Wrecking Life: When the State Seeks to Kill

Abstract

The man sitting in the second row of the courtroom has deep creases across his face not there a year ago. His hair has turned almost entirely gray. Every day, for weeks, he has sat there—through the photographs of his wife’s autopsy, the testimony of the joggers who found her decomposing body, the display of her bloody clothes. Even when others sit with him, he looks distinctly alone. His grief is so overwhelming it is a physical presence we can see and feel. It is so loud, we all hear it.