Covictims of Capital Murder: Statements of Victims’ Family Members and Friends Made at the Time of Execution

Abstract

The death penalty is often touted as a punishment providing the only way to truly serve justice and offer closure for covictims (defined as family members or friends of murder victims'). These rationales are rarely structured around the actual words of these individuals, however. The findings in this study suggest that such rhetoric oversimplifies and often misrepresents the experiences and perspectives of covictims. Through their own words, we learn that the death penalty is not always the soothing salve for the pain and suffering of covictims we wish it to be. Rather, we find much more ambivalence and complexity in the statements of covictims. The impact of the death penalty and executions on covictims and their ability to attain healing and closure is not so clear cut. By presenting the actual words of capital murder covictims at the time of execution, this inductive, exploratory study provides a novel glimpse at the perspectives of these individuals and their perception of the death penalty process.

Families of murder victims' perceptions of capital punishment : a content analysis of what family members say following executions.

“…This study expands on previous work by including a nationwide sample of news articles as opposed to articles covering executions only in one state (Vollum & Longmire, 2007) and by covering a longer time frame than three and a half years (Gross & Matheson, 2003). In addition to these two studies, another study which addresses the feelings and attitudes of family members at different stages (from death row to postexecution) was conducted by Bums (2006).…”

“…Vollum and Longmire (2007) and Gross and Matheson (2003) each identified thematic categories of family member feelings and attitudes reported by the media at the time of the execution.…”

“…aI, 1991) researchers in recent years have employed content analysis in order to ascertain family member feelings and attitudes following executions (Vollum & Longmire, 2007;Gross & Matheson, 2003).…”

“…The current study, however, is unique in that the data are drawn from a nationwide sample of news articles as opposed to articles from one state (Vollum & Longmire, 2007) and the time frame under examination covers a longer period than just three and a half years (Gross & Matheson, 2003). In addition, both groups of researchers report their findings as percentages of the executions (cases) under study and do not examine family members or the number of news articles as the unit of analysis, which is what the current study attempts to do.…”

“…Two previous groups of researchers (Vollum & Longmire, 2007;Gross & Matheson, 2003) conducted studies of family member feelings and attitudes reported by newspapers. This study expands on previous work by including a nationwide sample of news articles as opposed to articles covering executions only in one state (Vollum & Longmire, 2007) and by covering a longer time frame than three and a half years (Gross & Matheson, 2003).…”