What began as a private agony for my husband has suddenly become a national and international news story, a platform for opinionated pundits and a cause célèbre for advocates and activists. My husband was married to Lisha Gayle, who was brutally murdered in her University City home almost 20 years ago. His life was forever changed, and our subsequent life together has been defined by this horrific act of unspeakable violence.
While the lawyers, experts, pundits and politicians debate this case from a safe distance, I would like to offer another point of view: that of a family whose wound is being exposed and expounded upon once again. Amid the breathless coverage, it is easy to forget that for the families of victims this is not about beliefs, no matter how intensely held, or sound bites recited and repeated across the media landscape. For them, it is deeply and painfully personal.
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While we understand that Williams’ sentencing fits a troubling pattern of racial disparity in the death penalty, that the secrecy, scarcity and reliability of execution drugs has sparked a spirited debate and that a case that is serious enough to warrant the death penalty is serious enough to warrant careful scrutiny, I would ask those on both sides to recognize that for the family, this is not policy, it is pain. The family has not just been victimized by an act of cold-blooded murder; they have been victimized by a justice system so excruciatingly slow that an end is elusive nearly two decades after the crime and now, by a media frenzy. This is not closure; this is chaos.
Victims have no choice but to put their fate and their faith in a system designed to deliver justice. They have no choice but to put their trust in the police, the investigators, the attorneys, the judges and the courts. In this case, a suspect was apprehended and charged. Lawyers for both sides presented evidence, argued with passion and persuasion and concluded their cases with confidence. A verdict was reached by the jury. A sentencing decision was made by the prosecutor. A sentence was handed down by a judge.
While all these people can, and sometimes do, make mistakes, the process has been analyzed twice. Now it will be done a third time, as yet a new panel of judges is being appointed by the governor.
This case has produced hours of testimony, reams of paper filings and numerous appeals. It is hours and hours worth of material, some of it quite technical. It has become clear, though, that those who take to the airwaves and the newspapers to proclaim most intensely and pontificate most incessantly have not examined, researched or even read most of it.
Although we realize that this case has become a foil for longstanding grievances and political opinions, delivering talking points disseminated by defense attorneys and anti-death penalty advocates does not advance the important policy debate around the death penalty; it only ignites partisan passions and causes further anguish for the family.
In addition, if the convicted killer is innocent, as some claim, that means there is a murderer yet to be apprehended — a scenario too terrifying to contemplate — and almost surely too late to seek or find justice. This is the necessary, but unspoken, corollary and the first thought of family members when a convicted killer’s innocence is resolutely asserted.
We understand that the death penalty is the rightful subject of robust debate. But even if the death penalty is unfair in its imposition, as many argue, it does not absolve the accused or convey innocence or guilt.
Each subsequent junction in this investigation will bring back the invective and the interviews, the arguments and the assertions. But behind the bylines and the headlines is a family quietly grieving. For them, the simple act of turning on a radio or a television or picking up a newspaper has become an unbearable reminder of an unthinkable crime, a lengthy, heartbreaking trial, a no-win judgment and a still-unresolved case. For the victims of violent crime, there is never true closure, no matter the fate of the perpetrator, but they do deserve a conclusion and we hope this one will come soon.
Laura Friedman lives in Clayton. Her husband, Daniel Picus, was married to Lisha Gayle when she was murdered in 1998.