Family of Robert Coe Shares Common Ground with Oklahoma City Bombing Victims
Tcask asks first lady to dialogue with victims rights advocates that oppose executions
April 19, 2004: Crime victims and survivors, victim service providers, criminal and juvenile justice and allied professionals, and community volunteers commemorate the 24th anniversary of National Crime Victims' Rights Week. Remembering the victims of two tragic events with April 19th anniversaries marks the participation of the Tennessee Coalition to Abolish State Killing in this week’s events.
Four years ago Robert Glen Coe became the first and only person executed by the state of Tennessee since 1960. His execution turned Coe’s siblings Billie Jean, Bonnie and Jimmy into survivors of homicide victims. Nine years ago the Oklahoma City bombing took the lives of 168 innocent people including Julie Marie Welch.
“The Tennessee Coalition to Abolish State Killing (TCASK) sees it self as a part of the victim’s rights movement,” said Randy Tatel, executive director of the organization that promotes alternatives to capital punishment in Tennessee. “TCASK remains committed to the equal acknowledgement and support of all victims of violence – in particular to the survivors of homicide victims. TCASK believes that pain and loss suffered by family members who lose a loved one to homicide is equal.”
It is during National Victim’s Rights Week that TCASK challenges the public and lawmakers to re-think the hierarchy of “good” victims versus “bad” victims that capital punishment creates.
“What many people, including many good-hearted victim’s rights advocates, fail to acknowledge is that an execution creates an entirely new set, an unnecessary set, of victims family members,” said Tatel. “The cause of death on a death certificate of a person who is executed reads homicide. When a person is executed their family members become survivors of homicide victims. Their feelings of loss, grief and pain are as deep and real as any other victim’s feeling. The Coes have been traumatized yet banished by most victim’s rights advocates.”
One of the victims of the Oklahoma City bombing was Julie Marie Welch. Julie’s father Bud became a member of the organization Murder Victims Families for Reconciliation (MVFR) after battling through his initial desire for revenge against those who took his young daughter’s life.
MVFR is a victim-founded, victim-led organization that represents murder victims' families who oppose the death penalty. They released their report Dignity Denied at the annual conference of the National Organization for Victim Assistance, held in Nashville last August.
"Too often, family members who oppose the death penalty are silenced, marginalized, and abandoned, even by the people who are theoretically charged with helping them," said their executive director Renny Cushing.
“Today, without prejudice or ranking, we acknowledge the pain of all families who have lost loved ones to homicide,” said Tatel. “We respectfully ask our First Lady, Andrea Conte, to have a dialogue with MVFR members in Tennessee and ask her to consider their voice summed up by MVFR this way: ‘Most criticism of the death penalty focuses on how it affects the person on death row. Our concern is how the death penalty affects the rest of us in society. Our opposition to the death penalty is rooted in our direct experience of loss and our refusal to respond to that loss with a quest for more killing. Executions are not what will help us heal.’”
