Dead Man Walking

by Helen Prejean

  Tabak argues that this statement was “far more devastating than any evidence used against Willie at trial and completely inconsistent with his defense. But neither Willie, his trial attorney, nor the trial judge knew that these highly prejudicial statements had been heard by four of the jurors.”

  Again, Tabak says, the Louisiana Supreme Court had been unaware that these jurors were exposed to such prejudicial statements because the defense attorney had not himself known of them.

  Tabak ends the petition by citing claims of ineffectiveness of counsel, especially the defense counsel’s admitted lack of preparation for both the sentencing trials (several days before both trials the defense counsel had informed the judge that he was not prepared). In the petition Tabak argues:

  The only mitigation witness called at the first trial was Robert’s mother and at the second, an aunt, and even she was not prepared for the testimony. Five close family members said that they would have been glad to testify but were not contacted. Each would have brought out about Robert’s unsettled childhood bereft of adult guidance, his long-standing drug habit, his troubled mental state.

  By contrast, Tabak, points out, Vaccaro’s attorney had amply documented his client’s troubled childhood and drug-abuse history and his client had received a life sentence.17

  In August 1984, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals denied the petition and a request for rehearing, and on November 12, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the case. Now it is mid-November, and all that stands between Robert Lee Willie and the electric chair is the Pardon Board and the governor.18

  I can hear the words San Quentin guards used to yell when a death-row inmate was let out of his cell: “Dead man Walking.”

  *For eight years the Kansas legislature passed death-penalty bills only to have them vetoed by an anti-death-penalty governor. With a new pro-death-penalty governor in the statehouse in 1987, the legislature had its green light. But at a time when the financially strapped state was cutting some services 10 percent, the senate balked at the death-penalty process, which would cost an estimated $10 million the first year alone and $50 million before the first execution could be carried out.7

  CHAPTER

  8

  “We’ve got to get Robert off this political prisoner kick, “John Craft says to me as I walk into his office. He is preparing for Robert’s Pardon Board hearing scheduled for November 19, one week away, and he tells me that Robert seems determined to expose the “politics” in his death sentence. John shakes his head “A surefire strategy for defeat with a Pardon Board, if ever I heard one.”

  Millard Farmer has recruited John to serve as local counsel in Robert’s case, which means representing him at the Pardon Board hearing. Marcia Blum, the attorney director of the newly formed Louisiana Capital Defense Project, has been helping John prepare for the hearing, and Millard has been offering advice over the phone.

  I sit opposite John in a spacious room in his new French Quarter office. French doors, flagstone floors, eggshell-colored walls. Not much furniture yet, only his desk at one end of the room and his partner’s desk stuck casually in the center. There are piles of legal folders stacked in heaps along the walls, file cases, no secretary in sight. John’s been busy preparing for the hearing and hasn’t had much time to settle into the new place.

  He’s soft-spoken, serious, but not officious. Mid to late thirties, I figure. Dark-rimmed glasses, balding, a black close-cropped beard. I like his sober, reasoned energy.

  I feel my stomach muscles tighten as we begin to talk about the hearing. The Harveys will be there with their grief and loss and their terrible need to see Robert Willie die. And there’s the personality of Robert himself — defiant, remorseless. I’m afraid that Robert might smart-mouth Vernon Harvey or one of the Board members.

  John tells me he’ll speak first and present the legal issues, then Robert’s mother, then me.

  I’m dreading it. It will be the same board that took only an hour to uphold Pat Sonnier’s sentence. Since Pat’s execution, two other condemned prisoners have stood before them — Timothy Baldwin, executed in September, and Earnest Knighton, executed just a week ago.

  Theoretically, pardon boards are supposed to have wide latitude to dispense mercy. They are not bound by previous legal rulings of the courts and may give full sway to whatever heart or conscience dictates. But, being appointees of the governor (and subject to removal at his discretion), they can hardly ignore the wishes of their patron. There are no special qualifications required by law for the job, so Board positions are natural slots for political appointments.1 It would be two years before Howard Marsellus, chairperson of the Board, would be sentenced for taking bribes.

  Joe Doss, an Episcopalian priest and cocounsel for Earnest Knighton, told me that when he was preparing for Knighton’s Pardon Board hearing, someone close to the governor had said that the present board — sympathetic to Edwards’s personal aversion to the death penalty — avoids putting “pressure” on Edwards in death-penalty cases. Now, as we prepare for Robert’s hearing, I wonder what not putting “pressure” on the governor means.

  “What do you think about the politics in Robert’s case?” I ask John.

  John tells me that the St. Tammany Parish D.A., Marion Farmer (not related to Millard), who is prosecuting the case against Robert, had been up against stiff opposition in his bid for reelection at the time of the Hathaway murder. Shortly after Willie and Vaccaro’s arrest, Farmer publicly stated that he would seek the death penalty.

  A murder case which Marion Farmer prosecuted in 1978 had sparked much of the criticism against him in his reelection bid. Two ex-offenders from New York, John DeGirolama and Vincent Pellicci, had kidnapped a teenage couple at gunpoint and brought them into a wooded area in Farmer’s district. There, after holding them captive for several hours, they fired four shots into their victims, killing eighteen-year-old Rachelle Rees and injuring her boyfriend. The parish grand jury indicted the men for first-degree murder, but Farmer, wanting to avoid the cost and risk of a trial (he might not get a death-penalty verdict) and the lengthy appeals of a capital case, had let both men plead guilty to second-degree murder, which carries a life sentence.

  Rachelle Rees’s parents had petitioned a state court to force Farmer to seek the death penalty, protesting that his decisions for indictment were based on “whim and caprice.” But their petition failed.2

  “No doubt about the politics in Robert’s case,” John says to me, “but the Pardon Board hearing isn’t the place to bring it up.”

  “I’ll talk to Robert about it,” I tell John. Straight from this meeting I’m going to Angola to visit Robert.

  The Louisiana countryside, usually so vibrantly, verdantly green, is taking on a brownish hue. With the trees going bare I can see deep into the swamps, which cover the first fifteen miles or so out of New Orleans. The furry cypress needles have turned to rust. They’re still holding on, but not for long.

  Pat had died in spring when the flowers and trees and grass were exploding with life. If Robert dies, he will die in winter.

  Faith Hathaway had also died in the spring.

  I imagine her coming from beyond the grave to speak at this Pardon Board hearing.

  I picture her speaking of love swallowing up hate and all she knows is love now and that she hopes her mother and stepfather can move on with their lives and not worry about avenging her death because she’s past all that, she’s past all that is negative and downward and hurtful and she occupies another kind of universe and she hopes they can occupy this universe too.

  Yes, I can picture her saying that.

  I can also picture her pointing to Robert Willie and saying that because of all she has suffered, this man, her killer, should be made to suffer and die and the angry desire to avenge her death is righteous and noble and holy as God is holy.

  I know which of these speeches Vernon and Elizabeth are likely to hear.

  I’ve passed the sign: “Do not despair, you wi
ll soon be there”; and now I see open sky ahead and Angola.

  I get my pass from the visitor center and walk over to death row. I’m bringing a little money for Robert so he can buy coffee. During the last visit I had asked him if he needed anything and he had said, “Nah,” and when I asked him how much he had in his account, he said, “About two dollars and forty cents.”

  He steps into the visiting booth with his black knitted cap on his head. He likes that cap.

  “Glad you’re here, ma’am” he says. “Thanks for the coffee money.”

  I tell him about the ride up and the way November is settling into the swamps and he says he can see the trees turning there on the hill near the tier and we talk a bit about seasons and how Louisiana really doesn’t experience dramatic change, not like up North — small talk, but not for long. The Pardon Board hearing looms large.

  He’s brought a copy of his presentation — neatly typed, four pages.

  It begins: “There are a few things that I would like to say, considering this will be my last time before the Courts and the Judicial System.” I listen as he reads. I am standing up, my head close to the screen (tired of sitting after the three-hour drive). I think of my past students giving oral reports at Cabrini Elementary — lanky seventh- and eighth-grade boys, shifting from foot to foot, stumbling and mumbling the words, shy about standing there in front of me, their black-robed mentor, and their classmates, especially the girls. Now I hear this twenty-six-year-old man read the words of what undoubtedly will be the most important “oral report” of his life. And from what I know about his schooling — or lack of it — chances are he has never made a presentation before a group before.

  He reads evenly, without any sort of inflection. Understatement, every bit of it, these words to win grace, to save his life. But his words are stamped with his pride. He begins by saying that he did not kill Faith Hathaway and that he’s not going to “beg” for his life, and then he says, “This whole case was politically motivated from the first beginning,” and tells how D.A. Marion Farmer “had got himself into the hot seat by letting them New York murderers cop a plea which then led Mr. Farmer to tighten up and come down hard on my case, using me as a stepping stone in his political career. Before the election Mr. Farmer stated publicly that I would go to my death before the first of the year.”

  As he reads on I find out why, after his arrest, he had changed his mind and given a statement to officials about the Hathaway murder without an attorney present.

  “The District Attorney investigator [Assistant District Attorney William Alford, Jr.] told me that at the present time my mother and stepfather were being arrested [for driving Robert and Vaccaro to Mississippi, helping them to evade arrest] and he was going to make sure that my Mother got the maximum sentence if I didn’t tell him my involvement in this crime. After I gave them the statement I asked the District Attorney investigator if he would help my Mother, and he said he couldn’t promise me anything but he would put in a word for her.”3

  Robert argues that his court-appointed counsel was ineffective. “After I received the federal prison terms of life my state attorney told me that he didn’t really have to prepare for my charge in the state [capital murder] because I would never be turned over to Louisiana. He said that he would go through the usual procedure and put on what defense we had, which was nothing.

  “He came to see me in New Orleans and brought me over a hundred news clippings of my case. On the same day he visited me he said somebody had dumped his garbage cans full of garbage all over his yard and he said he didn’t know if he was making a mistake by taking my case or not.”

  He ends by saying:

  “If I would have had a proper defense without all the pre-trial publicity and an attorney that wanted to put forth an effort to really give me the due process of law, which the Constitution of the United States of America says that I’m entitled to, I know I wouldn’t have been found guilty and sentenced to death because I would have been given the opportunity to probably plead guilty to a lesser offense.

  “I know the death of Miss Hathaway has caused a lot of pain and sorrow for her family members and I truly regret everything that has happened. But my death is not going to bring Miss Hathaway back to this earth. Thank you for listening to me.”

  I tell him I agree that politics did play a role in his case, but I tell him why the hearing is not the place to raise the issue.

  He listens intently, smoking and looking down and taking in everything I say, and he says he’s going to have to think about it.

  “Your poor Mama,” I say, thinking of her terrible conflict — caught between the law which forbade her to assist escaping lawbreakers and her maternal instinct to help her son.

  “She did six months in jail,” Robert says, “and you know I’m mad about that. They double-dealed me. I gave them the statement without a lawyer there, which my better judgment told me not to because I couldn’t see my mother going to jail. She’s not strong anyways.” And he says that his mother has had “a real hard life” (he always says this) and has worked hard all her life — as a cook, a maid, a waitress. “She didn’t have a criminal record,” he says. “They could’ve given her a suspended sentence. They were mad at me and took it out on her.”

  He says he’s not so sure he wants her to come to the Pardon Board hearing. “She’s just going to bust out cryin’ and won’t be able to say nothin’ ‘cause she’s gonna be so tore up. It’s just not worth it to put her through all that. And she’s gonna have to sit there and hear the Harveys and the D.A.”

  I try to think of Mama in a situation like this, having to plead for the life of my brother, Louie, in such a public setting before such an unresponsive group.

  But I can’t get the picture. It’s just too far-fetched to imagine. It’s hard to know what Robert’s mother must be experiencing. She must feel that she’s walking around in a place where trees grow with their roots in the air and birds fly upside down. She must feel that she can’t get out of a nightmare.

  I find myself now saying to Robert some of the same words I had said to Pat, words drawn from some force that taps deep and runs strong, and I tell him that despite his crime, despite the terrible pain he has caused, he is a human being and he has a dignity that no one can take from him, that he is a son of God.

  “Ain’t nobody ever called me no son of God before,” he says, and smiles. “I’ve been called a son-of-a-you-know-what lots of times but never no son of God.”

  He doesn’t have a chance with the Pardon Board, I know that, and I think he must know it, too. I’m starting to count the weeks left in his life — four weeks? six weeks?

  I glance at my watch. It’s almost time to go.

  “Okay, I’ll let the political stuff go,” he says. “I see what you’re sayin’ that it won’t help my case even though it’s all of it true. I mean, this whole death penalty ain’t nothin’ but politics. The Pardon Board, they’re all a bunch of political appointees who do whatever the governor wants. But I’ll take my ballpoint pen and scratch out those parts.”

  “You may want to think about your mother,” I say. “I know it’s bound to be upsetting for her to be part of this hearing, and you’d like to save her from it, but if you die, after you’re gone, it may be bad for her if she didn’t have the chance to speak for you. Maybe she will always wonder if she had been there for you, maybe it would have made a difference.”

  “Yeah,” he says, he’ll think about that. It’s an angle he hadn’t thought of.

  I freeze with dread at the thought of the hearing. But he seems resigned. Maybe he’s found a way to steel himself not to expect anything.

  I put my hand up to the screen to tell him good-bye.

  “See you at the hearing, Robert,” I say.

  “I want you to know I got my pride. I’m not grovelin’ in front of those people. I don’t grovel to nobody,” he says.

  It feels odd going through the visitor center at Angola on a Monday. Usually visit
ors are not allowed on Mondays and Tuesdays. Guards ask each of us coming for the Pardon Board hearing to state our names so they can check them off a typed list. When the inmate is to be present, I find out, the hearing is held here at Angola. Which gives my heart a turn when I remember that Pat did not attend his hearing.

  Visitor rules are relaxed today. No pat searches, just metal detectors, and women are allowed purses and men don’t have to empty their pockets for inspection. Anyone desiring to attend the hearing has had to contact the Department of Corrections beforehand and give his or her name.

  Marcia Blum and Liz Scott, my writer friend, have driven to the prison with me. Liz is at work on an article for New Orleans Magazine.4 Next week she plans to interview Robert Willie and the Harveys.

  Through the window of the visitor center I see a yellow Cadillac driving up to the front gate. Marcia whispers to me that the people in the car are Pardon Board members.

  I have my plea for Robert typed out and I feel ready. No, not ready. I feel cold and tight. I keep telling myself that we are going to do our best, we are going to make the best presentation we can and the Board is summarily going to approve this killing. I have spent hours and hours trying to get the right words. I prayed, I wrote, I scratched out words and wrote new ones in the margins, I consulted with Bill Quigley and some of the Sisters, then prayed again. Preparing for Pat’s hearing seems simple compared to this. Then I had hope that the right words could matter.

  The hearing is being held in the big meeting room at the main prison, the same room where Eddie and I visit. At the far end of the room there is a long table where the Board will be seated. Marcia, Liz, and I sign the book on the “defendant’s” side. I remember this from Pat’s hearing, how each person must declare for the defendant or the state. Inside the rooms chairs are divided by an aisle down the middle. Blue chairs for the state’s “side” are on the left, and I see the Harveys there. Red chairs to the right for Robert Lee Willie’s “side.” There’s a group with the Harveys, maybe fifteen people. On Robert’s “side” there are his mother, John Craft, Marcia, Liz and me. John is already sitting at the defendant’s table, sorting through papers.