Broken: A story of hope and forgiveness

by Kevin Mark Smith

  Chapter 44

  Closure

  The courtroom was packed at 8:45 A.M., this time on a Wednesday, a day reserved for sentencing hearings. Usually, several cases were on this particular docket, but on this day only one case was set: The State of Oklahoma vs. Michael A. Thomas. It was the day the entire Johnson clan had been waiting for, especially Robert. On this day the darkest year of their lives would come to an end. Robert was thankful so-called closure would arrive soon, but unbeknownst to the rest of the family, his relief was borne out of a different motive. He was tired of his private rehearsals, repeating time and again to himself and into a mirror the statement he would provide to the court as the victim of the crime. It was called a victim impact statement, and it was something he knew he had to do, that is, if he had any hope of putting this whole unfortunate affair behind him.

  He was ready, more than ready. Indeed, his only fear was that his parents would break their promise to him that they wouldn’t provide a statement once he had his say. “Please,” he told his mom the morning of the sentencing, just before they left for Darkwell, “whatever happens, don’t interfere.” He was equally certain that Grandma would have a problem, too. He actually forced them to promise that they would remain silent during the proceedings, no matter what happened.

  Waiting on the front row of the spectator gallery immediately behind the prosecutor’s table, Jessie and Max on the right of Robert, Nancy and Charles on the left (Nolan stayed home), Robert silently prayed that everyone in the family would stay seated after he delivered his speech and, more important, that they would understand the true meaning behind his words. He was thankful that Charles was nearby, the only one privy to what was about to happen. He couldn’t help smiling a little at the thought of Charles wrestling the women in the family to the ground if they felt the need to speak out or to cry more profusely than normal.

  “All rise,” Judge Bosco’s assistant announced as she, the court reporter, and the judge entered the courtroom through the judge’s private chamber door. Everyone responded by standing up in honor of the judge.

  “Please be seated,” Judge Bosco said as he took his seat behind the bench. He reached under the bench out of habit to make sure his weapon was still where he had placed it all those years ago. The feel of the cold steal elicited a brief smile, so brief that it was almost impossible to be seen by those in the courtroom.

  He waited a few minutes while the court reporter settled in and loaded her machine with paper. There was rustling in the back of the spectator gallery and a baby held by its mother on the front row on the opposite side of the spectator gallery from where the Johnson clan sat cried. A burly bailiff traversed the five rows of seats between the courtroom’s main entrance and the bar separating the spectators from the lawyers. He turned to his left and waved to get the attention of the crying baby’s mom who was having a difficult time plugging the baby’s mouth with a pacifier. “Ma’am,” Robert heard him say just above a whisper, “either stop the crying or leave the courtroom.”

  Judge Bosco caught the exchange and nodded to the bailiff in agreement. His court reporter, the true source of any real animosity about courtroom noise—she could hear a housefly pass gas from a hundred yards away—was less cordial as she winced and wrinkled her nose in disgust. How dare an innocent baby disturb her peace! The baby didn’t stop crying, so its momma stood up, said “excuse me” to the seven or so people who had to angle their legs to make room for her exit, worked her way all the way to the aisle that led to the exit, and left the courtroom with the baby in her arms.

  Robert wondered if maybe Michael was the baby’s father. The thought made him frown slightly as he watched her walk out the courtroom door.

  Judge Bosco glanced at the prosecutor, then defense counsel, checking to see if all parties were ready to begin. Michael was sitting in the jury box in his orange jumpsuit, beige sandals and manacles on his wrists and ankles, once again linked together so he had to shuffle and contort his appendages in odd ways just to scratch his nose.

  “Are we ready to proceed?” he asked.

  “State’s ready,” Barbara said.

  “So is the defense,” Jacob agreed.

  “Very well. Then let’s take up the matter of State v. Thomas.”

  Judge Bosco nodded toward the jailer, indicating he was ready for the defendant to be escorted to the defense table. It was odd and awkward, the way he shuffled sideways out of the box, and then shuffled a little more easily walking from the box to the table. The entire courtroom was enraptured by the pitiful display of humility—or maybe really the lack of humanity. A man’s freedom and dignity had been stripped away due to his own stupidity. Nancy and Jessie sniffled back their tears, doing their best to appear strong. Nancy grimaced in Michael’s direction, furrowed her brows, and glared at him. Her look of contempt might have caused him to crumble to the ground had he seen it, but he didn’t. He didn’t look up at all as he avoided eye contact with everyone in the room as he completed his death walk to the defense table. The men of the Johnson clan sat quiet with no expression on their faces at all. Even Robert was emotionless at this point.

  Michael finally took his seat beside Jacob.

  “We’re now on the record,” Judge Bosco said towards the court reporter, who immediately began typing away every little word or expression uttered or expressed in the courtroom that could be translated into written English. “This is the sentencing in the matter of The State of Oklahoma versus Michael A. Thomas. Please announce your appearances.”

  Both tables complied. Jacob and Michael were directed to the podium in the center of the courtroom and Judge Bosco proceeded to cross the proverbial “T”s and dot the proverbial “I”s in his best effort to ensure that everything was done by the book. He wanted to ensure that this case would not be overturned on appeal, which is much more difficult than one would think for a plea. Only a sentence contrary to law would be appealable since Michael had waived all other rights to appeal when the plea was entered into the record.

  Then the time for allocution arrived, the time during the sentencing proceedings when a defendant asks the court for mercy in his own words. “Mr. Thomas,” Judge Bosco began. “Do you have anything you want to say before I pronounce the sentence?”

  “Yes sir,” he quietly began. “I’m sorry for the pain and heartache I’ve caused. I pray for Mr. Baxter every day and I would take back all my mistakes if it could give him back what I took from him.” He looked back in the gallery at Robert. “I’m really sorry.”

  Nancy and Jessie lost it. They began crying uncontrollably, and the court reporter made no attempt whatsoever, verbal or otherwise, to display her displeasure with the unwelcome cacophony, even though anyone looking at her at that moment could tell that the cries and wails made it more difficult for her to hear everything going on in the courtroom. She tilted her head back and forth trying to focus her attention on the defendant and then jerked her head up and to the side, glaring at the judge in a vain attempt to draw his attention to her plight. Just then someone clicked a pen behind the prosecutor’s table, drawing her attention away from the judge’s bench.

  This time anyway, the judge refrained from jumping to the defense of his court reporter’s overly sensitive hearing. Instead, he paused a few moments to give the family and everyone else in the courtroom time to calm down. He then asked the defendant and his attorney calmly but loud enough to be heard by everyone present, including the court reporter, “Is there anything else?”

  “Yes, sir,” Jacob said. “Mr. Thomas’s spiritual counselor would like to be heard.”

  “Very well.”

  With that invitation, Pastor Rick rose from his seat in the far corner of the gallery, far away from the Johnson clan. He sneaked in after the family took their seats as instructed by Robert and Charles. The pair knew better than to take any chance of Jessie or Nancy smelling a rat and thereby force them to disclose what they were up to. Max was also in the dark, but Charles and Robert
knew he would eventually understand.

  Pastor Rick awkwardly squeezed himself past the half-dozen observers who sat between him and the aisle leading to the other side of the bar. As he broke free from the chairs, Nancy glanced back, tissue in hand and dabbing the tears in her eyes. She let out a gasp, then whispered, “Oh, my God.”

  Charles kept his gaze forward and squeezed her hand gently, as if to say, it’ll be all right. He wasn’t about to admit he knew what was happening until after it happened.

  Nancy moved her mouth to his ear and said, “What’s Pastor Rick doing here?”

  Charles shrugged his shoulders, pretending to not know what was going on, that Pastor Rick was about to offer a mitigating statement on behalf of the man who almost killed their grandson.

  Only after Pastor Rick reached the spring-loaded, waste-high gate separating the spectators from the lawyers and defendant did Jessie see him. She squinted and stared at the back of his head. He sensed her gaze and looked back at her, over his right shoulder. He mouthed, “It’ll be okay,” and then glanced at Robert.

  By now all in the family knew something was amiss. There was no way a pastor in Kansas would show up to offer spiritual guidance to a jail inmate in Oklahoma by pure coincidence, not to mention the even more outlandish possibility that he was pastor to both the victim and the assailant. Nancy and Jessie looked dumbfounded, as if wondering why in the world their own pastor was about to say kind words on behalf of a convicted felon and potential killer, and how he managed to get in touch with the man who almost killed their boy in the first place. Though neither woman yet knew the significance of what was happening, Charles felt calm. He was still in support of Robert’s decision to help Michael, and Pastor Rick’s, as well. Once he had understood what had led to this moment his attitude had changed. His only fear at the moment was what would happen to him when he got home. How would his own wife treat him when she found out he was in on the secret? Max looked surprised and somewhat shocked, too, but he was far less emotional than the women in the family, so the shock on his face disappeared in the time it took Pastor Rick to walk from his seat to the podium.

  Jessie caught Pastor Rick’s redirected glance toward her son and looked over to him. “Did you know about this?” she asked, not bothering to whisper.

  Robert put his right index finger up to his lips and said, “Shhh,” as he nodded his head yes. The sling was gone, and his substantially healed arm now appeared pretty much normal, as long as he didn’t try throwing anything heavier than a wadded up piece of paper.

  Jessie looked up to Pastor Rick, who now stood by Michael’s side. He was now standing ramrod straight, wearing a dark suit, white shirt and red tie, gazing up respectfully toward the judge.

  “Go ahead,” Judge Bosco said.

  “Thank you, Your Honor. I am Pastor Rick Matthews of Stonelee Christian Fellowship in Stonelee, Kansas,” he began. “I have been counseling defendants and convicted felons for the past thirty years, ever since I was a student in seminary. I have learned from personal experience to be very skeptical about jailhouse confessions. If I had to guess, I’d say that less than ten percent of the men I counsel are genuine in their acceptance of God, as well as repentance. Most of the men I’ve counseled want me to make statements just like this one. I almost always say ‘no.’ Only the less-than-ten-percent bunch get the benefit of my courtroom testimony. Michael is one of these. Over the past few weeks he has been truthful, open and honest with me, and he has become a dedicated biblical scholar. He reads the Word daily, and I have been impressed by his dedication to learning why he did this horrible thing. Your Honor, Michael is an addict, and all of his bad behavior, in my view, is attributed to the spiritual emptiness he had in the past. But those times are past. Michael believes in God for the first time in his life. I am completely confident that, if given the chance, Michael will not repeat the mistakes of his past.”

  The judge fumbled with his pen, wrinkling his forehead as he did. He said, “Pastor Matthews, I don’t normally grill character witnesses at sentencing, but I have a question for you.”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “You don’t know Michael well enough to say for certain that he won’t screw up again, do you?”

  “No, Your Honor, I don’t. My opinion is based on what I’ve seen in my twenty-plus years of ministry.”

  “Thank you for your time. Counselor,” he said toward Jacob, appearing to wave off Pastor Rick and his words as if they were no more than words. He didn’t even bother looking at the pastor as he walked away from the podium and back to his seat. “Is there anything else?”

  “No, Your Honor.”

  “Fine.”

  Judge Bosco turned toward the prosecution table and said, “Do we have any victims present?”

  “Yes, Your Honor,” Barbara said. She looked back at Robert and nodded her head.

  Robert walked forward and stood just behind the gate separating the lawyers from the spectators. He looked puzzled, as if he wasn’t sure where he should stand. Judge Bosco seemed to sense his trepidation. “You can speak from there if you’d like.”

  Robert looked over at Charles, who nodded his support.

  “Thank you, sir,” he began. “This whole ordeal has been tough. I was on scholarship with UTA to play baseball. I love the game. I’m not sure if I would have been that great, but I wanted to find out. Mr. Thomas took that away from me when he hit me with his car and left me for dead. I can’t play baseball anymore. My throwing arm is destroyed. I was only recently able to lift my arm at all, and that hurts like the dickens.” He raised his right arm to his side as far as he could, to demonstrate, which was only about a foot, and tried his best to bend his elbow, which bent a few inches more that he could raise the arm. “This is all the use left in it. I use to be able to curl close to eighty pounds with each arm. After weeks of therapy and lots of pain, I was finally able to lift twenty pounds last week, but only a quarter of the way due to the damage to the ligaments and bones. To make a long story short, I’m done with baseball, and the scholarship’s gone, too.”

  He heard Nancy and Jessie crying from behind. He wanted to cry, too, but he didn’t. Too much was at stake.

  He wished he could tell the judge he had met with Michael. That would make what he was about to say much easier, and sensible.

  “But I know that there is a purpose to everything, and I know that the accident happened for a reason, as well. I wasn’t meant to play baseball. My experience through this whole mess has revealed to me a lot about me and others. I know that, for example, I wouldn’t have decided to become a lawyer like my grandpa if I hadn’t been hurt. And I also know that Michael didn’t—“

  Robert paused, realizing that he was treading on dangerous ground, just one slipup from revealing what he’d done with the help of his law firm and his grandpa. “Pastor Matthews is my pastor, too, and I’ve known him all my life. If he says Michael deserves another chance, I do, too. Healing begins with forgiveness.”

  His eyes moistened as he looked at Michael, who was sobbing quietly. “I forgive you, Michael.”

  Robert turned around and walked to his seat, doing his best to avoid eye contact with Nancy and Jessie. They were still crying, and Jessie was struggling with his words, fighting the urge to stand up and speak, to dilute the mitigating impact of her son’s statement. Max sensed her feelings. He put slight downward pressure on her shoulders and whispered in her ear, “For Robert’s sake, don’t do anything, okay?”

  She looked up at him, mad at first, but then understanding. She nodded and resumed crying.

  Nancy was too upset to say anything. She was seething inside. Charles patted her shoulder and she turned toward him and glared deep into his eyes. He removed his arm from her shoulder and looked up at the judge. Now was not the time, he knew. He sensed a cold night ahead.

  The courtroom grew silent after Robert’s speech. A couple of reporters stood up to leave, to get a jump on the others reporting the story, but were barr
ed from leaving by the bailiff. Whispers broke out throughout the room as those who heard Robert’s words had time to process the shocking things he had just said. A man who had his life broken was almost grateful that it was. It made no sense to everyone in the room except for Robert, Charles, Michael, and Pastor Rick.

  Judge Bosco waited for the courtroom to calm down. Several news cameramen were panning their cameras over the faces of those gathered in the courtroom to capture the moment for their viewers to see. A couple reporters managed to bolt out of the room after the bailiff was forced to walk up and down the aisle to hush the whispers and talking that had ensued after Robert finished, despite the judge’s initial attempts to keep anyone from leaving until the proceedings ended.

  “Do we have any other statements to present?” he asked of both sides. The attorneys shook their heads no. Michael sat stone still and did nothing in response.

  “Very well. Is there any reason we can’t proceed to sentencing at this time?”

  “None from the state,” said Barbara.

  “None from the defense,” the other side agreed.

  “Mr. Thomas,” he sternly began. “Although I understand that there are many in this courtroom who want mercy, even the victim, I believe there comes a point in a man’s life when he must take full responsibility for his actions. Sometimes mercy must take a backseat to justice. The statements from you, Pastor Matthews, and Mr. Baxter have made my decision more difficult. That is certain. Further, I have a motion in front of me that spells out many reasons for a departure, many reasons to put you on probation instead of send you to prison. However, I am not compelled to accept those reasons if justice demands otherwise.

  “I note those reasons, give them their due consideration, and summarily overrule the motion. You are to be taken into the custody of the Oklahoma Department of Corrections and serve sixty months in prison. I further order DNA testing so that your profile will be entered into the national database for convicted felons. Once released, you are not to own or possess a firearm or be anywhere near one. You should talk to your attorney about your right to expunge the conviction. There is no probation so I make no findings in that regard. That is the order of the court. We are in recess.”