In a criminal case, our supreme court determined that the surviving half-sister of a six-year-old murdered by another family member can request restitution for his loss of earnings. Quite absurd. The reality is that the young child had no loss of earnings before or after his death. While we are all sympathetic to victims, no need to defy reality. The law has always made a distinction in civil cases between estate claims under the survival statute (economic losses end with death) and the wrongful death statute (beneficiaries can claim their own personal economic losses). The rules may be different in a criminal case with restitution under victim’s rights but one can only guess why. Since we celebrated Shakespeare’s birthday last week, reading this opinion brought to mind Henry V and the Archbishop’s speech on Salic law.

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