Justice: An Elusive Concept

by Donna Pendergast

The concept of justice is sprinkled throughout the scriptures and is an ideal that is sought in many arenas of daily life. People seek justice to create a proper ordering of random things and persons within a society, in the enforcement of laws, to solve disagreements between persons and in response to criminal behavior.

But what is true justice in the case of an almost unimaginable act of criminal depravity? What is justice for a purposeful act of harm and violence where one persons gratification comes from stealing the life of another human being? In the case of a purposeful serial murderer like Coral Watts, who may have murdered as many as a hundred beautiful and talented women, can there ever really be justice for the family and friends who were the peripheral victims of such a diabolical and depraved predator?

I struggle with these concepts on a daily basis while prosecuting homicide cases and when dealing with the survivors, the family and the friends of a person whose life was callously snuffed out by by an act of senseless violence. In the depths of pain and misery survivors look to the prosecutor to guide them through the nuances of an unfamiliar criminal justice system and to obtain justice for them for an incomprehensible loss. Often the families look to the prosecutor as a sort of lifeboat who will save them from disaster and fix the circumstances that put them in touch with the justice system. Unfortunately, as prosecutors we can't fix anything we can only try to do justice, whatever that is, by seeking a conviction.

In seeking justice for the survivors, there are things that you learn, some of them the hard way. After having prosecuting over 100 murder trials I have learned NOT to say "I understand how you feel." As one survivor pointed out very early on, I don't understand how they feel and never could. Instead I've learned to say "I understand that I can't understand what you are going through but I have dealt with other families in this situation many times before and here is the benefit of my experience.

I have also learned to expect what often happens after a verdict even if it's a favorable verdict. Many survivors describe a hollow feeling after a jury verdict in a homicide trial because even a guilty verdict will never bring back a loved one. Accordingly, I've learned to caution families that there will likely be a letdown after the verdict as they adjust to the new reality that the fight is over but the pain goes on. The mother of a man beat to death by a pack of savage brothers and their friends several levels below "Deliverance" grade caliber once said to me after the verdict "I thought I would feel better but I don't," not a surprisingly revelation considering the testimony that she had to sit through including the fact that her son and his friend had been chopped up and fed to pigs. It was closure after eighteen long years of wondering what had happened to her son who had disappeared while on a hunting trip up north, but closure at a terrible cost.

But the question remains "Is a jury verdict that one is guilty of homicide and subsequent resultant incarceration in prison true justice?" The dictionary defines justice in a number of ways. One definition defines justice as the ideal morally correct state of things and persons. Another entry defines justice a what is fair.

The question remains whether or not anything can be morally correct or fair when dealing with the senseless obliteration of a human life. Without delving into the complex and gut wrenching arena and dodging the land mines associated with the debate over the death penalty (maybe a subject for another day) I've come to the conclusion that there is no true justice for survivors rather justice as we can best do it under a horrendous set of circumstances and with an imperfect system.

Unfortunately true justice and true closure for the survivors remains an impossible dream.

Statements made in this post are my own and are not intended to reflect the views, opinion or position of the Michigan Attorney General or the Michigan Department of Attorney General.

Tweet

A Prosecutor Looks Back and Remembers

by Donna Pendergast 

In 2007, the U.S. House and Senate unanimously passed resolutions to establish September 25 as a National Day of Remembrance to provide a way to honor the memory of victims lost to homicide. This week jurisdictions all over the country have scheduled public events to commemorate the occasion and promote public awareness about the impact of violent crime. Amongst others, one such observance is being held tomorrow in our nation's capitol in Washington D.C. Professionals from homicide support groups around the nation will join with those who lost a loved one to homicide at the National Press Club. The event "Supporting Survivors: A Forum for discussion," will explore issues that survivors face. The day will culminate with the unveiling of the ceremonial "Murder Wall," the powerful reminder of loss described in my last blog post.

While pondering my speech for a related speaking engagement tonight, I was thinking about this year's theme for the event--"Remember, Remind and Respect"--and reflecting back on 23 years spent as a prosecutor, much of that time specializing in prosecuting homicide cases. Having recently prosecuted my 100th murder case through verdict, I have a unique perspective. All too often I have looked into the faces and heard the voices of those who suffer every day because someone they love was violently taken from them. So many years, so many terrible cases prosecuted, each and everyone of them a stark symbol of man's inhumanity to man. 

A MIRACLE FOR OH SO BRIEF 

I remember a 7-month-old infant with a sock shoved down her throat and her tiny face and head completely covered in duct tape. She was placed in a plastic bag and thrown away in a west side Detroit field filled with trash. Miracle Jackson never had a chance. She was murdered for no reason other than her mother's boyfriend was angry at her mother and took it out on the baby after her mother left for work. 

Her tiny corpse was found beneath some wood and a tire in that desolate field on September 14, 2000. The next day, the Detroit Free Press chose to run a front-page picture of a worker from the medical examiner's office carrying her body away in a translucent trash bag. The picture generated intense controversy. The Free Press received hundreds of faxes and letters to the editor from readers angered by the horrific photograph and the metaphor of the baby as trash. The executive editor of the paper answered with a front-page response, explaining that it was his job to balance the offense to the audience against telling readers about a horrific story that took place in the community. A later Free Press editorial-page opinion stated, "One must weep for Miracle Jackson and for a world where the innocent die without reason."

Rest assured, I wept. The pictures indelibly etched in my mind continue to haunt me. 

WE TELL OUR CHILDREN THERE ARE NO MONSTERS...

I remember two 12-year-old girls who would never live to see their 13th birthdays. Casey Fiolek and Jennifer Wicks were two young girls trying desperately hard to be grown up. They were too young to foresee that the adult males who had made their acquaintance at a park earlier in the day were monsters of the night who wore human faces to mask an evil beyond comprehension. When the girls snuck away from a sleep-over in the middle of the night, lured by the promise of alcohol, they never dreamed that those monsters waiting in the park would soon show their true faces. Casey and Jennifer were sexually assaulted and brutally murdered. Their bodies were stuffed in a culvert where they would be found several days later. The horror of their final moments was laid out in great detail in self-serving statements by the respective defendants. The common thread in those two statements painted a picture horrific enough to make one's blood go cold.

Rest assured, I wept. The horror of Casey and Jennifer's last moments is almost too horrible to think about, no less comprehend. 

A RUNAWAY PROBLEM 

I remember a 15-year-old chronic runaway lost by the system who found what she thought was a home with a 24 year old. Heather Kish was a troubled teen who taunted her controlling boyfriend with threats of turning him in for statutory rape. She was overpowered in death, strangled with a dog leash by her boyfriend and his father. Her body was wrapped in a carpet and dumped in a field. To its credit, the Michigan Supreme Court via Chief Justice Maura Corrigan responded immediately. The state family courts were ordered to work with child welfare agencies to find children missing from the system and report to the Supreme Court on the results of their investigations.

Rest assured, I wept for the girl who had no chance in life and no chance in death. I am thankful that measures have been taken to avoid similar disastrous results. 

EVIL EYES 

I remember a serial murderer who killed at least 13 women (self admittedly) and may be the most prolific murderer in the history of the United States. Coral Eugene Watts is probably responsible for as many as 100 murders of women who were allegedly killed because they had "evil eyes." In reality in most circumstances, he first spotted his victims when he had no opportunity to see their eyes; his motive was pure blood lust.

Rest assured, I wept for the all of the lost lives--so many talented women with so much potential, murdered for no reason other than the sick satisfaction of a deviant and diabolical serial murderer.

END OF WATCH

I remember two separate police officers who made the ultimate sacrifice. Detroit police officer Michael Scanlon (right) was stabbed to death by a punk while doing nothing more than making a traffic stop. He died alone on a cold driveway in a puddle of blood. He left behind a wife and two small children, one just 1 month old. Officer Scott Stewart, another of Detroit's finest, was killed by a contact wound to the back of his head while investigating a block party in the city of Detroit. His heartsick partners who were off chasing people who fled the party heard the shot from afar and raced back to the scene. They found their colleague and friend lifeless and crumpled in a heap on the front lawn.

Rest assured, I wept over the deaths of two police officers murdered while doing their jobs. Rest in peace, officers Scanlon and Stewart. Your work has spoken for you.

There are 95 more stories. Tonight, tomorrow and always I remember. And still I weep. 

Statements made in this post are my own and are not intended to reflect the views, opinion or position of the Michigan Attorney General or the Michigan Department of Attorney General.

Tweet

Behind Prison Walls: Inside Ellis Unit One

by Donna Pendergast

That old white haired judge in Dallas

Didn't pay my story no mind

They're taking me down to Huntsville

I'm bringing in a load of time

--Merle Haggard

Huntsville, Texas, is the execution capital of the world and the headquarters of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. Huntsville has become a metaphor for incarceration and Death Row issues. Hearing the word conjures up visions of chain gangs, prison riots, and Death Row. Immortalized in books, movies and songs, Huntsville is a metaphor for all things prison-related, and its very existence has served as a threat for generations of Texan school children who taunted each other about being sent to Huntsville for bad behavior.

Being a Midwestern girl from Michigan, Huntsville was not a place that I ever expected to see--especially not from the inside. That all changed in early 2004, when I found myself on a plane with a colleague and two Michigan State Police troopers. We were headed to Huntsville to attempt to interview serial murderer Coral Eugene Watts (right) prior to making a charging decision on a cold case. He was suspected of committing that crime in Michigan in 1979. The reason we were reviewing the cold case is a long and fascinating story (watch for it to be covered in a future post).

Arriving in Texas, I quickly learned that Huntsville is a town with six separate prisons within the city limits and near the actual town. Our intended destination was Ellis Unit One, on the outskirts. Ellis Unit One is a maximum security facility where the average prisoner's sentence exceeds 40 years. The prison, which houses up to 2,400 male prisoners, was the site of Texas Death Row until shortly after a major escape attempt in 1999. Even before the escape attempt, prison officials were busy relocating Death Row to the Polunsky Unit in West Livingston, Texas. After the escape attempt, officials sped up the move, completing it in 2000. The Death Row transfer, performed under heavy security, was the largest transfer of condemned prisoners in history.

While it may have lost Death Row, Ellis Unit One has lost none of its formidable cachet. A foreboding view on the horizon as one travels the field-lined road leading up to the prison, Ellis Unit One makes its presence known, even from a distance. As I saw the building looming up ahead, the stark reality that I was soon entering those walls sunk in. The thought was disquieting, to say the least.

After parking in a public parking lot, we walked to a gate and flashed credentials up to guards in a sentry tower (pictured above), standing watch heavily armed. The guards had been advised of our anticipated arrival, and we were accompanied by a high-ranking representative with the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, so we were buzzed through the gates quickly and allowed to start toward the prison facility itself. Inside the doors we had to sign a log, turn in personal effects, and put on identification badges handed to us through a window in the foyer area. We were then allowed to proceed through multiple sets of doors that clanged shut behind us with an eerie sound of finality.

This was a first for me. I've been in various jails plenty of times before to interview witnesses, but this was a prison; different--and not in a comfortable way. Even accompanied by two police officers, a male colleague and the corrections official, I was still uneasy and ready to get down to business as quickly as possible so we could get out as quickly as possible.

Prison officials had cleared room for us in a small office used for storage. My fellow assistant attorney general and I hunkered down there while the two troopers were taken and seated in a small adjacent conference room, where the interview was set to take place. Prison officials had set up hidden cameras in the conference room, transmitting back to a television set in our makeshift office. That let us watch as the interview  it took place.

While we waited for guards to transport Watts to area, I needed to use the restroom. I was directed to a bathroom in the infirmary, requiring a journey through several halls. As I headed there alone, I cautiously eyed the trustee inmates working openly and seemingly on their own in the hallways just steps from me. I found myself moving quickly, eager to return to the relative security of my office sanctuary. I would have been moving even faster had I known then that another of the Huntsville prisons had once been the site of a seige by three armed prisoners who took multiple hostages using weapons smuggled inside in a ham and  canned peaches. When the siege ended eleven days later, two of the armed gunmen and two civilian hostages -- a teacher and a librarian -- were dead.

There was a bit of levity during the wait for Watts once I got back to the storeroom. My colleague had pulled aside the shade on small window in the corner of the room and was peering outside. He announced there were a couple hundred naked men right outside the window. Certain that he was trying to get my goat and make me even more uncomfortable than I already was, I said, "Sure there are," as I bounded over to the window and pulled aside the shade. I got an eyeful. There were indeed some hundred-plus naked men standing directly outside the window hosing down after coming in from the fields, where they raise crops for the prison. In my haste to close the shade, I tripped over a box while my colleague laughed hysterically, saying "I told you so." To think I thought I was uncomfortable before that.

The interview with Watts was cordial but provided no answers. He played cat and mouse with the troopers for a couple of hours before announcing that he wanted to end the interview and be led away. I breathed a sigh of relief as we passed through the barbed wire fence. We were done--or so I thought. We gave it our best shot but were still going to charge the case even without a statement from Watts.

As it turned out, we weren't quite done yet. While enjoying a relaxing late lunch at a genuine Texas BBQ joint, we received a call from the warden. Watts had decided he wanted to talk. We hightailed it back to the prison and went through the same complicated entrance procedure. With insufficient time to reassemble the camera setup, my colleague and I waited and paced in the infirmary while the troopers went back into the conference room to reinterview Watts. It was all for naught. In true serial murderer style, he again toyed with the officers. After an hour or so, we left with no more information than the first time around.

When I say I've done my time in Huntsville, it means something different than it does for most. Nonetheless, it was more than enough time for me. As many who are finally let out those exit doors surely say: "I'm not going back."

Last night I dreamed that I woke up with straps across my chest
And something cold and black pullin' through my lungs
‘N even Jesus couldn't save me though I know he did his best
But he don't live on Ellis Unit One
--Steve Earle, "Ellis Unit One"

Statements made in this post are my own and are not intended to reflect the views, thoughts or position of the Michigan Attorney General or the Michigan Department of Attorney General.

Tweet