Judge
Michael Luttig's victim impact statement
Upon the sentencing of the two men
who murdered his beloved father in front of his mother.
STATEMENT
OF MICHAEL LUTTIG
May it
please the Court.
It is one
of life's ironies that I appear before the Court for the reason that I do. But I
do so to represent my dad -- who is not here -- and his wife, and daughters. His
family, my family.
More than
anything else, I do this to honor him, because if the roles were reversed, he
would be standing here today. Of this I am certain.
I also owe
this to the other victims of violent crime who either stand silently by, or who
speak and are not heard. I owe it to the public. I owe it, as well, to Donald
and Cedric Coleman, who may yet not understand the magnitude of the losses they
inflicted on the night of April 19.
Words seem
trite in describing what follows when your husband is murdered in your presence,
when your father is stripped from your life. The horror, the agony, the
emptiness, the despair, the chaos, the confusion, the sense -- perhaps
temporary, but perhaps not -- that one's life no longer has any purpose, the
doubt, the hopelessness.
There are
no words that can possibly describe it, and all it entails. But being the victim
of a violent crime such as this is at least these things.
Exactly these things in my family's case; the equivalent of these things in the
countless other cases.
While it is
happening and in the seconds and the minutes thereafter . . .
....it's
the sheer horror of half-clothed people with guns storming up your driveway
toward you in the dark of night, when you are totally
defenseless
....it's
what must be the terrifying realization that you are first about to be, and then
actually being, murdered
.... it's perhaps seeing in your last moment what in
your mind you know was the murder of your wife
.... it's crawling on the
floor of your own garage in the grease and filth, pretending you're dead, so
that you won't be shot through the head by the person who just murdered your
husband
.... it's realizing your husband has been gunned down in your
driveway on your return from the final class you needed to complete your
education -- an education that had been the goal of both of you since the day
you were married
.... it's knowing that the reason that your husband was with
you -- indeed, the reason that you were in the car that night at all -- is that
his Christmas gift to you the previous year was the promise that you could take
the class and that he would take you to and from, so that nothing would happen
to you
.... it's mercilessly punishing yourself over whether you could have
done something, anything at all, to have stopped the killing.
Moments
later, across a continent . . .
....
it's being frightened out of your mind in the middle of the night by a frantic
banging on your door -- calling the police, then canceling the call -- and then
answering the door. Your body goes limp as you see one of your best friends
standing in the doorway. No words need even be spoken. For you know that the
worst in life has happened. Then, he tells you: "Your mom just called. Father
was murdered in the driveway of your home."
.... it's realizing that, at that
very moment, the man you have worshipped all your life is lying on his back in
your driveway with two bullets through his head.Across the globe. .
.... it's
your husband taking the emergency international call, pulling down the receiver,
fumbling for the words, as he starts to deliver the news. "This is the hardest
thing I will ever have to tell you," he begins. Then, it is the calls home, or
at least to what used to be home, first one, then the other. In eerie, stunned
calmness, you hear your mother utter the feared confirmation: "Yes, your dad was
just murdered. You better come home." Now you believe.
Within
hours . . .
.... it's
arriving home to television cameras in your front yard, to see your house
cordoned off by police lines; police conducting ballistics and forensics tests,
and studying the place in the driveway where your father had finally fallen dead
-- all as if it were a set from a television production
.... it's going down
to the store where your dad had always shopped for clothes, to buy a shirt, a
tie that will match his suit, and a package of three sets of underwear (you can
only buy them in sets of three) so your dad will look nice when he is
buried
.... it's being called by the funeral home and told that it recommends
that the casket be closed and that perhaps your mom, sister, and wife should not
see the body -- and you know why, without even asking
.... it's walking into
the viewing room at the funeral home and having your sister cry out that that
just can't be him, it just can't be.
In the days
that follow . . .
.... it's
living in a hotel in your own hometown, blocks away from where you have lived
your whole life, because you just can't bear to go back
.... it's packing up
the family home, item by item, memory by memory, as if all of the lives that
were there only hours before are no more
.... it's reading the letters from
you, your sister, and your wife, that your dad secreted away in his most private
places, unbeknownst to you, realizing that the ones he invariably saved were the
ones that just said "thanks" or "I love you." And really understanding for the
first time that that truly was all that he ever needed to hear or to receive in
return, just as he always told you
.... it's carefully folding each or your
husband's shirts, as you have always done, so that they will be neat when they
are given away
.... it's watching your mother do this, in your own mind
begging her to stop
.... it's cleaning out your dad's sock drawer, his
underwear drawer, his ties
.... it's packing up your dad's office for him,
from the family picture to the last pen and pencil
.... it's reading the
brochures in his top drawer about the fishing trip you and he were to take in
two months -- the trip that your mother had asked you to go on because it meant
so much to your dad.
In
the weeks thereafter . . .
.... it's
living in absolute terror, not knowing who had murdered your husband and tried
to murder you, but realizing that often such people come back to complete the
deed, and wondering if they would return this time
.... it's furiously
writing down the license number of every Ford Probe for no reason other than it
was a Ford Probe, hoping that through serendipity, it might be, and sometimes
fearing, that that is exactly what might happen
.... it's never spending
another night in your own home because the pain is too great and the memories
too fresh
.... it's all day every day, and all night, racking your brain to
the point of literal exhaustion over who possibly could have done this. It's
questioningly looking in the corners of every relationship, to the point that,
at times, you are almost ashamed of yourself. Yet you have no choice but to
continue, because, as they say, it could be anyone
.... it's thinking the
unthinkable, that perhaps the act was in retaliation for something you had done
in your job. You ask yourself, "If it was, should I just walk away?"
....
it's watching the re-enactment of your dad's, your husband's murder on
television, day and night, and every time you pick up the newspaper
.... it's
reading the "wanted" poster for the people who murdered him, while checking out
at the grocery store
.... it's telling your family night after night that it
will be all right, when you don't believe it yourself.
Then they
are finally found, and . . .
.... it's
collapsing on the kitchen floor when you are told -- not from relief, but from
the ultimate despair in learning that your husband was indeed killed for nothing
but a car, and in an act so random as to defy comprehension
.... it's
watching your mother collapse on the floor when she hears this news and knowing
that she will not just have to relive the fateful night in her own mind, now she
will have to relive it in public courtrooms, over and over again, for months on
end.In the months that follow. .
.... it's putting the family home up for
sale and being told that everyone thinks it is beautiful, but they just don't
think they could live there, because a murder took place in the driveway
....
it's the humiliation of being told by the credit card companies, after they
closed your husband's accounts because of his death, that they are unable to
extend you credit because you are not currently employed
.... it's receiving
an anonymous call that begins, "I just learned of the brutal carjacking and
murder of your father," and that ends by saying. "I only wish your mother had
been raped and murdered, too."
.... it's the crushing anxiety of awaiting the
trauma and uncertainties of public trials.The day arrives, and. .
.... it's
listening, for the first time, to the tape of your mother's 911 call to report
that her husband, your father, had been murdered. Hearing the terror in her
voice. Catching yourself before you pass out from the shock of knowing that,
through that tape, you are present at the very moment it all happened
....
it's hearing the autopsy report on how the bullets entered your father's skull,
penetrated and exited his brain, and went through his shoulder and arm
....
it's listening to testimony as to how long he might have been conscious, and
thus aware of what was happening -- not just to him but to the woman that he had
always said he would give his life for
.... it's looking at the photographs
of your dad lying in the driveway in a pool of blood, as they are projected on a
large screen before your friends and family, and before what might as well be
the whole world
.... it's having to ask your son what the expression was on
your husband's face
.... it's listening to a confession in which the person
says that he just thought your dad was "playing possum."
.... it's listening
to your own mother, a lady of ultimate grace, testify publicly as to how she
crawled under the car, in the grease and the filth, to avoid being
murdered
.... it's hearing her say that the only thing she could think of was
what it was going to be like to be shot through the back of the head
....
it's watching her face as she relives that night, time and
again.
As the
trauma of the trial subsides . . .
.... it's
getting down on your hands and knees and straightening your dad's new grave
marker and packing the fresh dirt around it, so that it will be perfect, as he
always insisted that things be for you
.... it's sitting across from each
other at Thanksgiving dinner, each knowing that there is but one thing on the
other's mind, yet pretending otherwise for their sake
.... it's telling your
wife that the meat was great, when you could barely keep it down and hardly wait
to finish
.... it's trying to pick out a Christmas gift for your mother that
your dad would have picked out for her
.... it's sitting beside your father's
grave into the night in 30-degree weather, so that he won't be alone on the
first Christmas
.... it's putting up, by yourself, the basketball goal that
you got last Christmas so that you and your dad could relive memories as you
passed the years together
.... it's finishing by yourself all of the projects
that you have not an idea how to do, and that your dad had said, "Save for the
summer and we'll do them together. I'll show you how."
.... it's hearing your
2-year-old daughter ask for "Pawpaw" and seeing your wife choke back the tears
and tell her, "He's gone now, he's in heaven."... it's having the clothes your
dad was most proud of altered, so you can wear them in his honor
.... it's
wondering whether your wearing the clothes will be too painful for your
mother.
In the
larger sense . . .
.... it's shaking every time you
drive into a darkened driveway
.... it's feeling your body get rigid every
time that you drive into a garage
.... it's being nervous every time you walk
to your car, even in the open daylight
.... it's being scared to answer any
phone call or any knock at the door at night (or, for that matter, during the
day) because another messenger may be calling.
Finally,
it's the long-term effects . . .
.... it's
the inexplicable sense of embarrassment when you tell someone that your husband
or your father was murdered -- almost a sense of guilt over injecting ugliness
into their lives
.... it's going out to dinner alone, knowing that you will
be going out alone the rest of your life
.... it's that feeling -- wrong, but
inevitable -- that you will always be the fifth wheel
.... it's living the
rest of your life with the fact that your husband, your father, suffered one of
the most horrifying deaths possible
.... it's never knowing, yet fearing that
you know all too well, what those final moments must have been like
.... it's
constantly visualizing yourself in his place that night, moment by excruciating
moment
.... it's realizing that you will never even get the chance to repay
your dad for making your dreams come true
.... it's living with the
uncomfortable irony that he lived just long enough to see to it that your dreams
came true, but that his never will
.... it's knowing you never had, and will
never have, that one last time to say thanks for giving me, first, life itself,
and then, all that it holds.
And . .
.
.... it's knowing that this is
only the beginning and the worst is yet to come
.... The haunting
images
.... The emptiness
.... The loneliness
.... The
directionlessness
.... The sickening sense that it all ended some time ago,
and that you are but biding time.
Of course,
for my mother, my sister, my wife and I, the sun will come up again, but it will
never come up again for the real victim of this crime. Not only will he never
see what he worked a lifetime for, and was finally within reach of obtaining.
That would be tragedy enough. But, even worse, he died knowing that the only
thing that ever could have ruined his life had come to pass -- that his wife and
his family might have to suffer the kind of pain that is now ours -- and he was
helpless to prevent it even as he saw its inevitability.
We live by
law in this county so that, ideally, no one will ever have to know what it is
like to be a victim of such violent crime. If I had any wish, any wish in the
world, it would be that no one ever again would have to go through what my
mother and my father experienced on the night of April 19, what my family has
endured since and must carry with us the rest of our lives.
Crimes such
as that committed against my family are intolerable in any society that calls
itself not only free, but civilized. The law recognizes as much, and it provides
for punishment that will ensure at least that others will not suffer again at
the same hands, even if it does not prevent recurrence at the hands of others.
On behalf of my dad, and on behalf of my mother and family, I respectfully
request that these who committed this brutal crime receive the full punishment
that the law provides.
Three
people were needed to complete this crime. Each of the three was as instrumental
to its success as the other. There were no passive bystanders among the gang
that executed my dad.
Thank you,
Your Honor.
======
from Dudley Sharp
Napoleon Beazley was
executed May 28, 2002, for being the triggerman in this murder, attempted murder
and carjacking
Here are Napoleon Beazley's last words, which confirm him to be, totally, self- absorbed and, possibly, psychopathic
Napoleon Beazley: Last Words
======
This victim impact
statement can be found throughout the web, inclusive of here:
