by Pa Rock
Social Critic
I have written about Levi King before, though without revealing his name. Levi is the young man who brutally murdered five individuals in September of 2005 - two in Missouri and three in Texas. His crimes were heinous and horrendous. Levi killed an older couple in McDonald County, Missouri, before stealing their truck and fleeing to Texas where he killed again. His Texas victims were a man, his pregnant wife, and her fourteen-year-old son. The woman's ten-year-old daughter was also shot and left for dead, but managed to survive the horror that befell her family.
Levi stood trial last year in Missouri where he pled guilty and was sentenced to life in prison. This year the state of Texas had its turn at him. Levi again pled guilty, and for the past five weeks or so a sentencing hearing has been taking place at the county courthouse in Lubbock, Texas, to determine if he would be executed or spend the rest of his natural life in prison.
Texas is known for, among other things, its penchant for executing murderers. Those good ole Texas boys like frying killers almost as much as they do grilling steaks. The fact that Levi would be killed for his crimes should have been a foregone conclusion in the Lone Star state, but that was not to be. Yesterday a courageous jury separated themselves from the state's reputation for knee-jerk bloodlust and sentenced the 27-year-old to life in prison without the possibility of parole. The local press in Lubbock reported that most of the members of the jury were crying as the verdict was read.
I have much that I would like to say about this young man, the crime of murder, and the subject of capital punishment. I must, however, be rather circumspect in discussing Levi because I knew him on a professional basis through my work in child protection for the state of Missouri. Let me describe him thusly: Levi King was a child who grew up in a very isolated location under less than optimal circumstances. It would be fair, I believe, to conclude that his childhood was aborted by his circumstances in much the same manner that his adulthood was aborted by his crimes. Yes, he grew through childhood and he will probably grow through adulthood, but in both cases he was (and will be) tragically shortchanged.
(And yes, I fully understand that his victims and their families and friends have also been tragically shortchanged by the actions of Levi King. I am concentrating on the perpetrator because he grew up as a victim of people and circumstances that were beyond his control, and if the continuing cycle of American carnage is ever to be reduced, it will come through addressing the social and economic environment that produces killers - and not through grisly "deterrents.")
Levi was spared a meeting with the executioner primarily for two reasons. First, as alluded to in the paragraph above, his background was so "less than optimal" that even a Texas jury was able to bring humanity to the table when deciding his fate. They heard from his teachers, social workers (including myself), family members, friends, and people with whom he had attended church as a youngster. Day after day, week after week, jury members watched a picture of a sweet kid with a bright smile slowly transform into that of a savage killer, a monster who was literally the result of an unrelenting, heartbreaking environment.
The second thing that saved Levi from a death sentence was an amazing team of mitigators who spent over a year interviewing people who knew Levi as he was growing up, and organizing materials and testimony that would be presented to the jury in its sentencing deliberations. The team included attorneys, legal aids, researchers, and even a private investigator.
The mitigation team was funded by the state of Texas. Why? Because death is the most serious sentence that a state government can level against an individual, and once it is imposed there is no way to achieve redress should that become necessary. Yes, Levi King admitted his crime - but was he a free agent acting solely on his own accord, or was he himself a victim of a life so unfair that it was a wonder he maintained as long as he did? The mitigation team believed that Levi was himself a victim, and that was the case they were able to successfully make to a jury.
Is a sentence of life in prison a fair one for a young man who killed five innocent people and seriously wounded a child? No, it's certainly an unfair trade in favor of the killer who lives on. But what punishment is ever fair? Would death be a fair punishment for a murderer who truly was a victim of his circumstances - circumstances so tragic that they could make a Texas jury sob?
Some would argue, probably vehemently, that death would be the only fair punishment - the Old Testament eye-for-an-eye rationale. But death would be an act of vengeance, and would be of no benefit to anyone. Capital punishment is not a deterrent to murder, and there is no credible research that says otherwise.
Today the United States and Japan are the only two major powers in the world that still kill killers, and Japan just appointed a new justice minister who opposes the practice - and the justice minister in Japan is the person who must approve all executions. That leaves just us - and we are morally wrong to meet barbarism with barbarism.
Levi King will not be executed for his crimes, but he will spend the rest of his life in a dirty cage surviving among the absolute dregs of society. That bright-eyed little boy will know very little joy in his remaining years - and years - and years.
Maybe we all live in cages, only some of us are confined by social constraints instead of bars. Society demands a certain amount of restraint, and if we can't or won't keep ourselves under control, society necessarily steps in to set boundaries for us. We have speed limits, rules for drinking, areas where we can and cannot smoke, and requirements for voting. Society decides when we can drive, who we can marry, and how many fish we can catch on a trip to the river. Society even sets social norms that tell us how to dress and behave in public. Yes, we all live in cages, but most of us manage to successfully navigate through life in spite of, or perhaps because of, social constraints.
Levi King has beaten the odds and may survive for many years to come. It is my hope and prayer that he recognizes that he has been given an opportunity and the time to atone for his crimes, and that through some form of personal achievement in prison he can begin to repay the massive debt that he owes society.
The ball is in your court now, Levi. Catch it, hold it up to the light and admire it, and know that it is your last chance to prove to yourself and to the world that those twelve good people in Lubbock made the right decision.
