Many are damaged

"Many people are damaged when this type of violence takes place," said Renny Cushing in an interview yesterday. Because MVFHR is an organization of family members of homicide vicitms and family members of people who have been executed, we continue to be asked to speak about the wide-ranging impact of murder and specifically about the experience of family members of those who commit violence. MVFHR's Executive Director Renny Cushing was interviewed yesterday on the MIke Huckabee Show (listen to the 10-minute clip here) and on Oklahoma television station KFOR (watch that clip here).

Tragedy Compounded

Texas MVFHR member Lois Robison is featured in this NBC News story, along with Executive Director Renny Cushing and Board President Bud Welch:


Tragedy compounded: Killer's parents become instant pariahs.

By JoNel Aleccia, NBC News

As news crews swarmed outside the tile-roofed house of accused shooter James Eagan Holmes’ parents in an upscale suburb of San Diego, a stranger 1,300 miles away in Texas grieved for those inside.

“I’ve been worried about the family,” said Lois Robison, 78. “I know what it’s like to find out your son has killed several people.”

Last Friday, when Holmes allegedly opened fire in a movie theater in Aurora, Colo., his parents, Robert and Arlene Holmes, were instantly thrust into a club that no one wants to join: family members of notorious killers.  

Like the parents of Tucson shooter Jared Loughner, Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh and Columbine High School killers Dylan Harris and Eric Klebold, they’re quickly becoming pariahs, publicly reviled for raising a monster.

But a group organized on behalf of murder victims’ families urges compassion and understanding for the families of murderers, too. 

They suffer in a different way than those who lose loved ones to violence, said Renny Cushing, founder and executive director of Murder Victims' Families for Human Rights, or MVFHR, which has organized support sessions for killers' families.  

“I became really painfully aware of the ostracism that takes place,” said Cushing, whose father was murdered in 1988. “Immediately, there’s this thought that families must have done something to cause this, that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”

That’s all too familiar to Robison, a retired third-grade teacher. Her son, Larry Keith Robison, was executed in 2000 in Texas for the grisly murders of five people, including an 11-year-old boy. He had been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia at age 21, three years before the 1982 murders. 

Though it’s been nearly 30 years since the crime, Robison still clearly recalls the shock and horror of the early days -- and the reaction of some in the community of Burleson, Texas.  Reporters surrounded her home; in ensuing months, some parents asked to have their children removed from her class.

No longer were they Ken and Lois Robison, the local schoolteachers.

“We became the parents of a mass murderer,” said Robison.

It’s a shift that happens quickly as a restless public searches for someone or something to blame for senseless acts of murder, said Cushing.

Indeed, Arlene Holmes, 58, a registered nurse, and Robert Holmes, 61, a scientist, are being publicly reviled. Some Internet commenters have called them “abusive” and suggested that they are responsible for their son's alleged acts.

“Where were YOU Mother why didn’t you take care of him,” read one NBCNews.com comment. “To me it sounds like a bad mother.”

Another expressed “pity” for the family -- but with a twist:

“I know that if it had been one of my sons who did this I would be absolutely shattered (not that it could ever be one of them as there must have been signs.)”

The Holmes family has expressed sorrow for the 12 people killed and 58 injured in the attacks, and, through their lawyer, asked for privacy as they grapple with the situation.

They indicated they would stand by their son through the ordeal.

“I think anyone can imagine how they’re feeling, anyone who’s ever been a parent,” said lawyer and family spokeswoman Lisa Damiani at a press conference Monday.

Families of murderers are grief-stricken after such a tragedy, but, unlike the families of the victims, they may feel they have no right to their feelings, said Bud Welch, whose 23-year-old daughter, Julie, was killed in the Oklahoma City bombings in 1995.

Welch met with Bill McVeigh, the father of Timothy McVeigh, who was executed for the crime.

“It’s really difficult for them, it really is,” said Welch, a member of MVFHR, which opposes the death penalty for murderers. “Bill McVeigh can never say anything publicly about anything Tim did that was nice.”

Instead, the family members of the killers struggle for the rest of their lives with shame and guilt over their loved one’s acts.

“I said, 'Bill, you have nothing to apologize for. You did not do it. You did not contribute to it,' " Welch recalled.

That message has provided some solace to other families of murderers. Welch met with the parents of Eric Harris, one of the two killers who led, and died in, the 1999 Columbine High School shootings.

Public sentiment vilified Wayne and Kathy Harris, Eric’s parents, and also Tom and Sue Klebold, the parents of Dylan Klebold, the other Columbine shooter.

“People were so angry. They said, ‘How were those boys raised?’” Welch said. “They weren’t raised any damn different than any of the kids in Littleton.”

Lois Robison said she and her husband, Ken, now 81, have found comfort and empowerment in speaking out about their son's crime, and about the need for adequate care for mental illness. They had great support from family members and those in the community who knew them, she added.

"When this happened, my husband said 'We can do one of two things,'" Lois Robison recalls. "We can crawl into a cave and pull a rock in there behind us. Or we can tell the truth and try to keep it from happening to someone else.'"

Bud Welch said he’s tempted now to reach out to victims of Aurora, both the families of those who were killed -- and the family of the alleged killer.

“These family members in Aurora, they’re going through so much grief. They need so much help,” he said. “The family of shooter? God only knows they’re going through hell, too.”

In Aurora

Our hearts are with the victims and their families in Aurora, Colorado today.

MVFHR Board President was interviewed on Democracy Now this morning as part of the show's coverage of the shooting and the question of whether the death penalty will be sought. Bud's comments come toward the end of the program, at about 51 minutes.

Good news from Singapore and Malaysia

Our Asia Program Director Toshi Kazama reports good news from Singapore and Malaysia this week.  Each country has just taken steps to abolish mandatory death sentences for people convicted of drug trafficking. Here's an article about this news in Malaysia, and here's one from Singapore.

Toshi's visit to Singapore and Malaysia this week is a follow-up to his succesful visit to these countries last fall, when he gave several presentations and met with lawyers and public officials. In this photo, Toshi (right) is standing with Member of Parliament Liew Chin Tong (center) and human rights lawyer Ngeow Chow Ying; they are holding a report from MVFHR, prepared at the request of Justice and Law Minister Aziz, about how various U.S. states have declared a moratorium on the death penalty. 

Help stop Georgia execution

Our friends at Georgians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty and Amnesty International have put out an urgent request for support to halt the execution of Warren Hill, which is scheduled for July 18. The deadline for signing this petition is tomorow, July 12. Here's Amnesty's quick summary of the situation:

Warren Hill is scheduled to be executed in Georgia on July 18, despite having been ruled "mentally retarded" by a preponderance of the evidence by a Georgia state judge. Executing persons with intellectual disabilities is unconstitutional, and the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles has the opportunity and the responsibility to do what courts have been unable to do - prevent this execution and preserve the integrity of Georgia justice.

An op-ed in the Daily Report, a legal publication, notes that the victim's family does not want Warren Hill to be executed:

Hill's final chance for life is to plead for clemency before the Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles. The board's discretion to commute Hill's death sentence is Georgia's last chance to prevent an unconscionable and immoral execution.

The board now has the opportunity to show mercy and compassion to Hill by granting clemency and by commuting his sentence to life without parole. The victim's family has expressed its support for commutation. By acceding to their wishes, the board can act as the "fail safe" necessary when the legal machinery of our capital punishment system makes a mistake.
Further, granting mercy to Hill would finally acknowledge the nationally recognized safeguards for defendants with developmental and intellectual disabilities on death row, and protect the constitutionally mandated rights of men and women with these disabilities.

The World Coalition: Celebrating 10 Years

Penal Reform International has a nice summary of the Tenth General Assembly of the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty, which was held in Amman, Jordan last week.  


Representing Murder Victims' Families for Human Rights at the General Assembly, Renny Cushing led a workshop on working with murder victims' family members. The General Assembly each year is a valuable opportunity for MVFHR to participate in discussions about the death penalty around the world; this year's panels included a discussion of the death penalty in the Middle East since the Arab Spring and an exploration of steps towards developing and adopting an Optional Protocol to the African Charter on Human Rights on abolition of the death penalty, to name just a couple of examples.

I cannot stand by

Great piece by MVFHR board member Yolanda Littlejohn in North Carolina's Star News online:

I was very disappointed and disheartened last week to learn that the N.C. House of Representatives voted to repeal the Racial Justice Act. Despite what supporters of Senate Bill 416 claim, this bill is a repeal of the law because under the revised language, statistics alone would not be sufficient to prove racial bias. A prosecutor would essentially have to admit to making a racially biased decision in jury selection or in pursuing the death penalty in the first place. I find it highly unlikely that any prosecutor is ever going to admit to making a decision based on race.

My sister, Jaquetta Thomas, was brutally murdered in 1991. I understand firsthand the pain of having a loved one taken by violence. More important, I understand that victims' families deserve justice that is equal and fair. Justice that is tainted by racial bias is not justice, and it creates a broken system that continually re-traumatizes victims' families.

As a family member of a victim of murder I am also distressed that the provision allowing an inmate to make a claim based on the race of the victim has been removed in the repeal bill. All victims' lives are equally precious, yet the statistics show that death sentences are much more common when the victim is white.

Since a death sentence is supposedly reserved for the most egregious of crimes, our system is demonstrating a belief that murdering a white person is more egregious than murdering a black person. By removing this provision in the new law, our government is agreeing that white life is of more value than black life. I cannot stand quietly by and pretend that this is okay.

Read the full piece.

Moral Unease

Yesterday's Mississippi Clarion-Ledger has a column by University of Mississippi Professor Sarah Moses, titled "An Invitation to Moral Unease," that talks about victim opposition to the death penalty and mentions MVFHR.  Here's an excerpt:

News this past week of the June 5 execution of Henry Curtis Jackson here in Mississippi was juxtaposed for me with news that Ohio's governor granted a stay of execution for a death row inmate on the very same day.

I have been troubled about the increase in executions here in Mississippi starting with an unusual announcement in May 2011 that the state intended to execute three inmates in one month. This most recent execution heightened my sense of unease for several reasons, including opposition from the family members of Jackson's victims and questions as to Governor Bryant's use of his pardoning power. 

Furthermore, I think all of us who live in this great state should share my moral unease when we realize that Mississippi's increasing enthusiasm for executions is out of step with national death penalty trends. As news stories reported last week, the relatives of Henry “Curtis” Jackson's victims publicly appealed to the governor for clemency thus raising serious questions about our supposed commitment to victims. The courage of Regina Jackson and Glenda Kuyoro, Jackson's own sisters, is even more remarkable when you consider the gruesome facts of the crime: Regina was stabbed multiple times by her brother, and Henry murdered four of the women's children aged 2 to 5 and paralyzed another.

Despite their profound loss, the women pleaded with the governor not to add to their family's tragedy by allowing the state to kill their brother. As Regina wrote, “As a mother who lost two babies, all I'm asking is that you not make me go through the killing of my brother.”

To be sure, the feelings of murder victims' family members differ from case to case. In recent executions in Mississippi some family members have expressed a belief that justice was served for their slain loved one. On the other hand, Regina and Glenda are not alone in opposing execution of their family members' murderer.

In one of the most high profile executions in recent U.S. history, Bud Welch spoke out against the execution of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, arguing that it would be a disservice to his daughter's memory who was killed in the bombings.

Of course, one of the justifications that lawyers, legislators, and governors often offer in support of the death penalty is that it honors the victim's family. But organizations like Murder Victims' Families for Human Rights (MVFHR) have long pointed out that states and prosecutors are not as eager to honor victims' families when they oppose the death penalty, as seen in the Jackson case.

And when you read victims' families' testimonies on the MVFHR website, it is clear that it is simply not true that executions are the only way for victims' families to experience healing and closure. Furthermore, the voices of Regina Jackson and Glenda Kuyoro remind us that the loved ones of death row inmates are our fellow citizens, too, and that executions add to the tragedy of murder by creating loss and sadness for another family.

"9/11 Husband Urges No Death Penalty"

From Monday's NBC New York News, "9/11 Husband Urges No Death Penalty for Accused Terrorists":

The husband of a 9/11 victim who was among the handful of relatives at Guantanamo Bay for the arraignment of Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four other alleged terrorists says the accused murderers should not be put to death if convicted.

Blake Allison won one of 10 lottery tickets available for relatives of 9/11 victims who wanted to see their loved ones' accused killers formally arraigned on terrorism, conspiracy and other charges last weekend, reports The New York Post.

His wife, Anna, was a software consultant en route to visit a client in Los Angeles and was on board American Airlines flight 11. She was 48.

Allison told friends and family he wanted to go to Guantanamo Bay to "see the faces of the people accused of murdering my wife," reports the Post. While there, the 62-year-old ended up meeting with the lawyers of the accused, offering to testify against the death penalty should a military commission convict them of capital charges, according to the paper.

The wine-company executive's staunch opposition to the death penalty predates his wife's death. Allison told the Post he believes the death penalty should be off the table in the 9/11 case, though he acknowledges his wife's relatives and the relatives of the other 9/11 victims who went to Guantanamo Bay disagree.

"They want what they perceive as justice for their loved ones," Allison said of the other families. "I would never tell anybody in my position what they should feel."

"The public needs to know there are family members out there who do not hold the view that these men should be put to death," he added. "We can't kill our way to a peaceful tomorrow."

Allison said that his opposition to the death penalty does not mean he doesn't seek justice for his wife's killers, nor does it mean he believes that, given the opportunity, KSM and the alleged terrorists would take a different course of action.

"But for me, opposition to the death penalty is not situational," he told the Post. "Just because I was hurt very badly and personally does not, in my mind, give me the go-ahead to take a life."

Short film from AI South Korea

Amnesty International South Korea has produced a 19-minute video, "The Death Penalty: Another Murder," that features several people speaking about the death penalty in South Korea, including Kim Dae-jung, former death row inmate and Amnesty International Prisoner of Conscience and the 15th President of South Korea.  At about 13 minutes into the film, you can see members of Murder Victims' Families for Human Rights with our banner and then a brief interview with Executive Director Renny Cushing.

Read our earlier post about our participation in events last September in connection with South Korea's 5,000th day without an execution.