In 2012 Sujatha called to tell us that she had been contacted by Paul Tullis, a writer for the New York Times Magazine, about a story on restorative justice. Though we believed it would be wonderful to share our story with such a large readership, Sujatha met Paul and was a little hesitant about moving forward. She was always so protective of us. Paul was clearly a liberal writer, and Sujatha was concerned about how he might treat us. Always cautious about the media, we had only shared our story with the Catholic Compass, our diocesan magazine. We wanted to be sensitive to Conor and Ann’s story, and we wanted to be sure a reporter would handle it sensitively and without sensationalizing it. As far as we knew, however, Conor’s case was the first capital murder in America to be resolved through restorative justice pre-adjudication (before trial). Since we had to forge our own path through this complicated wilderness, we felt an obligation to share our story in a way that was accessible to others.
“Paul Tullis,” I typed into my computer the day before he was supposed to arrive. I wanted to familiarize myself with this reporter’s work so that I wouldn’t be caught off guard with his questions. When I found his Twitter account, I read through some of his past tweets, which weren’t at all surprising: he definitely had the air of a “rock-star reporter.” We were aware that we lived in the well-established stereotype of “flyover country.” Would a writer from Los Angeles be able to understand our faith and how it animates our lives? Would he treat us like individuals, or some sort of Southern stereotype? Of course, I am from Pennsylvania and grew up in Memphis before moving to Tallahassee; Andy’s parents are from New York and Nebraska. Though neither of us has any sort of entrenched Southern nature, I believe it’s hard for people to separate us from our geography.
Then, to my surprise, I read some tweets that seemed to apply to our case. Such as, Here’s a first: I’m composing a letter to a convicted murderer (for my article on #restorativejustice for a major US weekly magazine).1 Then, the day before he met us, he tweeted asking for advice:
In 3 hrs, I’ll be meeting a killer’s parents and his victim’s parents at the same time. Any advice? #journalism #reporters #newspapers
Over the course of five days, he met with all the key participants in the circle and interviewed several of Ann’s friends. On his last day he had a final interview with Andy and me at our house. When he arrived, we showed him Ann’s room and pointed out a little table we set up that includes some of the things we took to the restorative justice circle. We thought the interview was going pretty well, until we got to the part where we were discussing the restorative justice process. Andy explained that our process meant that Conor didn’t have to go to trial.
“Which is good,” Paul said. “Because they invariably would’ve used the bitch-deserved-it defense.”
Paul was referring to a legal strategy that blames the victims for their own abuse: the abuser’s behavior is at least understandable, considering how intolerable the victim was. Jack Campbell had also expressed that the defense would paint Ann in a negative light, but he certainly never said it like this.
Paul wasn’t saying Ann did deserve to die. In fact, he was saying that avoiding trial probably saved us from a great deal of grief. This much was true. But when he said the word bitch, Andy stiffened in his chair. Almost as soon as he said the words, Paul excused himself for a bathroom break. Andy leaned over to me and said sternly, “He needs to leave.” Though I scarcely could imagine a less sensitive way to talk about this topic to the parents of a murdered child, what would happen if we kicked a New York Times reporter out of our home? Would that be the end of the article? I wanted our message of forgiveness and restorative justice to be told. Was it worth it to pass up that opportunity?
I whispered a protest, but Andy was adamant. Paul had crossed a line.
He came back into the room and was about to begin interviewing us again, when Andy said, “Can you wait a second before turning back on your recording device?”
“Sure,” Paul said, looking up at us in surprise.
“I’m going to have to ask you to leave,” Andy said. “No one will come into my house and use the word bitch when referring to my daughter.”
Paul’s face fell.
“Listen,” he said. “I am so sorry for my poor choice of words. I really—really—didn’t mean to offend you. As soon as I said the words, I knew it was wrong. I think that’s why I had to get out of the room.”
Andy looked at Paul’s stricken face. There were tears in his eyes.
Andy studied the reporter for a good long time, assessing him. “All right, I forgive you. You can start recording again.”
I had been watching Paul, but I turned to Andy. He had gone from hurt and offended father and back to interviewee just like that. All it took was for Paul to be sorry for what he’d done and to offer a sincere apology.
When the interview was over, Andy walked Paul to his car. There Andy gave him one of his bear hugs before Paul drove off. We ended up building a really good relationship with Paul, and we appreciated how he had responded with sincere remorse.
He did a great job with the article. Originally, it was scheduled to be the cover article of the New York Times Magazine, but the political situation at the moment was too complicated. The recent tragic shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut had embroiled the nation in a terrible argument over guns, safety, and politics. The editors didn’t want to publish a cover story about a murderer under the headline “Forgiven,” considering the country’s raw feelings. Though it wasn’t a cover story, it caused a lot of national conversation and was the second-most e-mailed story from that edition.
In her Seattle home a woman opened the New York Times Magazine article and read it with intense interest. She scoured the story, wondering if the lessons we’d learned and the road we’d paved could possibly help in her legal case.
In May of the previous year, she and her husband were going out of town together for the first time since she’d given birth to their two children, who were five and seven years old. They’d arranged for her husband’s parents to come in from California to babysit the children, but they needed to run a few errands first. Her husband, a high-level software engineer, loaded the kids into their van and went to pick up a few things, accompanied by his mom and dad.
When he stopped at a red light around 4:30 p.m., his father noticed gunfire erupting on the street. Then, after he heard the shots, he realized the van was rolling through the intersection. He looked over at his son, who was in the driver’s seat, and saw that he’d been shot in the head. A gang member’s bullet had made its way through the air, into their van, and into his son. His dad unbuckled his seat belt, stopped the car, and held his son. His mother ran to get help, leaving the children strapped into the car with their dying father. Their grandfather cradled their father as he died.
When the woman read our story, she was inspired by how we’d sat down with Conor and forgiven him face-to-face. She asked the defense attorney about meeting with the twenty-one-year-old whose stray bullet had killed her husband. Of course, they had never done anything like that before, and they were nervous about putting the widow and the shooter in the same room. After trying unsuccessfully to use a restorative justice facilitator from Oakland, they had to create their process from scratch. One year after the shooting, however, in a courtroom full of lawyers, police officers, and jail guards, she had the chance to talk to the shooter directly. He was a high school dropout, with gang tattoos on his arm and neck.
She explained how her husband being killed right in front of his parents and children affected her family. Since he’d already pled guilty, he really had nothing to gain by participating in this process.
However, he was a dad too. He felt he owed it to the woman—and even to his own daughter—to face what he had done. After reading her statement, she let him speak. He apologized and seemed to be deeply affected by the interaction. His attorney said he cried for days after the meeting. The King County Superior Court judge was not as affected by his remorse. A few days later, he sentenced the man to twenty-three years in prison, which was four years longer than the prosecutors had requested and was the maximum available under state law.
This story shows how restorative justice is not a cookie-cutter response to crime, but rather a process that plays out in different ways within different situations. Certainly this woman’s letter to the offender affected the way he felt about what had happened. Being accountable for what you have done because you understand the personal consequences is a critical part of restorative justice. Additionally, this case shows that restorative justice isn’t always about getting a lighter sentence. Rather, it’s a more personal approach to justice. Lastly, I’m not sure if this woman decided to forgive the person who took her husband’s life, but restorative justice doesn’t require, encourage, or coerce victims to forgive the offenders.
I think Sujatha put it best: “Restorative justice never requires forgiveness as a prerequisite for participation or as an outcome. We don’t want to put pressure on victims to forgive. But I can’t think of a better cauldron for cooking up some forgiveness than a restorative process.”2
In fact, as I think about the main legacy of Ann’s life, I know it will be about challenging people to forgive. During the five years since her death, Andy and I have spoken to organizations and churches to share our message all over the country.
It’s had an effect on people. We hear inspirational stories of people who have been victimized by intimate partner abuse and have lived robust lives afterward. In fact, a few days after the shooting, we received a letter from a hospital worker who had been present the day Ann was shot.
She wanted us to know that she had been praying for us, and that she had been affected by our calmness during such a horrible tragedy. Ann had been one of her first trauma patients, but she had felt the Lord’s presence with us in the Emergency Room. She then went on to describe a past relationship that involved such extreme intimate partner abuse that she herself had been the one who landed in the Emergency Room. Now she has a wonderful husband and has forgiven her ex-boyfriend. She was thankful to have found comfort in our strength.
Also, I had a friend who had a distant relationship with her mother. Though they lived in the same town, she never liked seeing her or spending time with her because of many challenging incidents from her childhood. Several months after Ann’s death, she told me that she could not call herself my friend and ignore my message of forgiveness. She forgave her mother for all the hurts of her childhood. In her case, the forgiveness happened in her heart. Her mom probably would have been confused by a confrontation, so my friend just decided to let go of the hurt and forgive her mom. Afterward she felt so liberated from the old hurts that she went on a long weekend vacation with her mother and had the best time. She is so grateful for the new relationship with her mom.
Another woman, after reading the article in the New York Times, told me that she went to her mom’s house, unannounced. Once there, she told her mom that she forgave her for abandoning her at a young age. This led to their reconciliation, and her brother and sister were reconciled as well.
Another woman told me about her granddaughter who died of a drug overdose. The grandmother was very bitter and angry with the drug dealer who had sold her granddaughter the drugs. After hearing our story, she realized how bitterness was ruining her life. She prayed for God’s help in letting go and eventually was able to forgive the drug dealer. In her case it was not in person. But once she forgave him, she was released from the bitterness and anger that had previously eaten her up.
In the fall of 2011, we attended a prayer breakfast at the sheriff’s office. One of the sheriff’s deputies told us about how his partner had been shot and died in his arms. He told us how he had to tell the widow and how his partner’s death affected him so much that he left South Florida to come to North Florida. His lack of forgiveness and hatred for the shooter caused him to suffer greatly—physically as well as emotionally. When he heard our story, he told us he felt compelled to drive to the death row prison to see the man who had shot and killed his partner. I don’t know if he ever made that trip or not, but the seed was planted in his heart.
I love the stories of forgiveness that I hear, because they all point to the wonderful diversity in what people experience when they choose to forgive. It just looks different for everyone. Here are some things we’ve learned about forgiveness since we were forced into what many have called the “radical forgiveness” of Conor.
1. Forgiveness isn’t a onetime event. Peter asked Jesus, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?” Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times” (Matt. 18:21–22). Some translations say “seventy times seven,” meaning 490 times. But after our experience with Conor, I wonder if that scripture doesn’t more accurately refer to the constant and repetitive forgiveness we must give for the same offense.
When I tell the story of forgiving Conor within the week of the shooting, some people recoil. “That’s not real forgiveness,” they say. “That’s an instinct. Real forgiveness takes time.” In a way this is true. I forgave Conor, however, when he was in the Leon County jail; but I also might need to forgive him when I walk by Ann’s room or when I set the table for Thanksgiving without Ann’s dinner plate. Forgiveness is a process, a habit, and a way of life . . . not a distinct act.
2. Forgiveness isn’t primarily a feeling or a sentiment. Some people believe they are not the types of people who can easily forgive. They look at Andy and me as if we’re saints—pious people who speak Scripture to each other in encouragement instead of those who have been known to fight in the cereal aisle over Honey Nut Cheerios. Forgiveness is not the first instinct, nor is it an easy path. It’s a decision that says you believe the Bible when it says that vengeance belongs to God.
“Forgiveness must be granted before it can be felt, but it does come eventually,” Tim Keller wrote in The Reason for God. “It leads to a new peace, a resurrection. It is the only way to stop the spread of the evil.”3 In the hospital, when I asked myself what Ann would want from this, the answer would always come back: “Peace.” Andy says it this way: “Because we forgave, we didn’t have to go to prison with Conor.” Forgiveness brought us a measure of peace that we could not have had otherwise.
3. Forgiveness has less to do with the person who harmed you than you think. Mother Teresa is frequently attributed with saying,
People are often unreasonable, illogical and self-centered; Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives; Be kind anyway. . . .
If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you; Be honest and frank anyway. . . .
If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous; Be happy anyway.
The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow; Do good anyway.
Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough; Give the world the best you’ve got anyway.
You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and God; It was never between you and them anyway.4
That last line contains much truth. When we forgave Conor, it had more to do with the relationship Andy and I had with Christ rather than the relationship we had with Conor.
4. Forgiveness doesn’t require ignoring the offense. Forgiveness does not require a willful blindness to other people’s failures or misdeeds. It requires truth—an honest evaluation of what’s been done and what’s been lost—and a determined decision to forgive in spite of that loss. In some translations the Lord’s Prayer says, “Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors” (Matt. 6:12). I have prayed with people who are having trouble forgiving, and I try to explain it in a practical way: What does the person owe you? Love? Respect? A nonchaotic childhood? That is their debt against you. Can you forgive that debt? Release it to God for him to collect.
5. Forgiveness isn’t a pardon. When we decided to forgive Conor, it didn’t mean he was less guilty of shooting that gun. It simply meant that we were entrusting his soul and his judgment to God. Conor said that our forgiveness allowed him to accept the responsibility for what he’d done without being condemned. When we refused to be his enemy, we refused to give him the refuge of our hatred—where he could wallow and become, in a way, our victim. Forgiveness allows him to deal with what he’d done. It doesn’t mean the injustice should stand or that what he did was okay. It means we don’t have to nurse our bitterness and plan ways to get back at the person who hurt us. Instead, we can trust that God, who sits on the throne, is in control of our souls.
6. Forgiveness does not always mean reconciliation. Forgiveness is only one side of the coin. The other is repentance. When Andy and I attended a marriage workshop, one of the talks posited that there are two parts to reconciliation. The first is to forgive and forget. Of course, people are not able to forget serious offenses, nor would they want to. Certainly we could never forget that Ann has died. Instead, it means not holding the offense against the other person. In the marriage workshop, we learned not to bring up past hurts if they have already been forgiven.
The other side of the coin? Repent and repair. For reconciliation to occur, the offenders must be sorry for what they have done. They must also be willing to make amends for whatever hurt they caused. Of course, reconciliation is not possible if the offender is not sorry; but forgiveness still is. Forgiveness can exist without reestablishing a relationship and without having a relationship with the offender at all. Furthermore, forgiveness is not saying, “Yes, you may hurt me again.”
7. Forgiveness isn’t optional. One of the most frequent comments we hear goes something like this: “I could never forgive someone if they did that to my family.” Others say that our forgiveness is “radical” or “supernatural.” Nothing could be further from the truth. We didn’t forgive Conor because we’re some sort of super-Christians. Rather, forgiveness is a basic Christian requirement. When Jesus tells us to love our enemies, it is not an empty Hallmark-card sentiment. Why does he ask us to forgive? He elaborates, “For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins” (Matt. 6:14–15). This—along with the parable of the unforgiving servant and the teachings of Paul—indicates that we can’t withhold forgiveness and expect to receive it.
One sunny day, Andy and I were walking along the Miccosukee Canopy Road Greenway and stopped at a bench that was donated by the McBrides to honor the memory of our daughter. The bench is placed right along the pathway, so cyclists needing a break, walkers needing a seat, or joggers needing a snack can have a place of rest.
Andy and I sat down on the bench and enjoyed the feel of the sun on our skin. I looked out over the field and remembered the days when Ann would ride her horse BJ to the park on lazy afternoons. As comforting as those memories were, however, I also imagined what might have been. I imagined what Ann’s wildlife refuge would have been like . . . Rescued horses would’ve been munching lazily on the grass while birds of prey flew overhead.
We keep Ann’s legacy alive through our work with St. Francis Wildlife Association—work that Conor will someday take up on Ann’s behalf. But her story—our story—is about more than a refuge for animals. Rather, this story presents a fuller picture of forgiveness in the ordinary, day-to-day lives of rather typical people.
Forgiveness is not a pardon. But it is a refuge: a place where broken people can come for healing, where the guilty can come for relief, where the wronged can come for hope.