It's just a long, drawn-out process, and I don't know how it could be speeded up. I'm certainly not in favor of taking shortcuts to the electric chair for anybody. But the wait is telling on the relatives of the victims. It's hard to keep the intensity of the way you feel when it first happens. I can understand why some families don't want to talk about it.
Some families do talk about it, however.
Edith Hammons of Madison, Tenn., is president of Organized Victims of Violent Crimes, a national support group with 6,000 members, she said. If the state's going to pay for all kinds of medical help, all kinds of job training for people in prison, then the victims of these people ought to have the same rights. A lot of daddies have been killed, and mothers left to raise children alone. If these women need job training, the state ought to see to it. Death row convicts in Tennessee appeal their sentences through a three- level legal process.