Today a man convicted of stabbing to death a troubled woman with whom I grew up will be sentenced. Her father will make a Victim Impact Statement to the court today. It is one of the more powerful things I have read in a long, long time. I thought you should see it.
Victim Impact Statement
7 November 2005
Your Honor; Mr. Fenton, Mr. Reisterer, Mr. Perry, Friends:
I thank all who have worked on this: the Western Michigan
University police investigators for their competence and compassion;
the court personnel, especially the victim advocate office, who have
been so kind to us; the Prosecutor, who was our daughter's voice in
court; the jury members who gave their time to seriously deliberate on
this; our many friends who have hugged us, held us, listened to us and
prayed for us.
Amy was our adopted daughter. She came into our family
when she was almost four years old, and she came with many latent
problems. We knew nothing of these difficulties, nor did the social
workers and others who facilitated the adoption. In fact, the words
"fetal alcohol syndrome" had not even entered the vocabulary in 1970.
The biological daughter of an alcoholic mother, Amy was
virtually pre-programmed for problems over which she had no reasonable
control. Labels and psychological terms were applied: low
self-esteem, inability to bond to others, juvenile schizophrenia or
simply personality disorder.
As she entered adult life, her choices, if they can be
called that, were such that progressively made her life more
difficult, not less. The people she hung out with and her use of
destructive substances were just two such choices. We knew that behind
those dark eyes was a woman capable of deep love, caring and
compassion.
Nancy, my wife, and I are coming to the end of one of the
worst 18 months of our lives. A trial has ended and there has been a
conviction. As I look at the man convicted of this terrible deed I
cannot help but wonder about his background, what problems were passed
on to him from generations before?
I can only summarize my feelings. I have been through
anger, grief, sorrow, and deep sadness this past year.
What is known as "justice" has been arrived at as best we
can determine it with all our human frailties. The "sentencing phase"
is where one who has committed a murder is ordered to pay a "debt" to
society.
I take no pleasure in punishment. There is no joy in
revenge nor is there any consolation in seeing someone imprisoned.
How exactly does someone pay such a "debt" to society?
And what is the "debt" really? Mr. Perry did not "take"
Amy's life: he ended Amy's life. In one sense, the only way that debt
could be repaid would be if he could bring her back to life again.
Such a debt cannot be repaid.
We must all take responsibility for our own actions. And
yet, individual actions take place in a larger context. Actions have
consequences beyond the personal and those consequences can reach down
many generations and even centuries. I wish to speak briefly to that
context.
Centuries ago Europeans brought alcohol to indigenous
peoples, like my daughter, people who had never tasted alcohol, and
the consequences of that action are still with us. A fur trader of
the 18th or 19th century is in this courtroom. So is the problem he
brought.
Our actions can extend forward in time for decades,
generations, and centuries. What we do matters.
Slave-traders of the 17th or 18th or 19th century are in
this courtroom. The consequences of those who sought economic gain by
enslaving fellow human beings are with us in deadly form. Both my
daughter and Mr. Perry lived in a world created, in part, by people
who lived long ago and whose actions left all of us with difficult
problems.
I must reiterate that I believe each of us is responsible
for our own actions. And yet, we cannot dismiss the actions of those
who, because of greed or malice, brought us and our children to these
problems.
The impact of all this on me is not financial. It breaks
my heart. It also causes me to ask, "What actions am I taking today
that will bring good or evil on generations to follow?"
So-called friends offered alcohol and cocaine to Amy.
Anyone who offers alcohol to an alcoholic is their enemy: whether
consciously or not, they are killing the person they purport to
befriend, and that must define an enemy. Those who provided Amy with
drugs and alcohol down through the years may not be in this courtroom;
they may not even care all that much that she is dead. They certainly
were not on trial here. But they are here. The judicial system will
not charge them, but they cannot escape the consequences of this
so-called "friendship." Like the traders of two centuries ago, they
played a part in my daughter's death.
Those who have racist attitudes and think their viewpoint
is without consequence are in this courtroom as much as the
slave-traders of two centuries ago are in this courtroom.
As a father, I cannot begin to explain my feelings about
all this. No matter how far your child wanders, there always remains
a seed of hope within your heart. Untold numbers of people, from dear
friends to professionals, sought to help Amy. In the end, we could
not effectively reach her or touch her. And now her heart seems to be
silenced.
But, Amy's heart is not really silenced. To
those who were involved in any way in her death, before, during or
after that act of murder, the sound of her heart should beat in their
ears like a Dakota drum. Those who first gave her alcohol and
cocaine, who facilitated her addiction: they must hear the Dakota drum
beat of her heart in their heads. Certainly the murderer must hear a
Dakota drum with every beat of his own heart.
A murder weapon, a knife or something like a knife, has
not been found. Only the murderer knows where it is. But it is not
completely gone. That knife is lodged in the hearts of all who truly
cared about Amy. How can it be removed?
How can we break the chain of violence? How can that
missing knife that is symbolically lodged in our hearts be removed?
On a personal level, there is an alternative. It is known as
forgiveness; it is known as reconciliation. But forgiveness is only
possible when there is confession in a spiritual sense, an admission
of the act. No one is beyond redemption and for that I am grateful
that the State of Michigan is civilized enough to NOT have a death
penalty.
To brood and nurture anger, hatred and revenge is merely
the first step toward the next act of violence. Absent any confession
or ownership of this deed, forgiveness becomes problematic. I must
find other ways to heal, to let go.
We who loved Amy and gave so much of ourselves to help her
overcome the deficits she was born with will also hear that Dakota
drum-beat in our hearts. But we will hear it differently. We will
hear the collective yearnings of all Dakota people; we will hear the
drum-beat of justice; we will hear the drum-beat of that which was in
Amy that we know as love; and we will hear the drum-beat of hope.
Amy's murder brought me a deep sadness. It ended all hope
I had that this basically loving and compassionate young woman would
somehow rise out of the ashes of her early life and transcend her
difficulties. There is also sadness for all those in the family of
the one who ended Amy's life. There is pain in that family as well as
in mine and I pray for their healing.
I knew many things that could not be admitted into the
trial record. Once, I took one of Amy's sons, my grandson, out for a
Coke. He was just five years old. Sitting alongside me in the car he
suddenly said, very quietly, "Casey is not a nice man." Not wanting to
influence what was coming, I merely asked, "Why do you say that?"
This 5-year old replied, "Because he held a knife to my throat." One
may fool adults with charm and deception but a 5-year old will speak
the unvarnished truth however rude or inconvenient it may seem.
It remains for us to honor Amy's life by seeking only the
truth, and by doing what we can in our tiny sphere of influence to end
the causes of abuse and violence, especially against women and
children.
When a person has engaged in years of abuse and violence
bordering on terrorism against the weakest and most vulnerable,
including children, that person must be stopped. It is not payment of
debt or revenge. It is a means of assuring that the carnage stops now.
It is too late for Amy. It is too late for the children who suffered
terrible abuse and fear--most of whom, like Amy, will now be scarred
for life. It is not too late to prevent further abuse, violence and
death.
This court has acted to assure that such acts of violence,
abuse and terror by the defendant against another woman or more
children can never happen again.