Editorial: Justice, compassion and the lesson of 2 mothers
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The justice system is all about scales.
They tip. They balance. They measure. They determine who is guilty. They weigh out the punishment.
But they are often skewed toward retribution. Courts struggle with calculating the entirety of a crime’s gravity.
It is understandable. How do you measure the impact of a theft beyond dollars and cents? How do you tally the pain of a kid who didn’t get to go to college because of a stolen bank account? Courts have to deal in the concrete as much as possible.
That can leave it to the people in the aftermath of a crime to deal with the healing and the rebuilding. That’s a heavy burden to ask of someone after tragic loss.
Yet on Monday, two mothers did just that.
Beverly Richason’s daughter, Ronny Cable, 34, of Vandergrift, was killed in 2017. It was a horrific crime that seems almost fictional in its brutality. Two men were responsible as part of a robbery plot.
Walter Cable — no relation — is serving life in prison for bludgeoning Ronny Cable with a hammer before choking her. He and Devon Akamichi of Export, Ronny Cable’s former boyfriend, then spent 10 hours burning her body in the woods near Keystone State Park. Akamichi pleaded guilty to third-degree murder.
It is no surprise that at Monday’s sentencing Akamichi was repentant and remorseful. Defendants often are when faced with the penalties for their actions. Westmoreland County Common Pleas Judge Tim Krieger imposed a sentence of 20 to 40 years in prison.
No sentence can bring Ronny Cable back. No sentence will fill the hole for her family.
But what made this hearing different from so many was the other remorse that was offered and the other comfort given.
Akamichi’s mother, Lisa Rodgers, offered an apology to Richason. The women — left to struggle for the rest of their lives with the reality of what happened on March 9, 2017 — hugged each other.
“I know you are suffering, too,” Richason said.
Courtrooms seldom see real comfort or grace. Sentences or pleas are optimistically the best outcome for a bad situation.
But to other defendants and victims, lawyers and law enforcement and even the judge, Richason and Rodgers gave an unintended master class in compassion that was a lesson for all.