Gavin Newsom preaches morality on death-row mercy. Mom of an 8-year-old kidnapped, raped and murdered deserves the last word
The saddest part about Gavin Newsom’s unilateral decision to commute the death sentences of 548 convicted murderers on Death Row is that it ignores the victims and their families.Sure, he claims to have thought about the victims when he made the decision, but he’s got to know he is wronging them.“I acknowledge that this finality may bring comfort to some victims,” he wrote, as if he were doing them a favor, rather than denying them justice.But listen to the words of Sandy Friend, whose 8-year-old son, Michael Lyons, in 1996 was kidnapped, tortured for 10 hours, inflicted with 70 to 80 non-lethal stab wounds, raped, and then killed by Robert Boyd Rhoades.“Years and years of fighting, by me, by other people, and by families, and now it feels like it means absolutely nothing,” Friend told the California Post.“He didn’t even take the time to look at each case, or to sit down with the family members who are affected.” Or to the words of Marc Klaas, whose daughter Polly, 12, was kidnapped from a slumber party in 1993 and killed by Richard Allen Davis in a case that appalled Californians and helped usher in Proposition 184, the state’s tough-on-repeat-offenders Three Strikes law:California Post News: Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X, YouTube, WhatsApp, LinkedInCalifornia Post Sports Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, XCalifornia Post Opinion California Post Newsletters: Sign up here!California Post App: Download here!Home delivery: Sign up here!Page Six Hollywood: Sign up here!Newsom is “putting these people closer and closer and closer to freedom, and these are absolutely the worst, most disgusting people that have ever lived,” Klaas told the Post.There are thousands of people who feel the same way.Newsom claims that he could not distinguish morally between “the worst of the worst” murderers and other convicted killers.He said that because each victim’s family felt the same sense of unimaginable loss, it would be unfair to execute some mur...