skip to main content
skip to newscasts

Friday, March 29, 2024

Public News Service Logo
facebook instagram linkedin reddit youtube twitter
view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

The latest on the Key Bridge collapse, New York puts forth legislation to get clean energy projects on the grid and Wisconsin and other states join a federal summer food program to help feed kids across the country.

view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

Republicans float conspiracy theories on the collapse of Baltimore's Key Bridge, South Carolina's congressional elections will use a map ruled unconstitutional, and the Senate schedules an impeachment trial for Homeland Secretary Mayorkas.

view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

A Challenge to Kentucky from Murder Victims' Families

play audio
Play

Thursday, September 17, 2015   

FRANKFORT, Ky. – Family members of six murder victims have issued a matching-fund challenge to Kentucky to support repealing the death penalty. Collectively, they have raised just over $1,600 to match donations to the Kentucky Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty.

Frankfort resident Ben Griffith says some are surprised he's against capital punishment when they learn his brother was murdered in Missouri in 1986. He says his reasoning is simple.

"Responding to violence, the violence of murder, with another murder is not right," he says. "You know, there's something wrong with that and inside, it bothers us."

A letter sent to 2,300 supporters, signed by Griffith, describes victims' family members as "important voices in the movement to repeal the death penalty."

Reverend Pat Delahanty, who chairs the coalition opposed to execution, says those voices have played a key role in the seven states that have outlawed the death penalty in recent years.

"It doesn't work for them when it seeks to kill others, that's not what they're looking for," says Delahanty. "They're looking for guilty people to be held accountable. People like Ben Griffith find that life without parole is the penalty that works."

State lawmakers in Kentucky have repeatedly rejected making life without parole the maximum sentence, often citing the death penalty as a crime deterrent. Griffith believes that prolongs the agony for victims' families.

"What you have is decades of the family reliving, reliving, each time there's an appeal," he says. "When there is life without parole, the victim's family has about a couple years of appeals, and then it's settled, and the families get to an earlier point of resolution. It's healthier for us."

Griffith says after initially wanting his brother's killer put to death, he changed his mind – a view he held privately until around the time of the execution, 11 years after the crime.


get more stories like this via email

more stories
The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments this week about the popular abortion pill Mifepristone and will weigh in on whether the U.S. Food and Drug Administration was correct in how it can be dosed and prescribed. (Ascannio/Adobe Stock)

Health and Wellness

play sound

Missouri residents are worried about future access to birth control. The latest survey from The Right Time, an initiative based in Missouri…


Social Issues

play sound

Wisconsin children from low-income families are now on track to get nutritious foods over the summer. Federal officials have approved the Badger …

Social Issues

play sound

Almost 2,900 people are unsheltered on any given night in the Beehive State. Gov. Spencer Cox is celebrating signing nine bills he says are geared …


The U.S. teaching workforce remains primarily white while the percentage of Black teachers has declined. However, the percentage of Asian and Latinx teachers is rising.(WavebreakMediaMicro/Adobestock)

Social Issues

play sound

Education advocates are calling on lawmakers to increase funding for programs to combat the teacher shortage. Around 37% of schools nationwide …

Environment

play sound

New York's Legislature is considering a bill to get clean-energy projects connected to the grid faster. It's called the RAPID Act, for "Renewable …

Social Issues

play sound

Earlier this month, a new Arizona Public Service rate hike went into effect and one senior advocacy group said those on a fixed income may struggle …

Social Issues

play sound

Michigan recently implemented a significant juvenile justice reform package following recommendations from a task force made up of prosecutors…

 

Phone: 303.448.9105 Toll Free: 888.891.9416 Fax: 208.247.1830 Your trusted member- and audience-supported news source since 1996 Copyright © 2021