Working to end capital punishment in Pennsylvania Blog District Attorney Tom Kearney Uses Families as Talking Points

District Attorney Tom Kearney Uses Families as Talking Points

Letter to the Editor

I’m wondering what qualifies Tom Kearney to speak for the loved ones of murder victims, and why I should presume he understands the “pain and anguish that victims’ loved ones feel” but somehow “Gov. Wolf does not understand”?
Kearney’s statement is a slap in the face to the families of murder victims in its pompous presumption that we are vindictive and that only the killing of our dear ones’ killers can make things right and just. To presume all families of murder victims are one mad pack seeking revenge is an affront to me and many others who actually stand in the painful place that Kearney claims to understand.
You don’t understand, Mr. Kearney. The death of the sociopaths who killed our loved ones will not make anything right and just. Death is permanent. It can’t be fixed. Another death will not bring back my father, killed at 36, leaving behind six children. To refuse to murder murderers is not to re-victimize the victims’ families, as if the Commonwealth were exonerating the guilty, setting them free. To know that vicious criminals are locked up for life with no chance of release is enough to serve justice.
Don’t use victims’ families as a talking point where you have no authority to do so. By doing this, you re-victimize the victims.

Marlene Lang
Lancaster

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