Cannot Support It

From yesterday's Hartford (CT) Courant, this letter to the editor from victims' family members, "Cannot Support Death Penalty":

In response to the May 9 article about the death penalty [Page 1, "Fix It Or Repeal It"]:

Our son, Ralph, became a homicide victim in 1997 when an assailant entered his Washington, D.C., condominium and brutally stabbed him to death and robbed him. The main suspect was never arrested because of a lack of evidence.

Ralph was an outstanding young man whose life was honored by hundreds of people he served throughout the developing world, by his fellow graduate students at George Washington University, where he received a posthumous Ph.D. degree, and through the living memorials to his life.

Our family will always grieve his loss, but we could never be in favor of the death penalty. Justice should mean long-term incarceration, not a life for a life. Ralph was a peace-loving man. The death penalty could never assuage our grief; our faith in God and our dedication to the causes for which he would be proud can only do that. -- Anne and Fred Stone, Farmington