Our Very Own Timothy John Evans Part II - The Personal

One of the most compelling arguments made by death penalty proponents is that the death penalty is the only way for the survivors of the victims to obtain closure is to see to it that the perpetrator is put to death.

There are some survivors who are prominent as individuals in opposition to the death penalty and a couple of organizations of survivors that oppose the death penalty and want to see it abolished. The story that resonates most deeply with me, however, is the story of Camilo Barbosa Esteves.

Camilo  - or as he was nicknamed, Lila - was one of five brothers growing up in a medium size town in Minas Gerais, Brazil. I've been told he had an engaging sense of humor, was a bit of a skirt chaser (and a fairly successful one at that), a hard worker, nearly everyone's best friend, loved birds, the beach and practical jokes. In 1983 he was shot and killed at the age of twenty-five in Teófilo Otoni, Minas Gerais while chasing after the thief who stole his truck.

He was the brother-in-law I will never meet.

His death twenty-two years ago tore holes that will never be filled and left scars that will never heal in Mércia's family. His picture hangs in several places in our apartment and he stays close to Mércia's heart. She never forgets to have him mentioned at masses around the time of his birth and his death. She also opposes the death penalty, probably more vigorously than I do.

One final point worth making is about the often brutal imperfection of justice and how sloppy or lazy  prosecutors can sometimes aid criminals. Several years ago my mother served as foreperson of a jury in a retrial on a rape case in Madison County, Alabama. The accused was a prisoner on a work-release program with neither a history of sex crimes nor violence. The victim claimed that she was a virgin at the time of the rape. She contracted gonorrhea as a result of the rape. In the first trial, the prosecutor withheld this evidence from the defense, an action that proved to reckless. The defendant did not have gonorrhea, thus potentially exculpatory evidence was withheld from the defense.

My mom told me that she had two thoughts when she saw the victim as they acquitted the defendant on appeal:

1. This poor woman has to face the fact that the man who attacked her is still out there.
2. Who else might the actual perpetrator of this crime have raped.

One wonders how many more women John Christie may have killed before someone happened to knock a hole in the false wall in which he had entombed three women. One wonders how many other crimes the actual perpetrator of the crime for which Larry Griffin was put to death has committed.

One also wonders how much longer we can call ourselves the greatest nation in the world when the state can put you to death for a crime that you did not commit.

Comments

[The Heretik]

Very powerful.