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Letter: Co-victims of crime denied closure

The Columbian
Published: April 15, 2014, 5:00pm

Another National Crime Victims’ Rights Week has just passed. Violent crime victims have co-victims. We have grief, pain, and suffering. Much depends on severity of the crime. A victim’s death produces co-victims who never had the time to say goodbye, to say I love you, to say I am proud of you. This stays with each co-victim to different degrees and length of time. Many people cannot and do not understand.

The justice system can help bring some closure but the state of Washington has shut down the executions of the murderers, which is closure for many of the co-victims. The justice system already made a decision for execution, however, someone who is not a judge, not on a jury, not on an appeals court decided that co-victims are to be sentenced to additional grief, pain and suffering. How easy it was to dismiss the co-victims. Any closure that would be received is now denied by the state.

These co-victims have experienced years of trials, waiting for the verdict, appeals over years and some decades just to have justice for the senseless and cruel murder of their loved one. I believe it is not finished until the execution.

Governor Inslee, contact me. I will give you insight to what I have seen, heard, and lived.

Ken Paulson

Tacoma

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