DON’T KILL IN OUR NAMES

FAMILIES OF MURDER VICTIMS SPEAK OUT AGAINST THE DEATH PENALTY

                                                                                                                                                                                                        BY RACHEL KING

 Could you forgive the murderer of your husband? Your mother? Your son?

             Families of murder victims are often ardent and very public supporters of the death penalty.  But the people whose stories appear in this book have chosen instead to forgive their loved ones’ murderers, and many have developed personal relationships with the killers and have even worked to save their lives.  The have formed a nationwide group, Murder Victims’ Families for Reconciliation (MVFR), to oppose the death penalty.           

            MVFR members are often treated as either saints or lunatics, but the is that they are neither.  They are ordinary people who have responded to an extraordinary and devastating tragedy with courage and faith, choosing reconciliation over retribution, healing over hatred.  Believing that the death penalty is a form of social violence that only repeats and perpetuates the violence that claimed their loved ones’ lives, they hold out the hope of redemption even for those who have committed the most hideous crimes.

             Weaving third-person narrative with wrenching first-hand accounts, King presents the stories of ten MVFR members.  Each is a heartrending tale of grief, soul searching, and of the challenge to choose forgiveness instead of revenge.  These stories King sets in the context of the national discussion over the death penalty debate and restorative versus retributive justice, will appeal not only to those who oppose the death penalty, but also to those who strive to understand how people can forgive the seemingly unforgivable.

                                                                                                                                     “This book took me on an emotional journey through the lives of people who not only forgave those who murdered         
    their loved ones, but who came to know them as human beings, in many cases through working to save the from the 
                    death penalty.  Anyone who cares – or thinks he/she cares – about justice should read this book.”  
--Raymond Michalowski, professor of criminal justice, Northern Arizona University.

 Rachel King is a lawyer and anti-death lobbyist for the American Civil Liberties Union

 Rutgers University Press     phone 800.446.9323     http://rutgerspress.rutgers.edu
 DUE OUT IN FEBRUARY

Don’t Kill in Our Names is very timely with so much being said recently in the media about the death penalty being justice for the victim ’s families