This is a letter to express my dismay about the May 13 Reporter editorial encouraging increased use of the death penalty. The Milkin family has suffered a horrific loss. Why would anyone want to inflict that kind of pain on yet more innocent people? Why should Conner Schierman’s parents have to endure the murder of their son? Capital punishment does not punish only the criminal – it punishes the innoccent people who love that criminal.

The editorial writer thinks that killing criminals will send a message to future offenders, but they are wrong: studies show that the death penalty does not deter crime. The death penalty punishes society as well. To kill someone costs much more than life imprisonment – up to six times more. Many states have discovered that death sentences are an extreme burden on their budgets. The state pays for judges, court-appointed lawyers, expert witnesses and more. Meanwhile, states cut social services, take police off the streets, and release prisoners early for lack of money. Okanogan County, Wash. laid off half its public-health nurses and couldn’t afford to replace aging police equipment because of just the pre-trial expenses for one death-penalty case. Why risk public safety on a penalty that does not deter crime?

Many victims’ families state that executing the murderer does nothing to relieve the pain and does not bring back the victim, but only continues the cycle of violence. The appeal process often goes on for years, and can be agony for victims, making it harder to move beyond the tragedy.

It saddens me that my hometown newspaper believes that violence and vengeance are qualities to be encouraged or celebrated. As Gandhi so wisely said “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.”

Karen Story, Kirkland