Nearly twelve years ago, my sister, Laura, was killed in one of the worst mass shootings in Orange County history. A man, whose name I will not repeat, came to the salon where my sister worked and shot and killed her and seven other souls. My mother, who was there with my sister, was also shot but survived.
Nothing could have prepared me for the pain and despair that took hold over me. In the face of this unimaginable and senseless tragedy, I was consumed by a deep hate and even a desire to make this man suffer. I wanted him to pay for his crime. Still, my family and I opposed then-Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas’s decision to seek the death penalty. Ignoring our wishes, he insisted that the man who murdered my sister should be punished by death, and that pursuit of this punishment would in turn bring us healing and peace. It didn’t.
More recently, his successor, District Attorney Todd Spitzer, has taken a page out of the Rackauckas playbook. Putting his political ambitions first, D.A. Spitzer has inserted himself into tragedy and publicly excoriated Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón for not seeking the death penalty in the fatal shooting of Los Angeles Sheriff Deputy Ryan Clinkunbroomer. He insists that seeking the death penalty – in a state that hasn’t seen an execution in nearly two decades and has a moratorium on executions – is in the interest of justice. It is not.
Capital punishment is a hollow promise that is far too often forced upon families like mine and that some families understandably cling to. It is our anguish and desire to find some solace in the throes of agony that the death penalty system feeds and depends on. But rather than bringing closure, the death penalty revictimizes us and prolongs our suffering.
Despite the fact that the man who killed my sister confessed to the crime, my family was forced to live through six years of gut-wrenching legal proceedings. During that protracted process, our pain was further amplified when the Orange County District Attorney’s office was found guilty of prosecutorial misconduct so egregious that the presiding judge took the extraordinary step of removing the district attorney’s office from the case.
I had always been opposed to capital punishment, but this grueling political circus crystalized my belief that the death penalty is a monstrous relic of the past that chips away at our basic principles of fairness, justice, and human dignity.
If these flaws and wrongdoing can occur in high-profile cases that should be open and shut, where guilt is clear and the defendant has confessed to the crime, then what can we expect for other death penalty cases?
The man who killed my sister was ultimately sentenced to eight terms of prison without parole, with an additional 232 years to life – and for that I am grateful. I am also grateful to District Attorney George Gascón for his moral courage to reject the spectacle that is the death penalty.
On Sunday, Laura would have celebrated her 58th birthday. Every year, we celebrate the beautiful, kind person she was. The pain of losing her will never go away. But I also know that, instead of letting people play politics with tragedies, we must take a real hard look at how we can better support victims and survivors of violent crime, and find solutions to prevent these tragedies from happening in the first place. That is how society can truly honor our loved ones’ lives and legacies.
Bethany Webb is a member of California Crime Victims for Alternatives to the Death Penalty and a tireless advocate of abolishing the death penalty. In 2011, her sister, Laura, was killed and her mother, Hattie, was wounded in the Salon Meritage Shooting in Seal Beach, one of the worst mass shootings in Orange County history.
