families who wants Tsarnaev to be executed.
Hear from them:
"He is a
threat to all of us and he needs to die." — Bombing
survivor Adrianne Haslet
The mother of
Krystle Campbell, a 29-year-old killed in the attack, expressed outrage at the
court's decision.
“I
just don’t understand it,” Patricia Campbell told The Boston Globe. “It’s just terrible that he’s allowed to live his life. It’s
unfair. He didn’t wake up one morning and decide to do what he did. He planned
it out. He did a vicious, ugly thing.”
adriannehaslet
|
Right
back atcha motherf*cker.
I’m
so livid at today’s ruling by the federal court. First and foremost, I cannot
emphasize enough, without a shadow of a doubt, that the criminal justice system
needs a complete overhaul to stop racial profiling, and the death penalty is
used in far too many cases of injustice. AND. The death penalty should be used
in this particular case.
This
terrorist admitted in court he was guilty of crimes committed against our
country. He confessed, with his brother, to a man who testified in court that
their plans were to drive to New York and bomb the city too. This terrorist
gave the finger when asked if he felt guilty. AND.
The warden of the jail where he would be housed for life testified that,
indeed, other terrorists have committed crimes on the World Trade Center
through messages on pipes of the jail. I know, this sounds crazy. But that is
why I stood by the death penalty in this particular case.
He
is a threat to all of us and he needs to die.
I
cannot imagine the comments I’m about to get for speaking my mind, but these
have been my thoughts since I testified. I’m not a woman with a grudge, I’m a
human with a brain.
#bostonstrong
Also props to me for putting his ugly face on my Instagram that’s freaking
growth if I’ve ever seen it!!! I’m ready to testify again. LFG 💪🏼🇺🇸
[PHOTO
SOURCE: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-government-must-again-seek-death-penalty-boston-marathon-bomber
........ https://www.instagram.com/p/CDUxDKkHHBr/] |
“He
needs to die,” survivor Adrianne Haslet wrote on Instagram about
Tsarnaev, who was convicted and sentenced to death in 2015.
Haslet, 40, a
dancer who lost a leg in the attack, was one of 17 people left without at least
one limb as a result of blasts set off by bombs that Tsarnaev and his brother,
Tamerlan Tsarnaev, planted as a crowd gathered near the finish line one of
America’s most famous running events.
The brother
was killed in a shootout with police after a manhunt.
“The
death penalty should be used in this particular case,” Haslet wrote. “This
terrorist admitted in court he was guilty of crimes committed against our
country. He confessed. … He is a threat to all of us and he needs to die.”
Another
attack survivor, Rebekah Gregory, wrote on Twitter that the court’s decision
was “Disgusting.” Gregory, 32, a young mother, also lost a leg as a result of
the attack.
“So
people are sitting on death row for far less, and the US Appeals court chooses
to overturn the sentence of this COWARD??!” Gregory
wrote.
“All
this does is give him the attention he wants, and prolongs the nightmare we
have been living the last SEVEN years. Disgusting.”
INTERNET
SOURCE: https://www.facebook.com/VictimsFamiliesForTheDeathPenalty/posts/2996055193849760
.......
Such objections were also registered
this summer in the case of Daniel Lewis Lee, the
first person executed under Barr’s edict. Lee, a one-time white
supremacist, was put to death for torturing and killing a family of three.
Earlene Peterson, who lost her daughter, granddaughter, and son-in-law because
of his crime, joined
Lee’s lawyers in an unsuccessful effort to stop the execution. As she
observed, “I believe putting Daniel Lee to death is
not the answer. It’s an easy way out. He should have to live through this. Like
I did.”
RESPONSE:
All of the
seven killers executed by the federal government as of September 24, 2020, Earlene
Peterson, was the only victim’s family member who opposed it. The rest
supported it, again, Sarat quotes her and ignored the rest.
 |
| Dustin Lee Honken, 52, was put to death by lethal injection in Terre Haute penitentiary, Indiana |
See
the statements from the families whose victims were murdered by Dustin
Lee Honken:
Statement
from the family of Terry DeGeus:
“The
reason for us being present today was not to watch a man die. It was to show
love, support, and respect to my daughter’s father, Terry. That we loved him
until the end and still do. It was the least we could do."
Statement
from the family of Lori, Kandace & Amber Duncan:
“To
whom it may concern,”
“27
year ago two beautiful girls and their mother were taken from us by a violent
criminal and his girlfriend. For 27 years we have grieved for them while their
killers lived on.”
“Today,
the little girls Kandace and Amber would be 37 and 33. They never had the
chance to grow up and share in the joys and sorrows of life. Their mother never
got to see them having a first dance, first date, or walk down the aisle at
their wedding. There were no family reunions. No visits to grandparents’ house,
no overnights at cousins. Their lives were snuffed out.”
“However,
their killer has lived the years since then with a bed and meals provided for
him.”
“Today,
we gather to witness the execution of Dustin Honken, their murderer. It is a
day we thought would never come. Finally, justice is being done. It will bring
a sense of closure but we will continue to live with their loss. However, this
is a step toward the healing of broken hearts and shattered lives.”
“We
regret that so many members of our family have passed on and were never able
to see this day.”
Daniel Lee, the father of the Tiffany
Lee, who was murdered by Lezmond
Mitchell said:
The Navajo Nation opposed the
execution of Mitchell, saying it violated the Native American group’s
sovereignty.
But the family of the 9-year old girl, Tiffany Lee, rejected the Navajo
Nation’s stance. “An eye for an eye,” Daniel
Lee, her father, told the Associated Press.
“He took my daughter away, and
no remorse or anything like that. The Navajo Nation president, the council,
they don’t speak for me. I speak for myself and for my daughter,” he added.
When she could not persuade the AG to
stop Lee’s execution, Ms. Peterson and others filed
suit asking that it be delayed because of the COVID-19 pandemic and the
fact that attending the execution would create an unacceptable risk of being
exposed to the virus. The DOJ opposed her suit.
RESPONSE: On this date, April 12, 2020, Abdul Majed, a former
Bangladesh Army officer who was convicted for his role in the 1975 Jail
Killing following the Assassination of Sheikh Mujibur
Rahman, the founding father of Bangladesh, was executed by hanging at
12:01am. Despite the COVID-19 crisis, the Bangladeshi Judicial did not gave any
excuse and had the killer executed.
We find it suspicious that they use COVID-19 as an
excuse not to carry out an execution but seems not to have a problem releasing criminals
for fear of COVID-19 spreading in public.
One recent
example is the case of Ibrahim E. Bouaichi
Ibrahim E.
Bouaichi is charged with the murder of Karla Dominguez, and was arrested last
year after Dominguez accused him of sexually assaulting her in Alexandria, Va.
The incident
in Karla Dominguez’s apartment last October was violent, and it was not
consensual, she testified in Alexandria District Court in December. The man she
accused was indicted on charges including rape, strangulation and abduction and
jailed without bond in Alexandria.
Then the
coronavirus pandemic hit. Ibrahim E. Bouaichi’s lawyers argued that the virus
was a danger to both inmates and their attorneys, and that Bouaichi should be
freed awaiting trial. On April 9, over the objections of an Alexandria
prosecutor, Circuit Court Judge Nolan Dawkins released Bouaichi on $25,000
bond, with the condition that he only leave his Maryland home to meet with his
lawyers or pretrial services officials.
On July 29,
Alexandria police say, Bouaichi, 33, returned to Alexandria and shot and killed
Dominguez outside her apartment in the city’s West End.
A man accused of murdering an Alexandria
woman, who had accused him of sexually assaulting her last fall, died Saturday
(August 8, 2020) from a self-inflicted gunshot wound that occurred as police
tried to arrest him again on Wednesday. The man’s family issued a statement
Saturday night saying they were grieving the loss of both lives.
INTERNET SOURCE: https://soldierexecutionerprolifer2008.blogspot.com/2020/08/virginia-rape-suspect-ibrahim-bouaichi.html
In late 2019, 175 family members of
murder victims urged
Barr not to resume federal executions. They argued that “The death penalty does not prevent violence. It does not solve crime.
It does not provide services for families like ours. It does not help solve the
over 250,000 homicide cold cases in the United States. It exacerbates the
trauma of losing a loved one and creates yet another grieving family. It also
wastes many millions of dollars that could be better invested in programs that
actually reduce crime and violence and that address the needs of families like
ours.”
Their plea went unheeded.
RESPONSE: Marc Klaas of
Sausalito, whose daughter Polly was murdered by Richard Allen Davis in 1993,
said anti-death penalty activists have a troubling effect on the families of
the victims and society in general.
"It
diminishes the victims when people burn candles and mourn someone who has
committed a heinous crime," Klaas said. "People on death row are some of the worst individuals
that appear on the face of the earth.”
"The
abolitionists refuse to acknowledge that evil exists and evil has to be put
down."
Those
175 murder victims’ families DO NOT speak for the other millions who want to
see the death penalty carried out. Most murder victims’ families do support
capital punishment.
In
March 2019, many murder victims’ families protested
against Governor Newsom’s suspending the use of death penalty in
California.
“Baby killers, cop killers, mass
murderers; I mean really the worst people in society have been deemed worthy of
the ultimate law of the land, the death penalty,” Klaas said. “But the
abolitionists have created barrier after barrier.”
 |
| My name is Chaima, I’m 19. I was kidnapped, tortured, raped, slaughtered and burned by my executioner. |
“My
daughter was murdered and burnt. I call for the application of the death
penalty! That’s all I ask,” the victim’s mother
said, who also sought the intervention of Algerian president Abdelmadjid
Tebboune.
Recently, in Algeria on October 1,
2020, 19-year-old
Chaima Sadou, an Algerian girl who was raped and murdered. As our group
consists of families and friends of murdered victims, we stand with the mother
who wants the death penalty for the killer. Even many Algerians supported the
death penalty for the killer and want him to pay with his life.
When death cases do go forward, murder
victims’ families are generally afforded the chance to participate in the
sentencing phase of capital trials and help shape the outcome of those
proceedings.
But even this opportunity has turned out
to be a mixed blessing for them.
As the anthropologist Susan Hirsch,
herself the surviving spouse of someone killed in the 1998 terrorist attack on
the American embassy in Nairobi, Kenya, observes, “Victims’
statements are a double-edged opportunity.” “Recounting a story in public may,”
Hirsch writes, “allow it to veer out of the teller’s control. Victims may break
down while testifying—crying, shaking, unable to complete the story. Less
obviously, the state’s goals shape victims’ stories; the prosecution routinely
focuses not on what had the most impact on a victim but what will have the most
impact in convincing a jury to impose the harshest penalty.”
Noting the potential incompatibility of
interests between prosecutors and victims’ families, Hirsch suggests that, as
is true of their views of the death penalty itself, there is no single victim
perspective about what should happen to any particular capital defendant.
As she puts it, “Whether
they testify or not, victims hold many different understandings of the penalty
phase and a variety of motivations for participating. Some hope to confront the
convicted defendant with the horror of his crime. Other victims… seek public
acknowledgment of their pain or loss. Still others feel a solemn obligation to
make a public representation of a dead loved one, to make sure that the dead
victim is ‘present’ in the legal proceeding.”
While victim testimony affords family
members the chance to make their pain and suffering visible in capital trials,
it is not without its costs to them. It also damages the fairness of the cases
in which they participate.
Their testimony turns courts into sites
of grief and mourning and intensifies
the already heightened emotions that always attend the deliberations of sentencing
bodies in capital cases.
RESPONSE: Much of the expense results from
obstruction by opponents of the death penalty. The same arguments they use against
the death penalty are the same they are going to use against LWOP.
See this article from Shari Silberstein:
Ending the Death Penalty Is One Step Toward Ending Mass Incarceration
To be clear, I’m not talking
about merely replacing the death penalty with life without parole sentences,
which fail on nearly the same scale. Like executions, they also target the most
vulnerable (a full two-thirds of people currently serving life without parole
are people of color) without delivering public safety gains. There is mounting
evidence that people age out of crime, leaving life-without-parole sentences
without any purpose other than to inflict suffering until death.
All of this complexity belies Barr’s simple equation of
capital punishment and doing justice for victims. It suggests that what he promised
to deliver to their families by resuming federal executions is not necessarily
the kind of justice they welcome or that leaves them better off. In fact,
Barr’s emphasis on satisfying victims’ families distorts reasoned consideration
of the federal death penalty as well as the adjudication of capital cases,
We should be clear: The AG and his allies are
using victims and their families in an effort to bolster a death penalty
system that is now widely understood
to be rife with errors and is losing the American people’s support.
RESPONSE: At the beginning of this article, we send
our utmost thanks and congratulation to the Attorney General. He is our hero in
showing his care and love for the murdered victims’ families. We wish that more
leaders can take his leadership example and follow it.
AG Barr is not using victims and their
families to bolster the death penalty system. Sarat is ignoring the cries of those
Murder Victims’ Families who support the death penalty, he just choses to
mention those who are against it and ignore the rest who support it. The problem
with the system does not lie with the death penalty or any judicial punishment
it is the fault of the ACLU
who is always taking sides of the criminals.
Truth
is the death penalty does help the murder victims’ families even
years after the killer was executed, most victims’ families will agree. Let
us give two examples:
For two
decades, Lera Shelley endured what seemed like endless court hearings as she
waited for the execution of her daughter's murderer, serial killer Michael
Ross.
It was all
worth it, Shelley said, the moment she saw Ross die by lethal injection in the
death chamber at Osborn Correctional Institution in May 2005.
Finally,
she said, there was justice for 14-year-old
Leslie and the seven other women whom Ross admitted killing in the early
1980s.
"When
I saw Michael Ross take his last breath, I knew it was all over. No more
appeals, no more 'Walking with Michael' on the Internet," Shelley said Wednesday
April 3, 2012. "It was like a big cloud that had
been hanging over our head for years had finally been lifted and sunshine was
coming in," said Shelley, 68, of Griswold.
'I smiled as he was
pumped full of bullets': Father watches as 'monster' who raped
and murdered his three-year-old daughter is executed by MACHINE GUN in Yemen
Yemeni father describes ‘relief’ at witnessing daughter’s rapist and killer executed
by machine gun ‘I feel as if I have been reborn’, says Yahya Almatari
A father said
he watched the execution by machine gun of the man who raped and murdered his
three-year-old daughter with 'relief and satisfaction'.
Yahya
Almatari stood at the front of crowd of thousands as his close neighbour
Muhammad al Maghrabi was shot at point blank range with an AK-47.
The
41-year-old had been convicted by a Sharia court in Yemen of raping and
strangling toddler Rana Almatari having snatched her off the street.
We will close with a quote from our beloved Judge, Rayner
Goddard:
“There
is one other consideration which I believe should never be overlooked. If the
criminal law of this country is to be respected, it must be in accordance with
public opinion, and public opinion must support it. That goes very nearly to
the root of this question of capital punishment. I cannot believe or the public
opinion (or would I rather call it the public conscience) of this country will
tolerate that persons who deliberately condemn others to painful and, it may
be, lingering deaths should be allow to live…” - [Speech in the
House of Lords, 28 April 1948]
OTHER LINKS:
16a. 'Justice has been done': Mother's
joy as paedophile who raped and murdered her 'beautiful' daughter, 4, is executed
by AK-47 and strung up on crane in Yemen
https://www.facebook.com/VictimsFamiliesForTheDeathPenalty/posts/1296836950438268
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4798462/Mother-s-joy-paedo-murdered-girl-executed-AK-47.html
16b. ‘Justice is done’ Mum's joy
at execution of paedophile who raped & murdered daughter, 4
WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT - The
mother of a four-year-old girl who was brutally raped and murdered by a sick
paedophile claims “justice has been done” after the attacker was publicly
executed and strung up on a crane.
https://www.facebook.com/VictimsFamiliesForTheDeathPenalty/posts/1298234203631876
http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/842340/paedophile-rapist-murder-public-killed-yemen-justice-4-year-old-Safaa-al-Matari-al-Saket
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
17a.'I smiled as he was pumped full
of bullets': Father watches as 'monster' who raped and murdered his
three-year-old daughter is executed by MACHINE GUN in Yemen
https://www.facebook.com/VictimsFamiliesForTheDeathPenalty/posts/1284475508341079
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4756442/Father-watches-man-murdered-girl-executed-AK-47.html
17b. Yemeni father describes ‘relief’
at witnessing daughter’s rapist and killer executed by machine gun
‘I feel as if I have been reborn’,
says Yahya Almatari
https://www.facebook.com/VictimsFamiliesForTheDeathPenalty/posts/1285949228193707
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/yemen-father-daughter-rapist-machine-gun-killer-execution-murder-sanaa-yahya-almatari-rana-muhammad-a7874976.html
17c. Rapist, 41, who attacked and
murdered a three-year-old girl is executed with a machine gun at point blank
range under sharia law in Yemen
https://www.facebook.com/VictimsFamiliesForTheDeathPenalty/posts/1281975985257698
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4745862/Rapist-murdered-girl-three-executed-Yemen.html#ixzz4oPbg7PUe
18. Pope
Francis’ Statements About The Death Penalty Are A World-Class Lesson In
Catholic Theology
By Andrew Bieszad on December 20, 2018
http://shoebat.org/2018/12/20/pope-francis-statements-about-the-death-penalty-are-a-world-class-lesson-in-catholic-theology/
