Victims don't want the death penalty applied

A news piece in last Thursday's Chester County (PA) Daily Local News cited opposition from the victim's family as a factor in the prosecution's decision not to seek the death penalty in a case:

The prosecution will not seek the death penalty against either of the defendants accused in the murder of a West Goshen man whose wife allegedly enlisted the aid of her lover to kill him in order to avoid a messy divorce.

District Attorney Joseph Carroll said in a press release Thursday that the main reason he would not ask a jury or judge to sentence the pair to death if found guilty in the case is that none of the state’s legally certified “aggravating factors” in death penalty cases applied to the murder of Kevin Eugene Mengel Jr.

But Carroll also said that Mengel’s family, including his mother and father, did not want the death penalty applied against either Morgan Marie Mengel, the victim’s wife, or Stephen Michael Shappell, her alleged lover.