Victims’ Testimony in Penalty Phase

I agree completely with Cynthia Tucker (Commentary, June 9). Victims’ families should not be pleading, crying, screaming, or behaving hysterically in front of juries before sentencing, for the purpose of affecting their decisions concerning appropriate punishment. Where is the present practice taking us? Suppose an unlikable murder victim has no friends or family to appear in court. Or suppose the friends and relatives of a much more sympathetic victim are insufficiently articulate, attractive, or pitiable, or are just too reserved or dignified to engage in emotional outbursts to persuade a jury. Does that mean that their murderers should get lighter sentences?

Courtrooms are not places to unleash the vengeful tirades of understandably distraught individuals who have lost loved ones. Neither are they places for some kind of grief therapy sponsored by cynical, demagogic prosecutors. If we do not believe this, then logically we should allow all other courtroom spectators (who presumably represent the public at large) to collectively vote thumbs up or down, and then let juries take this into account as well.

LOREN J. OKROI

Huntington Beach

* Tucker states that “we ought to grieve with the victims of terrible crimes, we ought to honor those families. We ought to support them, offering them our comfort and our prayers. But we should not allow them to sway the jury with their suffering.”

This statement could not be further from the truth. Every jury should see just how much suffering victims and their families have to endure from the acts of the criminals in our society.

How can a jury appreciate the magnitude of a crime without hearing and seeing the effect it has on those involved? Why are we so ready to treat the criminals as victims? They chose to do what they did. Their victim(s) had no choice.

BOB SEIDMAN

Agoura Hills