Naseem Rakha: Death penalty and victim-family closure

Naseem Rakha and David Spiegel simply repeat some standard anti death penalty nonsense, without looking at reality.

- I don't find anyone saying that executions bring emotional and psychological closure to the murder victims' loved ones. How could it? The guilty murderer unjustly murdered an innocent. Execution is the just sanction imposed upon the guilty murderer.

The injustice of the murder and the loss of the murdered innocent remain, as with all sanctions.

- There are, at least, three closures with execution. It is an end to the legal process, justice was imposed and the executed murderer can never harm, again - a result only possible with the death penalty. A very big deal, particularly to those who have already lost innocent loved ones to that murderer.

- Spiegel fails to mention how such resolutions may actually benefit the victim's survivors.

- Spiegel has concluded that "true closure is achieved only through extensive grief work." Therapy can be a wonderful thing, but it also has a low threshold for patting itself on the backs and claiming resolution, when no such thing had been achieved or may even be possible, for many, if not most. I think his "true closure" may reflect those concerns.

- The complaint regarding how long the death penalty appellate process takes and how it has emotional costs for victim survivors is true and important. It avoids, however, much reality. First. a life sentence may involve a lifetime of appeals, whereas the mass murderer John Allen Muhammed was executed 7 years after he was sentenced to death. In Virginia, death sentences are carried out in 5-7 years, a process that could be carried out in every death penalty jurisdiction, meaning the appellate process would be much less taxing on victim survivors than a life sentence would be.

-- Regarding victim -offender dialogue resolution, Rakha has the audacity to ask: "one wonders what else could have been done for Marion Lewis and all the others harmed by John Muhammad." Incredible. First, most of the victims are dead. Secondly, Muhammed would have told the living folks, I am innocent and my conviction/pending execution are part of a racist conspiracy against an innocent black man. Helpful?

-- Rakha writes: "those survivors will return home and have to find a way to move on with their lives – all on their own. " Fortunately, Rakha, is completely and utterly wrong. The overwhelming number of victim survivors have loved one who assist in the healing process, some much more effectively than others. Yes, it is difficult, but, from my experience, most do move on with their lives and do so with remarkable spirits. Would therapy help? With most, undoubtedly. But Spiegel's "true closure" nonsense has no place. What therapy can do is increase the tools which victim survivors can use to help them reorder their lives and better deal with the grief. A very good thing.