Appeal For Help - Part I
By Karl Chamberlain
Greetings and blessings to you and yours.
The first thing I must explain is that I am not about to write some bitter, legal harangue about how I’ve been so wronged by the courts. I am not about to portray myself as a helpless victim. I lived as a "victim" for the first twenty-something years of my life. THAT was a large part of my problem. So, before I even begin this, I want to explain that I accept my responsibility for my life, my actions. All I’m asking for is mercy and your help towards that.
The fact is that the
life I live has taught me to look at my own part - my own responsibilities. I
have learned, through many hard lessons, to accept life on Life’s terms, to
accept God’s will and do my best. In this way I have learned to live and
learn rather than blaming others, unfair or unfortunate circumstance, for all
the "problems" in MY life.
So, if the Judge was biased (and she was), if the Prosecutor was overzealous, manipulative, lying or even withheld evidence (and they did), or if my court appointed lawyers did a sham job, and may have sold me out... well, yeah, it’s wrong—but I’m not here for singing too loudly in church.
The sad fact is that I am not an innocent man. That is really a terrible thing to have to admit, and even after all these years it hurts. I feel an ache in my chest fur the people I’ve hurt, and I feel an urgent desire to qualify that statement, to tell you about all the abuse of my childhood - how I once was an innocent victim and how I lived a tortured existence, like a trapped animal, full of fear and pain. It hurt so much that I became the very thing I loathed and feared, so I feel a desire to tell you my whole life story, to ask you to step into my shoes and TRY to understand...
But no matter what I might say, I’m here on death row for rape and murder, and that is a horrible, hobgoblinish fact... so painful I feel I must create new adjectives to describe the depth of pain. So no matter what I might say, even truly mitigating evidence cannot change the fact. I am not an innocent man. And no matter how I was once so hurt, although I was once an innocent victim, I chose to hold onto that pain. I could not forgive, therefore I did the most unforgivable thing - I held onto my anger and terror. I nurtured my hurts, until I became like the very "beast" I so hated and feared!
More than anything in my life, it hurts to realize that I passed along this same agony, even multiplied. In a sense, I can empathize with some of the hurt the victims’ families must feel, because, for years I lived with a hole in my guts. Where my heart should’ve been I felt nothing but a black-hot, writhing mass of misery.
When someone asks me, in defense of the death penalty, "What if someone kidnapped YOUR sister, YOUR baby niece and then raped and murdered them-how would YOU feel?!" I have to be brutally honest about this. I feel like any other human being must feel, and I can understand explicitly and intimately the desire for the death penalty.
I am familiar with that dismay; I know that suffering beyond words. A thick rage would settle inside and wrap around my intestines like a fist. Nothing could ease my pain but it would seem that if that ‘filthy beast’ was dead, then perhaps I could sleep at night.
From the beginning I want to say that I will not argue that I have any kind of "right" to life; I will NOT say that I "deserve" to live, because deep inside I am convicted by my own wrongdoing and I feel differently. If I could be gruesomely tortured to death it could never make up for the wrong I’ve done. Even the most medieval torture could never bring back the life I took; it, would never be "enough’" to take away the pain.
Again in brutal sincerity, I want to say that if I could go back and be someone’s aborted child, one of those "flushed down the toilet", "left in the trash dumpster" babies, I would. If I could go back to that terrible moment, or to the years of pain before and commit suicide, I would. If there was ANYTHING I could do which might truly do some good, I would. But there’s nothing I can do to change the past, and all I can do is say I’m sorry. Those are very paltry, insignificant words. Someone once wrote that "duty is as heavy a mountain..." and that is how I feel, because nothing I can ever say or do could ever be "enough".
So when I hear of
victims’ rights groups, such as Justice For All, I must concede their right
to feel as they do. I can understand that they feel we all ought to just DIE,
and the sooner the better. My appeals don’t matter to them; conditions here
don’t matter, unless it’s possible to make them worse. I can almost agree
with the sentiment that my life ought to be more tortured than humane-after
all, to them, every moment I breathe, every second of my life, just proves how
terribly wrong and unfair Life is sometimes.
In fact, I’d encourage you to check out their website and hear their side of the story. at http://www.justiceforall.org. I am not allowed to contact my victims’ family, not even to say "I’m so SO sorry" or answer their questions, so I obviously cannot put their side of the story on these pages. Perhaps those at Justice For All can provide some understanding.
I have heard of another group called "Citizens for Swift Justice" who have written guys on death row urging them to drop their appeals. I can understand how they feel that those men here who are "guilty" of capital murder should drop their appeals and die, in state-sanctioned encouraged "suicide". I have sometimes felt that my life is just an unpleasant burden. My appeals and housing cost the State money. The victims’ family could be happier and relieved if I would just die. Even some "victim’s" who don’t even KNOW me might feel relieved and that the world is a nicer, safer place after they kill me. Even my beloved family and friends might have some sort of "release" after my execution. They may feel free from the uncertainty and agony of their own powerlessness. If I would just agree to my execution, they could at least bury me and then get on with their lives.
That complete saying is, "Duty is as heavy as a mountain but death is as light as a feather." So, please understand that I can identify with and understand this feeling utterly. Life can sometimes be so difficult that it could be easy, so insidiously easy, just to give up and die...
Why do I live? Why should I live? WHY do I consciously choose to live each day~ when dying is so sweet and easy?
Do you REALLY think, my friends, that conditions here on death row are so sweet and appealing? Is prison food so delightful? (grim chuckle). Maybe the idea of spending the rest of my years locked inside of a concrete tomb sounds hopeful? Even the sweetest moments of my life even when I "visit" with my family and friends are thick with separation and pain. They must always leave. And I cannot even hug my mother when she weeps and bangs her fist against the glass. Doesn’t it sound joyous? So, why, why wouldn’t I just go ahead and die?
Is mere existence, burdened by guilt and powerlessness, truly such a gift? Why would I choose to live in this place, knowing that I have almost no chance to be free, or even to enjoy the simplest comfort like hugging my mother?
"Why Live?" has been a question throughout my existence. Through all of my life I have been close to death, close to suicide. Even as a child I was filled with the pain and unwanted burden of living. Children are too often unseen, helpless victims.
For a long time I felt trapped by my very existence, and longed for the "release" of death, so I would like to explore this and perhaps find the answer to "Why" - Why live? I still vividly remember one of the first times I thought I was going to die and longed for that sweet release.
I must have been around 6-7 years old because I don’t remember having a little brother at the time. I "think" we were living in a little house near downtown Dallas, where my mother worked as a waitress, but we moved around so much that the places blur sometimes.
My Mom, although I love
her dearly, was not the "typical housewife", nor did I have an
"ideal" childhood. For a long time I was confused, or hurt by that
very unfair fact; my Mom wasn’t much of a "normal" mother or
parent, she was always a bit of a rebel, a hippie chic with a brat on her hip!
But I have learned to love her as who she is, and oh! How I loved her then! What boy does not love his mother?
I remember the sun shining in the window of the house. It was golden and bright, as bright as youth and hope~ as golden and sweet as honey. I remember that morning she woke me up early. She wanted me to go to the store for her. Her boyfriend was sleeping late, and she didn’t want to wake him - or perhaps she wanted me out of the house for other reasons. I don’t know. I was often asked to be the "man of the house".
In my young life my mother often treated me like an adult. We were more like comrades than mother and son. So I got her shopping list, and left on my journey! I can still remember my boyish enthusiasm and zeal. I remember my joy to be alive and out in the wide wild world. The Texas’ sky was impossibly blue, the grass was vibrantly green, and I had a little leap and skip in my step. My happiness coasted as I made my way alongside a busy road; there were three or four lanes of traffic, and cars whizzing by. There was no sidewalk, so I walked carefully on the grass median beside the road. I remember a bright red brick wall topped with wrought iron as I walked along a curve, and then warily crossed the street and went into a 7-11 store.
In the store I began to get a little confused. Although I was bright for my age, they didn‘t have a lot of what was on her list! I remember they had bread - but no eggs; they had mayonnaise but no bacon. I also remember that they had Starburst candy and those thick three-penny sour apple bubblegum!
I wasn’t yet a "bad" kid but I wasn’t too good either. I’d already heard my Mom lament and rant about "big business, the "establishment", and how those evil people stole from the poor. And seeing her quick hands in action taught me to use my own-whatever she might say! (wry smile) I never once learned from the "Do as I say, not as I do" school of thought.
So I remember taking my time deciding what to get, and agonizing about leaving so much precious candy behind. It was my Mom’s money, though, so I merely bought one Starburst and then stole a pocketful of gum. I remember feeling really bad about not having any money, but worse because I stole.
When I left the store the day seemed less bright. A grey cloud of guilt surrounded me, and followed my walk home. It seems to me that the consequence of such a selfish, wrong action is inescapable... and being so greedy, made me feel more isolated, lost and less alive.
So, like much of my childhood I wandered along lost in thought and pain. Then suddenly, there was a squeal of brakes, and a big grey blur as a pickup bounced across the curb and up onto the grass!
I remember being frozen as my Mom’s boyfriend, Clay, leapt out of the truck and came rushing towards me. He was a tall lean man with flowing golden hair. He may have been a "figure" of the hippie years, but to me he was always a terror. This is not the first, nor the last time, I remember that.
I remember holding out the grocery sack to him - feebly hoping he wanted that. He came striding towards me, and hit me in the face with his fist and a twist of his hips. I remember flying backwards being propelled by a flurry of fists and feet. I remember being hit again, again along the side and back, again along my neck and shoulders. As I struggled to cover myself I was kicked in the side and lifted; I remember being terrified of falling and being ground under his boots.
A lot of violence is a thick blur in my mind, but I remember a point where I felt calmly serene despite the fact I was being beaten. I remember the vivid red of the blood leaking from my mouth, and how it was strangely beautiful splashed and pooling on the red brick. I was pressed so hard against the wrought iron fence that my skull ached. His hand was pressed on the back of my neck as I absorbed his blows. I shook with each punch and kick. I was sure he was beating me to death.
I remember very clearly the tranquil green fields on the other side of that red brick and wrought iron fence; there were serene, grey stones and columns that seemed to watch me dying. I realized it was a cemetery, and felt the pull of that peaceful place, and a kind of detached bliss that is hard to describe.
The beating lasted only a little longer, but that’s unimportant anyway. It wasn’t the first or second time I’d been beaten and longed to die, nor was it the last.
Even as young as 3 or 5 or 7 years old my life seemed bursting with the question - "Why live?!" Life can be such a burden sometimes; it is hard it is unfair... So why not just die? Everyone would be a lot happier, right? (Part II contiued next issue)
