A number of white residents of Newnan wrote letters objecting to the memorial service, with one letter writer calling it Rusk's proposed service "shameful". One letter writer wrote: "I am amazed there are plans to have a memorial service to show respect and honor Sam Hose, the man who raped and murdered his way across our country many years ago...The group proposing to hold this memorial service should be truly ashamed". One white woman wrote: "A man who is an ax murderer and a rapist, and whose crimes were described as some of the most violent, needs to be lynched. I don't care about race, sex, orientation, etc, etc. In fact, maybe if the judicial system actually carried out punishments for crimes committed, there might be one person who thinks twice about crimes instead of looking forward to a cushy life in prison with three squares, cable TV, exercise equipment, libraries and steaks. Why doesn't this group not seek to honor someone who was just a good, decent person instead of someone who obviously got what he deserved?" Another letter writer wrote that while Hose did not receive fair treatment stated: "Lack of fair legal system treatment...is in no way an obligation to 'pay our respects to Sam Hose'. If we start paying respect to murderers and rapists, then we need to do the same for the late Jeffrey Dahmer, Ted Bundy and John Wayne Gacey". Judge John Herbert Cranford, a descendant of Alfred Cranford, issued a public statement condemning the lynching, but also expressed much anger at Rusk for not paying enough attention to his family's suffering. One letter writer took a contrary position to the majority, saying the Moore's Ford Memorial Committee should be "commended" for its work, and concluded: "To ignore the past or sweep it under the rug is what keeps people from getting together in harmony and amity...The bottom line is that addressing an old wrong is the right thing to do".