I assume he’ll spend the rest of his life in prison, right?” I asked Helene Potlock, the Victim Assistance Program Director at the state attorney’s office.
Florida has tough crime laws, dubbed “10–20–Life.” That means that anyone who uses a gun while committing a crime will be sentenced to ten years; anyone who fires a gun while committing a crime will be sentenced to twenty years; and anyone who injures or kills someone with a gun will get twenty-five years to life. To help citizens remember, the Department of Corrections sums it up like this: “Pull a Gun—Mandatory 10 Years. Pull the Trigger—Mandatory 20 Years. Shoot Someone—25 Years to Life (whether they live or die).”1 We knew Conor was going to be spending the rest of his life in prison. It was a warm Friday in May, and we were at the state attorney’s office to discuss their strategy regarding Conor. We were waiting for the assistant state attorney, Jack Campbell, to arrive.
“No, 10–20–Life only applies if it goes to trial and he’s found guilty. Then the judge must follow the mandatory sentencing guidelines,” Helene explained. “But if it does not go to trial, the judge does not have to follow the mandatory sentencing guidelines.”
That didn’t mean much to me at the moment, but I tucked it away in my mind. Jack Campbell came in, introduced himself, sat down at his desk, and placed a large file there. When he looked up at us, my recognition was immediate. This was the son of Larry Campbell, our county sheriff, who ran the jail where Conor remained incarcerated.
“The first thing I want to tell you is that the death penalty is off the table,” he said. Andy and I sat across the desk from Jack, while the victim’s advocate, Helene, sat in a chair to the side. “But from what I’ve heard, you wouldn’t want to pursue that anyway.”
“You’re right,” Andy said. “We wouldn’t.” If you had asked me ten years ago what my thoughts on the death penalty were, I might have said, “An eye for an eye.” Over the years, I had begun to accept the Church’s teaching that all life is precious from conception to natural death. We live in a country that has the means to keep dangerous criminals away from the public, so we do not need capital punishment. I don’t think Jack encountered many moral or philosophical discussions of the death penalty, though. I think he was used to hearing loved ones protest that the offender wasn’t facing the death penalty. Isn’t the normal reaction one of vengeance and retribution? We even had people who offered to “take care of Conor” for us.
The death penalty in Florida is reserved for capital offenses that include first-degree murder and felony murder. First-degree murder is the most serious homicide charge, because it involves premeditation. Conor would have needed a plan to carry out the homicide in order to be charged this way. In fact, Jack argued that even if Conor thought for a second that he wanted to shoot Ann, it would have been classified as first-degree. A felony murder is when someone commits homicide during the commission of a felony (for example, a burglary) . . . sort of a “felony on top of a felony.” I was relieved to hear these options were off the table.
“I just want to let you know that I will handle everything. You don’t have to worry. We’ll try not to go to trial,” he said. “If we do go to trial, we’ll try not to have you testify. We don’t want you in the room. We’ll spare you as much as we can.” I got the feeling he’d done this a million times, and he was trying to assure us that we didn’t have to participate in the process for justice to be done. In a way his confidence was reassuring. “I’ll represent Ann,” he continued. “I’ll be her advocate.”
Andy, who sat on my left, repositioned himself in his chair. I glanced over at him and noticed he’d become very still. A statue. He later told me he felt as though Jack was trying to take his fatherhood away. Ever since Ann was born, he had been her advocate and caretaker. In her death Andy was not going to relinquish his last real act of advocacy. He would always be her father, and this man could not take that away from him.
“How much time do you think he’s going to spend in prison?” I asked. “Twenty-five to life?”
“I have a lot of leeway in what he’s charged with,” Jack said, leaning back in his chair.
“Really?” I asked. “Doesn’t 10–20–Life pretty much settle it?”
“No . . . I could charge him with manslaughter and recommend five years,” he said, emphasizing the words “five years” to show how preposterously short that would be—a verbal flourish to demonstrate his power in this process.
I sat straight up. “What?”
“Oh no, I wouldn’t do that in this case,” he said, trying to assuage me. He probably assumed I’d been offended at how little time he could spend in jail. “I could, but I’m not going to.”
“But you could, right?” I said, leaning forward in my chair. “You could charge him with manslaughter, and he’d only get five years?”
Suddenly, he understood that a shorter sentence had piqued my interest, not upset me.
“We’re not talking about that in this case,” he backpedaled. “I mean, that’s not going to happen.”
He quickly focused the rest of the meeting on procedures. He explained that it could take nine months to a year to see if we would go to trial, and that they were in the process of gathering evidence.
“The defense will portray your daughter in a negative light and will portray Conor in a positive light,” he said.
“But he turned himself in,” I said. “He’s admitted to shooting her.”
“Yes, but a trial will bring everything out,” he said. “No matter how Conor feels now, his defense attorney will do whatever is necessary to get him the best sentencing.”
Is this one big game? I thought. The way he described it, we, the McBrides, and Conor were just pawns on a chessboard. Even if Conor didn’t want to assassinate Ann’s character, Jack assured us that basically the defense attorney would do it anyway. I didn’t want to relive all the pain and drama of Ann’s death, especially with a professional defense team aiming to tear down Ann’s good name.
“I don’t want that,” I said. The room grew quiet as we thought about Conor’s sentencing.
“Do you think any of us here in this room have been as angry as Conor was when he shot Ann?” Jack asked.
“Oh no,” I said immediately. “I don’t think any of us have.”
“Definitely not,” Andy said.
Jack paused a moment and announced, “I guarantee every one of us has been as angry as Conor.”
“Well,” I said, “if we’re being honest, then I have been as angry as Conor.” My mind returned to my dating years, when I tried to run over poor Jake McFarland with my moped. When Jake angered me outside that pizza parlor, I put the pedal to the metal. Of course, he had a chance to simply get out of the way. But what if I’d startled him? What if he’d fallen and hit his head? Then my angry flare-up would look different. A lot more serious.
“What I’m trying to say is this,” Jack said. “We’ve all been that angry, but not one of us has picked up a gun and shot the person closest to us.”
Of course, Jack’s point was made: Conor was different from us civilized folks.
“And,” he added, “Conor didn’t call 911. He got in his car, drove around town, and then turned himself in. If this were truly an accident, he wouldn’t have been afraid to call 911.”
“But here’s a boy who’s barely nineteen years old, and he’s just fired a shotgun at the head of the person he’d wanted to marry. He’d just done—and witnessed—a really horrific thing. He thought he had killed her right then,” I said. Until Jack Campbell talked about it, I hadn’t really thought about why Conor didn’t call for help. “Shooting someone is a very physically violent thing.”
“Yes, that’s what I’m pointing out,” Jack said. “He’s done a very violent thing.”
“But you expect him to just call 911 and say, ‘I shot my girlfriend’?” I asked. “I can forgive him for being so shocked at what happened that he did not immediately pick up the phone. He contemplated killing himself, so he must have been extremely upset and disturbed by what he’d just done.”
“I know you’ve forgiven Conor,” Jack said to me. “And forgiveness is good. I, too, am a Christian. But . . .”
As he let his sentence hang unfinished in the air, I knew exactly what he meant. Forgiveness is generally a good thing, but there are limits. Everyone knows that.
That night I lay down on my side of the bed and listened as Andy’s breathing changed into the cadence of sleep. I pulled the covers up to my neck and relived the conversation with Jack Campbell. It’s one thing to think that Conor was going to have to spend the rest of his life in prison because the law demanded it. It’s quite another to realize that he doesn’t actually have to spend the rest of his life in prison. When Jack told me about the discretion he had over the charge, it was another moment of conviction. What were we willing to do? What were we going to do now that we could make a difference?
“I, too, am a Christian. But . . .”
There was a lot packed into that last syllable. It somehow quantified forgiveness, limited it, made it seem a tad unreasonable. People have described our actions to Conor as “radical forgiveness,” but we thought of it as basic Christianity. Were we doing anything more radical than what Christ did on the cross? “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing,” he’d said (Luke 23:34).
Yet, as I contemplated it, I got it. In some ways it was easier to forgive Conor, knowing that the state was not going to forgive him and that he’d be locked up forever. But how far was I willing to take my forgiveness now that I knew there were other options? Were we willing to step in or just sit back and let the system go forward? I suddenly felt responsible for what would happen to Conor.
Did we really want him to spend twenty-five years to life in prison?
I turned over on my side and could see the clock: 2:37 a.m.