Sorry, it should have NOTHING to do with the identification of guilt, the extent or severity of guilt or the final adjudication of justice towards the gulity. Guilt or innocence and the severity of that guilt, in law, should be related 100% to the crime, period. The feelings of the family members of the victim are irrelevant TO LAW AND LEGAL JUSTICE.
I am not denying their just feelings. They are true and they represent something that results in them from the crime. That's the whole point, its IN THEM and it's THEIR FEELINGS. The law was not intended to resolve those feelings.
From a legal standpoint, in my view, relatives of "victims" are not "the victim", in any legal sense, and inspite of the impact on their lives, our historical legal philosophy was designed to bring justice for what happened to THE ACTUAL VICTIM and not for those who a grieving over that victim.
It is a legal path that we are already feeling the adverse impact of throughout our public discourse.
When the actual victim is dead, it's going to be tough getting a statement out of him without John Edwards. And, not surprisingly, a crime can impact those around the actual victim, like the children, spouse, etc. And as long as defendants can submit the amount of specious crap they do to mitigate the sentence, I can live with victim impact statements.