The Deserving

It's been decades since I underlined or wrote in the margins of books, really dating back to some point when I was in college and began instead writing notes on bits of paper and stuffing them into the binding.  These days I use sticky arrows reaching out beyond the edges of the page pointing to what I'd once have underlined and post-it notes to take the place of marginalia.  That's all personal preference for keeping books in pristine condition.  

And, of course, it's a moral obligation when I'm dealing with borrowed books whether from friends or, more often, libraries.  

Either way, when I've finished the book, I'll review the notes and marked passages to decide whether to keep them in place if I'm going to hang onto the book, or, if the book is borrowed or going to be passed on to a friend or colleague, whether to copy and save them.  Mostly they get tossed.  Helpful for focus when reading and sometimes reviewing, but not demanding to be kept in perpetuity.  Except sometimes.  Like now.

Which brings me to Elizabeth Vartkessian.  She's a mitigation specialist.  She works with lawyers in (mostly) death penalty cases digging out everything there is to discover about the history and background of the accused or, often, the already condemned and his (mostly his) family and circumstances.  Going back generations.  She'll spend hours and hours - over the course of years or even decades, getting to know and connect with the guy (again, it's mostly guys) and his parents and siblings and classmates and teachers and counselors and prison guards and . . .  basically with anyone and everyone who might have something, anythinbg she can learn about not just what he (there's that mostly correct pronoun again) did but about who and what and why and how and from where and . . . .

The idea is to be able to show the jury or a court or a parole board or governor (or President) why despite having done something awful, there's value in the person - enough value to prevent - or reverse - a death sentence.  

To advance that work, Vartkessian founded Advancing Real Change, Inc. which is described this way on its website (advancechange.org):

We unearth the true histories of people accused of crimes and share their stories with decision-makers to foster empathy and understanding. We aim to take what we learn through this work—mitigation investigation—and uplift those experiences to reshape and rebuild social systems so that communities and individuals may truly flourish. Our vision is the transformation of the criminal legal system and all social systems into systems that deliver true justice.

.  . . . . . .

Vartkessian is, as I suppose is obvious from what she does, opposed to the death penalty.  If you somehow didn't know it before, you certainly would after reading her quite amazing and wonderful new book, The Deserving: What the Lives of the Condemned Reveal About American Justice.

Start with me.  I'm known in some circles, as the atheist who believes deeply in mercy and grace.  Mercy is not something earned, I say, it's something given.  And grace, like mercy, is about the giver, not the given.* (Or maybe sometimes both, but don't quibble.)

And there's Sister Helen Prejean who says (and who, as it happens, wrote the Foreword to Vartkessian's book where she in fact repeats it though phrased a bit differently),  "We're all better than the worst thing we've ever done."**

And so Vartkessian tells us (with an assist from my post-its):

[W]e cannot incarcerate our way out of violent crime. (p. 18)

William's words hung in my mind.  Have a good life.  His lawyer would, and so would I.  We would have those lives simply because we were lucky enough to be born to parents whom society valued more.  It wasn't fair.  (p. 109)

American culture[***] considers inhumane treatment part of the punishment.  We take freedom, but we also take a person's humanity.  And by allowing ourselves to treat others as something less than human, we take the humanity of everyone involved in the enterprise of housing the incarcerated. (p. 191)

It's about us, not them. (post-it)

So many moments in a life when, had the focus been genuine care and concern, the scales might have balanced differently.  That wasn't something I knew until I started working with people who had killed; how grace and love did more to transform a person than anything.  Genuine human conncection- authentic, messy, hard - is the most powerful and restorative force in human existence. (pp. 205-206)

Wes caused a great deal of suffering.  He also gave a tremendous amount of love.  When we take a life, we take the whole life, including the good, which exists in every single human being and just needs the right conditions to emerge. (p. 214)

[T][he criminal legal system cannot deliver an end to suffering.  But we cvould have build a society that prevent it in the first place. (p. 221)

I could go on.  Hell, I could quote the whole book (though I suppose I could also get sued for copyright infringement).  Instead, I urge you to read it.

Those of us who toil in the trenches of criminal defense - and especially death penalty defense - know all of this.  But the reminders, the stories Vartkessian tells, the reminders that we must care, that it takes a village and we're all in it together, and yeah, the tears she jerks, they make it worth our reading.

And, really, others should read it too.  To learn.  To understand.  To grow they're own compassion.

You know.  Mercy and grace, about the giver, not the given.

The Deserving?  It's all of us.

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*That's from one of the post-its I put in the book.

**She doesn't add my corollary,  "We're all worse than the best thing we've ever done."  But it's her quote and the point she regularly, and rightly, wants to make.  (Another post-it I stuck in the book, by the way.)

***As opposed, she points out, to Scandanavien culture.