I understand why some people oppose capital punishment. What I don’t get is why condemned murderers, such as Kenneth Eugene Smith, who was recently executed in Alabama, are portrayed as victims who deserve our sympathy. In his diatribe against the death penalty, “Our execution obsession just won’t die” [op-ed, Feb. 8], Robert Gebelhoff made a passing reference to Smith’s victim, Elizabeth Sennett. He said nothing about the indisputable fact that Mr. Smith beat and stabbed to death a woman he was paid $1,000 to kill. Ms. Sennett was murdered in 1988, which means Mr. Smith had 35 years of taxpayer-funded appeals before the courts finally allowed his execution.
I am an anti-MAGA Democrat who is liberal on most issues. But I’ll never understand why progressives dismiss the suffering of murder victims in defense of those who did the killing. In his final statement before being executed, Smith expressed no remorse nor asked forgiveness from the murdered woman’s family attending his execution.
Mr. Gebelhoff criticized President Biden for the Justice Department’s decision to seek the death penalty for the racist murderer who slaughtered 10 Americans in Buffalo in 2022 solely because they were Black.
Mr. Gebelhoff dismissed murder victims’ families’ pleas for justice as “vapid emotional appeals.” He sees justice as revenge. If that’s so, why not call for the abolition of life imprisonment, too?
Scott Wallace, Leesburg
