That's the title of an OpEd in the Saturday Washington Post written by Laura Friedman of St. Louis, Missouri. Here's the beginning:
Botched executions in Ohio, Oklahoma and Arizona and continuing problems with lethal-injection drugs have put the death penalty back in the news. After a brief moratorium following Oklahoma’s debacle, my state, Missouri, has resumed executing its death-row prisoners. One of the condemned men there murdered the wife of the man I would later marry.
The Missouri Department of Corrections keeps victims such as my husband informed of killers’ appeals by sending periodic, bureaucratic letters. After almost 15 years of this type of communication, the latest notification told us that the killer has exhausted his appeals of the jury’s verdict. His execution date will be set soon.
For most people, the death penalty debate falls along ideological lines — liberals are opposed and conservatives are in favor. But for the families of victims, the debate is not so simple and the solution is not so clear. They cringe when they hear left-leaning commentators repeatedly describe the chilling details of a botched execution without repeating the far more chilling details of the crime the condemned man committed. But they also cringe when they hear right-leaning commentators who promote the sanctity of life but do not question state-sanctioned death.
The killing that forever changed my husband’s life is the kind of crime that reinforces the beliefs of both sides.
Earlier coverage from Missouri begins at the link. Related posts are in the victims' issues category index.
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