... I faced unspeakable torment when a Montana sheriff called in August 1993 to tell me that my son John and his beautiful wife, Nancy, had been murdered in their newly purchased home in Big Fork. We didn't know for five months who the killer was, but then we found out — it was the 18-year-old son of the people from whom John had bought the house. The killer entered through a basement window, sneaked up into their bedroom where they were sleeping and shot them to death.
Montana had only recently re-established capital punishment, and the boy, "Shadow" Clark, was facing death. I had always opposed the death penalty and my children were raised to believe as I had. I remember kneeling in that room of death with my surviving sons and we all grasped a truth so clearly — that unnatural death at the hands of another is wrong, except in a clear case of self-defense. The state is no more justified in taking a life than is an individual. Killing cannot be sanitized by calling it "official" and "legal."
And so, my then five living children and I wrote to the Montana judge asking him not to seek the death penalty for Shadow Clark. We knew it is only a delusion to believe that one's pain is ended by making someone else feel pain. We were relieved when the young murderer took a plea bargain and received a life sentence, avoiding the death penalty.
My daughter Mary expressed our belief well.
"The truth is, no one in my family ever wanted to see Shadow Clark put to death. We felt instinctively that vengeance wouldn't alleviate our grief. We wanted Clark in prison, removed from society forever, so he could never hurt another person. But watching Clark suffer and die would have done nothing to help us heal. Worse, wishing Clark would suffer and die would only have diminished us and shriveled our own souls. We had had enough pain already, dealing with the indescribable horror of our loved ones' brains and blood splattered all over their bedroom walls. We didn't need to increase our own torment by demanding more blood."
And Mary emphasized where we all stood: "Hatred doesn't heal. Mercy, compassion, moving on with life, turning toward good people, walking into the light of love as much as possible, that's what victims need. And our lawmakers have the capacity to help us do that by abolishing the death penalty and along with it, the fantasy that it will make the pain go away."
And so, my then five living children and I wrote to the Montana judge asking him not to seek the death penalty for Shadow Clark. We knew it is only a delusion to believe that one's pain is ended by making someone else feel pain. We were relieved when the young murderer took a plea bargain and received a life sentence, avoiding the death penalty.
My daughter Mary expressed our belief well.
"The truth is, no one in my family ever wanted to see Shadow Clark put to death. We felt instinctively that vengeance wouldn't alleviate our grief. We wanted Clark in prison, removed from society forever, so he could never hurt another person. But watching Clark suffer and die would have done nothing to help us heal. Worse, wishing Clark would suffer and die would only have diminished us and shriveled our own souls. We had had enough pain already, dealing with the indescribable horror of our loved ones' brains and blood splattered all over their bedroom walls. We didn't need to increase our own torment by demanding more blood."
And Mary emphasized where we all stood: "Hatred doesn't heal. Mercy, compassion, moving on with life, turning toward good people, walking into the light of love as much as possible, that's what victims need. And our lawmakers have the capacity to help us do that by abolishing the death penalty and along with it, the fantasy that it will make the pain go away."
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