just a thought

story by | kathleen wrigley

There are two recent newspaper articles that have tugged at me to respond. They’ve caused a stir of emotions, anger and frustration among them. The first article was published in the October 23, 2011, edition of the Philadelphia Inquirer. It’s title: “In life and death cases, costly mistakes.” The second was printed three days later in the Fargo Forum: “Rodriguez: ‘I didn’t mean to kill her.’” Both were prominently placed: front-page, above the fold.

As different as these stories are, there is a connection: each involves a victims’ journey.

Several weeks prior, I was contacted by a Philadelphia Inquirer reporter, Nancy Phillips, who explained she was writing on the endless appellate process in death penalty cases and how it affects victims’ family members.

Unfortunately, my family and I are considered “expert witnesses” on this issue. We have nearly twenty years’ experience. My only brother, Danny, was 21-years-old

A Voice In The Silence

when he was murdered, gunned down in the line of duty as a Philadelphia Police Officer.

Danny’s killer should have been in prison on the night he shot Danny. Instead, because of “prison overcrowding” certain inmates were granted a “get out of jail free” card—released pending trial, with nothing more than their signature and a promise to appear in court. Weeks after this particular inmate was set free, he shot and killed a man during a drug deal and in a separate incident, he tried to avoid arrest by shooting and killing Danny.

The journey to justice is long. In murder cases, the victims are silenced—their rights forever silenced with them. The victims’ families are often muted, too.

Investigations and trials divulge gut-wrenching facts that haunt surviving family members. My family listened to the tape of Danny’s last police radio dispatch. The courtroom echoed as we listened to the rapid succession of shots being fired at Dan. The second of thirteen bullets entered his right temple. His final words mumbled: “Officer down. Officer down. Please help me. Please don’t let me die.”

During the trial of Danny’s killer, the defense attorney objected to our tears. He demanded the judge require us to leave the courtroom if we couldn’t stifle our emotions. He argued we were prejudicing the jury.

My family and I sat—numb most of the time—through the rest of the trial. SILENT.

It’s been nearly 20 years since the jury rendered their verdict and sent Danny’s killer to death row. And yet, the court appearances for new appellate arguments still creep up every few years. Danny’s killer has a fresh team of lawyers every once in a while, and the current crew now claim that their client is “mentally retarded” and should be handed a lesser sentence.

I was encouraged —perhaps naïvely—when Ms. Phillips, from the Philadelphia Inquirer asked me to speak on behalf of victims. We spoke for nearly an hour. I shared our private pain of having to re-live, re-visit, re-hash every detail of losing Danny every time a defense lawyer has a brain-storm and offers a novel argument and a new court date is set. I relayed all of this to Ms. Phillips and was anxious to read her article…for victims.

The story was printed, but the author’s angle switched gears from the direction she had led me to believe she was taking. She picked several anomaly cases and chose her angle: Philly murderers are arbitrarily deposited on death row because their lawyers were ineffective. And, court appointed attorneys don’t get paid nearly enough to do a sufficient job of defending their clients. Ms. Phillips reduced the victims’ perspective to an afterthought, briefly referenced at the end of the article.

I couldn’t help but feel duped. I collected myself and called Ms. Phillips. I left a message on her voicemail, expressed my disappointment with her story and asked if there’d be an equally lengthy story about victims’ family members and how the endless appellate process painfully affects them. That was October 23rd, and I have not heard back from Ms. Phillips.

Three days after the Inquirer article, the Fargo Forum printed an article titled: “Rodriguez: ‘I didn’t mean to kill her.’” The article detailed the kidnapping and killing of UND student, Dru Sjodin, and included Rodriguez’s version of the crime that has not been public before… until Mr. Rodriguez got himself a new defense team.

Dru’s attacker says he confused her with a childhood abuser. His new defense team suggests that their client suffered from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and cannot be held responsible for his actions.

Midway through the Forum article, I stopped to call Dru’s mom, Linda Walker. She answered in a whisper. We had spoken the day before because she read the story in the Philadelphia Inquirer. We wept on the phone, unable to even speak. Honestly, we felt gutted—like many victims.

Each death-penalty eligible murder is distinctly horrific and does not require a single reference to any other case to make it horrifying. Still, there are common threads for survivors: system breakdowns, media attention, stripping of victims’ rights, endless appellate arguments, and feeling silenced.

During Rodriguez’s trial, just before Linda and family were to take the stand, the defense team had a motion—to essentially—muzzle them. Dru’s mom was handed a list of pre-requisites to follow before testifying. Among them were words that she was forbidden to use, like: love.