Capital Punishment

They say the dead are the only ones who truly know their own demise. Suicides know what it’s like to jump and accident victims know the metallic taste of aluminum and windshield glass. In that case, people who were murdered know who killed them. Maybe that means they know who they can have their revenge on. I hope that’s not true.

It stood with wide, tall concrete walls, imposing glass encased guard towers and miles upon miles of razor wire fencing. This place always sent a shiver running through my veins, like someone was tickling the nape of my neck with the edge of a knife. It’s concrete gaze always kept you on your guard. By daylight it would look utilitarian and cold. This persona of independence was aided by the half mile of open land between the outer wall and the nearest grove of trees in all directions. It seemed to demand solitude, away from life and light. It was the building incarnation of the paranoid hermit living in the woods.

Deer Island Federal Penitentiary, not my ideal vacation spot.

At night, this place took on a whole new aspect. Here the lit windows were like that of the eyes of some fish at the bottom of the ocean, something with rows of sharp teeth and a voracious appetite. People died here at night, and they did so under the caring gaze of a centralized government. Each and every shadow on the grounds looked like a co-conspirator in that essential fact. The search lights, arcing in their lazy fashion, were the sights of the high powered rifles which enforced its borders. Both the guards and the gangs sought retaliation at night, in the void between those itinerant lights.

My client would die in this miserable place tonight. I was his lawyer and would be a witness to his execution. I was here 2 ½ hours early but not to find the best seat to in this theater de grimore. My client had asked that I share his last meal. This probably wasn’t very professionally ethical, but I would have thought it unforgivable to deny the request of the dying. It was never the less sad that no one would comfort him in his mortal hour. I suppose that the title of “Convicted Murderer” has a sort of stigma to it.

I know he is innocent.

There were more than dark shadows huddled by the gates tonight. As I pulled up in my SUV, the republican mobile as my friends call it, I found myself in the midst of a sizeable throng of onlookers. The sound reduction frame, guaranteed to cancel outside noise for a more enjoyable ride, turned the scene in front of me into one of murmured protest rather than ebullient excitement, which it most certainly was. There were two distinct groups gathered to greet me, their picket signs like banners held aloft before a battle. The local police where there and had set up barricades to permit my entry. To my left, a rather fitting position, I could see banners of peace and mercy. The UN flag was held on high beside the symbol for Amnesty International. Near to the front there stood one young woman with a flower painted on her cheek, wore a marquee with a portrait of Gandhi and the words “And eye for an eye” on the front and “Makes the whole world blind.”

The unanimous, animalistic opinion of the other side was summed up in a single, long banner. In tall, black letters, it bore the question “IS IT 12:01 YET?” My arrival, being some what of a non-entity, aroused a mixed response from the crowd. Many stared at me, trying to see through the tinted windows. Maybe they thought I was the executioner, or a member of the victim’s family. One particularly Neo-Nazi looking young man with a shaven head and a sports jacket which bore several pins pantomimed throwing the switch on an old electric chair. Apparently no one had told this skin head that it was to be a lethal injection as method of execution. A few from the left side booed at me, but it appeared that no one would bar my way.

That was, until, she stepped into my path. Her arrival was like that of a black cat, a portentous omen signifying the danger and death to come. She wore a maroon shawl over a faded grey coat. Her platinum grey hair was done up in a simple bee-hive weave which gave her the odd look of someone who’s recently escaped the 50’s. Her age scarred face seemed oddly familiar in that queer darkness, but I couldn’t quite make out why. I would remember to this very day those piercing, burning eyes. Their color, seeming not to embody any color but judgment, cinched a band of cold lead around my heart.

The SUV squealed to a halt inches from her. I didn’t remember stepping on the breaks, yet somehow I managed not to hit her. She stood unmoved by her near run in with fate. She nether blinked nor shuffled, as though she expected the car to stop. Maybe, I’d thought then, she did. Our eyes locked through the windshield, and in that moment all went silent in the car. The woman raised one gnarled hand, more like a pinkish root than anything human, and pointed at me. It was an accusation; one which I would confess to in any court in the country. In all my years on ether side of the law I was thankful this old woman never presided over any case of mine.

Our encounter lasted only until two police officers, their faces obscured to me, swooped in and snatched her away. Her judging eyes never left mine. Once our stand off was defused I remembered who she was. Her name was Margaret Reed, an important witness on my client’s case. She had been the only one at the apartment building on the night when my client’s family was murdered. She lived doors down and was closest to the exits. I came to her and asked her to testify, and so did the ADA. The problem hadn’t been her memory of the case, but the fact that she bought bird seed by the tonnage and lived in an apartment that would have put the city zoo to shame. She played crazy, and played it too well. I knew she wasn’t lying about having seen the true killer, and that’s why I wanted to put her on. But she had her fears about testifying, and who could blame her. She knew, as I did, who the real murderer was.

The details of the case came back to me as I parked the republican mobile and got out. Louis Parker, 42, husband of Jane and father of Kelly and Helen. He had been a bit of a stamp collector in his spare time, and a mechanic full time. He wasn’t very good at ether, but he tried his best. Jane met him at the garage where he worked. She was in college at the time, and consequently strapped for cash. “Playing it Chill” As Lou had liked to put it, he told her he’d pay for the repairs himself if she went on a date with him. I’ve seen enough sexual harassment cases to know that was a really bad move. However she bought it and they were married for ten years. Go figure.

The crime took place in their apartment. A neighbor heard yelling from their apartment a little while before Lou left. He was livid about the cable bill and went out for a walk to clear his head. Mrs. Reed saw him leave. Lou went down town to get some fresh air and a drink or too. According to him, he was only going to have one or two, but just kept drinking. At one point he remembered being accosted by some other drunk stranger, one who neither the bartender nor the waitress working that night could identify. That very same stranger drove him home and into the carnage that awaited. The details were brutal, the work of a true monster.

It was all over the media when it was fresh. The local rags cited bogus psych reports and rumors of previous violence. He’d had no prior arrests for anything violent. Still, where there’s a quick buck to be made by destroying an innocent man, economics outranks ethics. With the immediate media storm, friends and family members distanced themselves from Lou quickly.

I was checked into the prison by two men who probably had Redwood in their Gene pool. They were both tall with massive arms and crushing mitts for hands. Although they were armed with mace and nightsticks, I believe it was their size that kept them safe. I would seriously second guess fighting them. I was sent though an x-ray and metal detector, as well as having my shoes checked for hidden compartments. All of this was standard procedure, after all. Death row was full of desperate men, and a desperate man is willing do to whatever to survive.

After being scanned in and deemed safe I was lead down a series of bland hallways. Deer Island is not like more modern prisons, which are mostly constructed out of non-shattering fiberglass and hardened plastics. Deer Island, as a series of buildings, was once part of a military complex built on this ground. The building itself was designed to withstand a nuclear attack. It became a prison after the budget cuts near the end of the 20th’s centaury. The remnants of those long years of nuclear stand off linger in the bomb shelter architecture. It makes it slightly more dangerous to work, being that concrete and metal, both of which could be fashioned into a handy shiv, were in abundance. But in the end it gave the guards a chance to be extra stringent on watches.

Corridor after corridor led on into the concrete maze. I was shown past cells were inmates haunted me in their silence. Dark meant lights out, and lights out meant talk out. But the con’s knew how to talk when talk couldn’t be done. The cons always knew. From these rows of cells which may have once housed top military brass I was lead to two bullet-proof doors which lead to death row. This part of the prison, which was white washed to promote some obscure disciplinary effect, was heavily guarded because it was the closest escape. This would not be the way the other witnesses would come, nor would the dead leave, for the cons would be eager to profane both.

This was the path trodden by the condemned on their way to the last rooms they would occupy on this mortal plane. The weight of it clung to me suddenly and I shot a panicked glance up at my escorts. For a moment I was their prisoner. I suppose that this made sense. I’ve done a number of mortal sins in this life, many of which could condemn me to death. I should be the recipient of justice. Those burning, cold fire eyes of Mrs. Reed, the arbiter of my soul and the witness to my crimes, stabbed at me with such ferocity that I felt my legs go suddenly weak. I fumbled a step, spilling myself onto the resonating concrete below me. My knee took the brunt of the crash, sending pain in electric arc spasms up my thigh and into my heart.

I suddenly felt sick, but the fantasy was gone. The guard to my right, I thought he was just going to scoop me up like a giant in a children’s fairy tale, helped me to my feet. For a man who’s size implied violence and intimidation, he handled me with a monk’s gentile grace. The icy feeling of impending doom stayed with me, but had been diminished by my throbbing leg and the blow which had been delivered to my pride. I thought I could hear a hiss of a snicker from one of the nearby cells.

The guard at my right rapt a giant’s meaty paw against the door, which resulted in a soft snap. Immediately the door was swung wide to reveal a brightly lit antechamber. Along the wall to my left there was another room separated by bullet proof glass. Behind the glass there was a row of television screens and a stern faced woman perhaps no older than I. Her eyes made me think of the eyes of the Ferryman for the River Styx. Her eyes spoke of one resigned with her charge. That sick chill rose up in me again but I didn’t have enough time to play my fainting act again. She quickly pressed a side button and a loud buzzer announced the doors in front of us would be opening.

When this portal opened I was lead into V Block, the holding cells for the condemned. In here the décor was no better than the previous halls; concrete faces in concrete cages. The only difference here was the size of the audience for the show. Of the twelve cells, six on ether side of the room, there were perhaps four incarcerated inhabitants. This was where men sat to count the days off the calendar while the courts decided life or death for them. It was always silent around here, like the annals of a monastery. One particularly pious inhabitant had managed to carve “Hallowed Grounds” over the front of his cell. This place was always referred to as “The Grounds” with an air of respect.

As I followed my escorts past the few other inhabited cells, I noted with disturbing clarity the expressions on the faces of those other inmates. A court ruling had declared them too feral to walk upright and abreast with other men. They were like animals now in the eyes of the state. They would sit here like the stray dogs in the nearby pound, watching through eyes devoid of hope or joy. And like all feral animals, they would eventually be put down.

I had no right to judge these men, for could I be any better than them? As I walked past their dark cells, making eye contact in the dark, I had no basis to decide whether or not these men were essentially good or evil. Yet the justice system needs only one mistake to spark distrust and insecurity. My client’s case had been that one mistake, where justice was not served. I would like to think that these men awaited their deserving fate. Yet if the system could be so fallible it seems unwise to level such a heavy penalty with such a shaky hand.

Lou’s cell was the last one on the left, the closest to the execution’s table. The light had been left on for him and two guard sat by the door in an almost casual manner. What I saw when I turned to look into that lighted cage was not a man, not anymore. It was a broken puppet, a marionette without it’s strings, slumped into a chair beside a cheap, plaid card table. I’d first seen Lou’s picture on the cover of a Newsweek; they had played him as a tall, broad, axe wielding psychopath. I knew the picture well; I’d seen it at his house and I used it during his trial. He was a broad man then, with a full beard and a wide grin on his face. It had been taken one Christmas when he’d been with Jane and the girls in an upstate cabin. The axe was a prop, he’d been proud to be the first city boy he knew to fell his own Christmas tree. In the picture as it was unedited, it shown a proud, loving father.

He was a shadow of his former self now. His once flowing red hair had been cut short and trimmed back to reveal hollow cheeks and a pale brow. His bead was gone too, leaving cold, corpus-like pale flesh. His shoulders drooped as though crushed by a terrible burden. The XL prison one piece he wore which was once snug around the shoulders and across the chest now sagged like a deflated balloon. He’d lost several pounds in the last few months. His bony hands, no longer the calloused, rough man-wrenches of a mechanic, were clenched and pearl white in his lap.

He had fought through the courtroom battles well. He’d maintained his innocence even before I joined his defense. There was a certain conviction to the man, a certain fight which endeared him to you. He was not one to lie down and die, not when there was a fight to be had. All the way up to four months ago, when our last appeal was denied and the final date was set for this night, he had retained a hopeful fire about him, a kind of righteous determination which no amount of rejected appeals or dead end investigations could deter.

To look into those eyes now would kill your soul.

They were the dead, defeated eyes of the slaughtered baby calf. Here was a man broken in mind and spirit. He spoke little those past few months and ate less. He mostly contemplated the endless void that holding to his innocence had condemned him to. With the sterile brightness from the overhead lamps, one got the impression that this man was already dead and lay out upon a mortuary slab.

“Thanks for coming, Sam.” Lou managed. He forced a grin as he spoke. It was to fake to be effective but the gesture was touching.

“No problem at all, Lou. I’m sorry it has to be under these circumstances.” I replied.

“I know… You tried you best and sometimes that aint good enough.” Lou said reluctantly. It nearly broke my heart to hear him say it but I knew that he was trying to make me feel better. That’s the kind of guy Louis Parker is, or was. He was about to die in less than a few hours and he was worried about how I felt. If that didn’t qualify you for sainthood, nothing could.

“Yeah… sometimes. How have you been feeling?”

“My stomach acts up sometimes, the docs say its nerves.”

“Have they read you…” I felt slightly morbid in continuing, “your last rights?”

“Yeah, a lot about Hell and such.” There was a long pause, Lou cracked his knuckles nervously. “Hey Sam?”

“What?”

“Have you been saved?”

“Saved?” This seemed out of place, I was trying to save him.

“Are you much of a Christian?”

“I think that the Lord and I are on the right side,” I was lying and the idea of it might have seemed funny under other circumstances. However, I wanted to comfort him in his last hours.

“Do you think I’ll go to Hell, Sam?”

“No. You’re innocent. Only the guilty go to Hell.” Lou had been a devout Christian of some sect or another. All his life he’d been exposed to the subject of good and evil. Talking about divine punishment and providence here seemed just right for one about to die.

“I know, I know, but… sometimes I think about all that’s happened and I get to thinking. Like what if this has… you know, tainted me or something. Maybe just being accused of a crime like this an’ being sentenced to die for it is enough to fall out of grace. I get to thinking about how I’m gonna look or what I’m gonna say when I stand before His judgment. Maybe just being here, surrounded by others who committed such horrible crimes, maybe I’ve been…tainted, you know?”

I’ve never been a psychologist, nor have I ever been a councilor. My closest tie to either profession has been my courtroom banter in convincing juries of client’s innocence or guilt. However, I knew now that my place in this higher courtroom was to send this man to his fate with a little bit of closure. I took in a deep breath and gave it my all:

“I think… no, I know you are innocent of the crime which has put you here. I know that God is omnipotent, and therefore knows you are innocent too. As for being in this place, if anything you bring to it something it didn’t have before. You are like a martyr I think and you lighten the burden of other’s sins. I think here is a big o’l place up in heaven waiting for you, and you will be reunited with your family there and all will be forgiven, do you understand?”

Somewhere in my rant Lou had begun to cry. The feeling seemed to be relief, not torment. At the end he smiled at me, and it must have been the first smile he’d really felt in a long time. When it was over, he threw his arms around me under the nervous glances of the guards. I could feel his bones shudder with a mixture of joy and relief at what I’d said.

“You’re a good man, Sam. Thank you.” To this day that still haunts me. I have nights were I lie awake and hear his words, ever syllable, every tone, even the slight echoes off those dead silent walls. A deeper part of me moves when I think of it. Perhaps it is the part that is still bitter that an innocent man must die so that a guilty man may live. I’ve never come to terms with it. My guilt haunts me in oh so many ways.

His last meal arrived shortly afterward. For his last meal Lou had requested a garbage pizza and a couple of beers. The stink of it seemed to lighten the atmosphere and make the mood a little softer. As we ate, I thought about how Lou’s wife had looked on her last night alive. Finally it came time for him to face his final preparations and I was told I had to leave. Before I stepped out of the cell, Lou spoke to me.

“My burden is lifted,” he said, “The weight is upon you now, Sam.”

I’ll never know why he said that. I was lead out of the room by my two tree-trunk guards still pondering that thing. Fear like cold lightening traced across my spine as I was lead past the viewing room window. The sight of the chair, so metallic and deadly, seemed so much like a steel spider waiting to grasp at your face in the dark. It stared at me with all the fierceness of a judge, for it knew the truth. Outside, in the heavy darkness, Mrs. Margaret Reed, she knew the truth, as did Kelly, Helen and Jane Parker. I was a monster and I knew it.

Ever since college I’d picked up a rather disturbing habit. You see, I had taken a likening to playing God. It had started with animals when I was a kid, figures right? Then it moved on as I progressed. A mendicant in an alleyway here, a poor hitchhiker there. I had learned the law so I could better know how to get away with it. When I’d found Lou in a bar that night, I knew I could get away with it. Any one of my peers would so easily pin it on him, the perfect crime.

I had thought it was funny, you know? A monster defending the rights of an innocent man. I was a lawyer, after all, and I knew I could not ethically letan innocent man die. I’d taken Lou’s case Pro-Bono because I recognized his picture from the one I’d seen in their living room that night. I was in the best position to defend my client, knowing that the state would have to find him innocent. It became a game, just how much could I give the state to convince them of Lou’s innocent without admitting my guilt.

They brought Lou out, strapped him down and stuck the first needle into his arm as I watched. The first needle is a sedative, it knocks you out, puts you to sleep so you don’t feel the cardiac arrest they give you later. I felt that prick in my own arm and I saw the joyful smile which hadn’t left his face since the encounter in his cell. I sat and I watched him die, knowing full well who really deserved to be where he was, who truly deserved that ultimate punishment. My guilt, my crime, stood out for all to see…

Lou Parker died an innocent man. I know this because I committed his crimes

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