James Fitzpatrick's new novel, The Dead Sea Conspiracy: Teilhard de Chardin and the New American Church, can be ordered directly from Winepress Publishers — 1-877-421-READ (7323); $12.95, plus S&H. You can email Mr. Fitzpatrick at jkfitz42@aol.com.
(This article originally appeared in The Wanderer and is reprinted with permission. To subscribe call 651-224-5733.)
And I have been following what people are saying about the trial, in my own circles and on the talk shows since the jury made its decision.
But let’s go over the facts for those who also did not follow the trial. Three people were charged with the killing of 40-year-old Terry King, of bludgeoning him to death with an aluminum baseball bat, then burning the house with his body to hide the evidence: his angelic-looking sons, Alex and Derek King, now 13 and 14, and a family “friend,” 40-year-old Ricky Chavis, a convicted child-molester. Chavis and the boys were tried separately. In spite of an earlier confession that they had killed their father, the boys testified that Chavis was the murderer; Chavis testified that the boys were the killers.
The juries believed Chavis. He was acquitted of the murder charge. The boys were found guilty of second-degree murder. Chavis’ lawyer, Michael Rollo, observed, “We don’t like to say that children with cherubim faces can be cold, calculating, homicidal psychopaths.”
But the jury did just that, apparently finding the boys recanted confession contained too much specific knowledge of the crime. Rollo told the jurors that it was something that the boys could never have made up. “It’s like a photograph of the crime scene,” he said.
Moreover, witnesses, including the boys’ mother, testified that they had told them that they intended to kill their father. In addition, lab tests showed that the boys had paint thinner on their shoes, a substance used to start the fire set to destroy the evidence of the crime. Telephone records supported Chavis’ claim that the boys called him from a convenience store’s pay phone, asking to be picked up. This call took place at the same time a neighbor called to report the fire at the King home.
Nevertheless, the boys retracted their confessions when they testified before a grand jury. Both testified against Chavis, saying he killed their father while they hid in the trunk of his car. They said they lied at the prompting of Chavis, who, they said, told them they could take the blame for the murder, but escape conviction by claiming self-defense.
Here’s where the story gets hard to believe. The brothers also testified that they killed their father because they wanted to live with Chavis, who had taken them in when they ran away from home 10 days before the murder. Alex, the younger of the two boys, testified that he had “loved” Chavis and had sex with him. Chavis showed the boys pornographic movies and provided them with marijuana.
So the evidence is pretty clear that the boys committed the crime. I have heard few protestations of their innocence. But what I have heard repeatedly are protestations that the boys ought not be held fully responsible for their actions because they were exposed to experiences by Chavis that would “scar” the minds and souls of boys at such a tender age; that the drugs and sexual experiences impaired their ability to make the moral judgements upon which guilt is determined. Those who make this point also argue that, whether Chavis actually killed the boys’ father, he should be held more responsible for the crime because of the corrupting influence he played in the boys’ lives – that he should spend more time in jail for the murder than the boys.
Well, Chavis is a contemptible villain. No question about that. But here is where I have my problem. If we are going to make the case that the guilt of the King boys should be mitigated because of the horrific things done to them by Chavis, should not we also – by that logic – take into account the youthful experiences that Chavis may have gone through. I don’t know this for sure, but I would be willing to bet that Chavis had some lowlife in his boyhood who played a role in his life similar to the one he played in the King boys’ lives.
I can hear the howls of protest! I know, I know… Chavis is an adult, a forty-year-old man, while the boys were 12 and 13 when their father was killed. Shouldn’t that make a difference? It should. But not that much in reference to the point I am trying to make.
My interest just now is in those who protest that these boys should be given consideration because of their youth and because of the sordid things done to them by Chavis. You will hear them say, “These poor boys will never be the same. They will be scarred for life.” And, no doubt they will not be the same after what Chavis did to them.
Fair enough. But, look: If childhood experiences can “scar” us for life, make us incapable of making moral choices for which we should be held responsible, why shouldn’t Chavis be given special consideration for whatever childhood experiences “scarred” his soul? The fact that the King boys look like cherubim and Chavis does not should not be the determining factor here.
Right? Why shouldn’t Charles Manson be given the same consideration? His childhood was as sad and unfortunate as anyone’s. Why shouldn’t we take into account the childhood experiences that shaped the souls of all serial killers, rapists, terrorists and mass murderers? It probably can be demonstrated that most of the great villains of history went through events in their childhood that were as “traumatic” as those in the King boys’.
I hope no one is misreading me. It is not my point that Chavis and Charles Manson and the others should be given special consideration because of their tragic youths. I am merely trying to point out the implications of making the argument that the King boys will be “scarred for life” because of the drugs and sex introduced to their lives by Chavis. “Scarred for life” means scarred for life – for life. If childhood events make us incapable of making free moral choices as adults, then the behaviorists are right and we are all products of our environment and criminals are “victims of society.”
We can feel sorry for the King boys. Every parent in the country had to cringe upon hearing the story of these young men being lured into the world of sex and drugs by this Chavis character. What they went through should play a big role in their sentencing. But “scarred for life”? Let’s not permit our justified sympathy for them to lead us to concede too much. The Church has always been solid on this issue: Except in extreme cases, we are moral agents, made in the image and likeness of God, responsible for our actions. To deny this is to fall into the behaviorist logic that C.S. Lewis perceptively observed leads to the “abolition of man.”
