After Homicide: Victims Families in the Criminal Justice System 9781626378452

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AFTER

Homicide

AFTER Homicide Victims’ Families in the Criminal Justice System Sarah Goodrum

b o u l d e r l o n d o n

Published in the United States of America in 2020 by Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. 1800 30th Street, Boulder, Colorado 80301 www.rienner.com

and in the United Kingdom by Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. Gray’s Inn House, 127 Clerkenwell Road, London EC1 5DB

© 2020 by Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Goodrum, Sarah, 1970– author. Title: After homicide : victims’ families in the criminal justice system / Sarah Goodrum. Description: Boulder : Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc., [2020] | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: “Explores how families of homicide victims encounter and are affected by the criminal justice system”— Provided by publisher. Identifiers: LCCN 2019018005 (print) | LCCN 2019980259 (ebook) | ISBN 9781626378322 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781626378452 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Murder victims’ families—Services for—United States. | Criminal justice, Administration of—United States. Classification: LCC HV6529 .G667 2020 (print) | LCC HV6529 (ebook) | DDC 362.88—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019018005 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019980259

British Cataloguing in Publication Data A Cataloguing in Publication record for this book is available from the British Library.

Printed and bound in the United States of America

The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials Z39.48-1992.

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Americans are fascinated by murders and murderers but not by the families of the people who are killed.

—Eric Schlosser (1997: 37)

Contents

Preface

ix

2 The News Is Delivered

15

4 Prosecutors Take Over

81

1 After Homicide

1

3 The Police Investigate

49

5 Crisis Counselors Intervene

103

6 Awaiting and Enduring the Trial

125

8 Seeking and Surviving Justice

175

7 Searching for Meaning

Appendix: Data Collection and Analysis Bibliography Index About the Book

vii

149

179 199 207 217

Preface

Over the years, people often have asked me about the origin of this project. The unspoken question is: Have you lost a loved one to homicide, Sarah? The answer to that question is no. The idea for the project emerged from a discussion about the death penalty, during which my colleagues and I considered whether the death penalty— frequently imposed decades after a murder and following numerous appeals—could bring closure to families of homicide victims. Shortly after the discussion, an article titled “A Grief Like No Other” by Eric Schlosser (1997) appeared in The Atlantic. Schlosser described people’s fascination with murderers and murder cases and their blatant neglect of the families left behind. He mentioned the lack of research on the topic, and, still thinking about the conversation with my colleagues, I felt compelled to learn more. Over the next several months, this book, in which I examine the journeys of homicide victims’ families through the criminal justice system—from death notification to trial—began to take shape. When I started my research, I hoped I would find that the criminal justice system could bring a sense of justice and healing to families of homicide victims, but I knew this was unlikely. What I learned was that the justice and healing felt by survivors came from having a relationship with the criminal justice professionals working on the case, not necessarily from having a role in the system. It turns out that a compassionate response to the people experiencing the most horrific loss one can ix

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Preface

imagine provides more comfort than we might assume. Survivors want heartfelt recognition of their loss, particularly from the decisionmakers in the system (e.g., detectives and prosecutors, not counselors). * * *

I am truly grateful to the participants—the survivors and criminal justice professionals—who volunteered their time and shared their stories for my research. Devastated fathers, heartbroken mothers, and other survivors trusted me—a stranger—to listen to and share their accounts of their loved one’s murder and the criminal justice system’s response. Seasoned detectives described the burden of carrying an unsolved case and working on a child homicide investigation, sometimes crying when they recalled their experiences. Tough prosecutors recalled the difficulties of pursuing a negotiated plea when families wanted a trial. Caring counselors recounted times when they related to survivors’ grief and tried to meet their needs while addressing detectives’ and prosecutors’ demands. Today, when I talk to students about qualitative research methods and the examples in this book, I still feel the pain of these losses. I am honored to be the one to tell their stories. I will forever feel grateful that Norman Howard (a pseudonym), referred to as Pretest A, was the first participant to sit down with me for an interview. Norman shared his frustration with the lack of progress in his 32-year-old daughter Amy’s unsolved murder case, and at one point during our meeting, he leaned toward me and said, “I wish you would have known her.” I thought to myself, “I do too, Norman.” His heartfelt concern for his daughter and his desperate search for answers to her death provided me with a rich understanding of this loss experience. He eloquently described the way the system’s work (and lack of progress) on the case had affected his bereavement. It was luck that brought him to a support group meeting on the evening I began recruiting participants for the pretest (or preliminary) interviews. It was also luck that I was about the same age as his daughter when she died. Thank you, Norman, for inviting me into your home and for telling me your story. Norman died before Amy’s case could be solved, but I hope his insights help others appreciate survivors’ deep desire for information about the murder and for a trial. I also owe a great debt to Mark Stafford, who shared and supported my interest in this topic from the beginning. I could not have asked for a better mentor and friend. I also thank the National Institute of Justice, the Hogg Foundation for Mental Health, and Centre College for their

Preface

xi

financial backing of the research presented here. I owe many thanks to the colleagues and friends who have supported me over the years, especially Debbie Turner, Bill Woodward, Mary Daniels, Helen Emmitt, Beau Weston, Nayef Samhat, Bruce Johnson, Stephanie Fabritius, Michael Andrykowski, Paul Shirley, Jennifer Roark, Beverly Kingston, Joanne Belknap, Jessica Gorrono, Debra Umberson, Marc Musick, Theresa Lane, and Michael Radelet. To Alexander Holzman and Andrew Berzanskis, my editors at Lynne Rienner Publishers, thank you for your encouragement and patience. You genuinely understood my desire to get this story right. To my University of Northern Colorado students and colleagues, especially Colleen Fitzpatrick and Lyda McCartin, thank you for supporting and challenging me. Finally, I thank my family. To my dad: thank you for teaching me to value education. Your investment of time and energy in my education has helped me get where I am today. To my mom: for teaching me by example to show kindness to others and do what is right—even when it’s unpopular or uncomfortable. Your compassion for others continues to inspire. To Matt and Liz, you are the funniest and most supportive siblings a sister could ask for; thanks for all of your cheerleading. You help me find the humor in almost everything and, most important, in myself. To George-Anne, thank you for everything you do for Sam and Henry. For my dear little family—Paul, Sam, and Henry—each and every day, with your bear hugs, impersonations, joys, concerns, baseball games, football games, basketball games, school performances, and questions (oh, the many questions), you remind me what is important in life and I could not be more grateful. I love you with all my heart.

1 After Homicide

I gotta admit though to you, Sarah, every time the phone rings, I hope it’s Detective Russell. . . . I [know] I will never have her back. . . . But I know it would make me be able to handle what we’ve gone through a lot better, if I knew her perpetrator [were] behind bars. —Norman Howard, father of 32-year-old homicide victim (Pretest A)

For more than 40 years, crime victims’ advocates have fought to give victims a voice in the criminal justice system and a role in the criminal justice process. By 1995, all states in the United States had passed a victims’ bill of rights. These rights allow victims to learn about upcoming court dates, obtain compensation funds to cover funeral costs, and give an impact statement to the court during the offender’s sentencing. Advocates believed these rights and services would improve victims’ satisfaction with the system and their recovery from the crime. Research, however, finds that these rights and services have had only a marginal effect on victims’ satisfaction and recovery, raising questions about what victims want and doubts about what the system can offer (Campbell 2006; Carr, Logio, and Maier 2003; Englebrecht, Mason, and Adams 2014; Erez, Roeger, and Morgan 1997; Frohmann 1998; Parsons and Bergin 2010; Rock 1998; Rosenbaum 1987). The truth is, we know little about what victims want from the system or how that compares with what criminal justice professionals do. Few studies have included 1

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After Homicide

both perspectives on the victim–criminal justice system relationship, particularly in cases of homicide. In this book, I examine victims’ experiences with the criminal justice system with a focus on people who have lost a loved one to homicide. 1 I also explore larger questions about the relationship between law and society. What do victims expect from the system, and what do they get? What is the role of victims’ rights in promoting change in the criminal justice system? To answer these questions, I collected qualitative data from homicide survivors, criminal justice professionals (e.g., detectives, prosecutors, counselors, judges, and defense attorneys), and crime victims’ advocates in the Union County (a pseudonym) criminal justice system. The decision to collect data in Union County and from this group of victims (also referred to as homicide survivors or bereaved) bears comment. First, since the 1990s, the Union County criminal justice system has had a national reputation for being an innovator in victim services in the United States. Before most other cities and counties in the United States, the Union Police Department, Sheriff’s Office, and District Attorney’s Office had full-time social workers on staff to provide victims with crisis counseling and information. These counselors, victim-oriented programs, and a strong victims’ advocacy group have made Union County a model for victims’ rights and services. As a result, Union County detectives and prosecutors followed the state’s victims’ bill of rights, and my findings reveal that prosecutors often went beyond those rights to honor victims’ requests for a trial instead of a plea bargain. Thus, if victims are not having a good experience in this system, they are unlikely to be having a good experience in other systems. Second, few studies examine victims’ experiences across all aspects of one criminal justice system (e.g., police, prosecutor, trial). A detailed exploration of victims’ encounters in one system proves important for identifying the gaps in rights and services, sources of frustration within the system, and avenues for improvement in the victim–criminal justice system relationship. Much of the previous research on victims in general and homicide survivors in particular draws on data from one population—the victim population. This study includes in-depth interview data from three populations—homicide survivors, criminal justice professionals (e.g., detectives, prosecutors, counselors, judges, and defense attorneys), and crime victims’ advocates (from a nonprofit group)—providing a more complete understanding of the victim–criminal justice system relationship. Hearing the real voices of people working in and encountering these various parts of the system provides a well-rounded understanding of the issues.

After Homicide

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Homicide survivors provide an excellent opportunity to examine the victim–criminal justice system relationship and the larger law-society relationship for four reasons. First, the extreme nature of a loss to homicide and the seriousness of criminal justice workers’ investigation reveal taken-for-granted assumptions about these interactions (see Konradi 1996a; Stenross and Kleinman 1989). Second, the stark contrast between workers’ and victims’ approaches toward and emotions about the case reveals how each group experiences the same case from very different and unequal perspectives (see Goodrum 2005, 2007, 2008, 2013; Goodrum and Stafford 2003; Stretesky et al. 2016). These disparate perspectives can make for awkward encounters and social conflicts. Third, over time, victims become socialized about the ways of the criminal justice system, and this knowledge informs, angers, and challenges them. Asking victims about their expectations for and experiences with all parts of the system reveals the sources of tension and places for improvement in the process. It also allows for the consideration that victims may feel more satisfied with some parts of the system than others and that some parts may be more amenable to victim involvement than others. Finally, homicide survivors represent a particularly vocal and influential group of crime victims (e.g., John Walsh, father of Adam Walsh; Beth Twitty, mother of Natalee Holloway). In the United States and in the state of study, homicide survivors have led the effort to change the system. Understanding what homicide survivors expect of the system clarifies their—and other victims’—needs and goals. It is important to note that victims are not a unified group, although current victims’ rights legislation treats them as such. What robbery victims want from the system may be entirely different from what homicide survivors want. A common theme underlying victims’ comments from this and other research, however, is the sense of powerlessness they feel in their encounters with criminal justice professionals and their desire for compassionate understanding from those professionals. Here, I explore what homicide survivors want and need from the system and how that may apply to other types of victimization.

Themes

In the chapters that follow, I provide empirical data on homicide survivors and criminal justice workers from many different perspectives. By reporting firsthand accounts, the research conveys the poignant ways victims try to make sense of and cope with a “shattering emotional experience” (Denzin 1990: 104). Participants’ narratives reveal a great

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deal about the role of the criminal justice system in the healing process and the place of rights in promoting institutional change. The interrelated themes throughout the findings are

1. The conflicts between victims and the criminal justice system arise in unexpected places. 2. The solutions to these conflicts are also unexpected (victims do not want a role in the system but a relationship with decisionmakers). 3. Victims’ rights helped promote social and cultural change in the system, but victims typically do not call on or mention those rights.

The findings indicate that homicide survivors expected an ally and an advocate in the criminal justice workers handling their loved one’s murder case; they wanted a detective and prosecutor who understood the depth of their loss, connected to their pain, and fought for the deceased. These findings translate to other fields and social encounters where people need help navigating new institutional terrain (e.g., school, hospital). Homicide survivors sought compassionate (but not mushy) allies in the criminal justice system.

Theoretical Framework

Symbolic interactionism provides the theoretical framework for the study. This perspective explains the role of meaning in human behavior and social interaction, and the meaning that homicide survivors assign to a case reveals a great deal about their sources of angst and frustration. Herbert Blumer’s (1969: 2) first premise of symbolic interactionism states, “Human beings act toward things on the basis of the meaning that the things have for them.” When people thoughtfully reflect on something, they set it apart and give it meaning. This meaning helps them make decisions about how to act in the situation and toward others. But meaning does not arise in a vacuum; it emerges over the course of social interactions with others. In addition, meanings are modified over time, in situations, and through life experience; these modifications can create confusion, distress, and conflict. It can be difficult to learn that your definition of the situation is not shared—or even understood—by others. In the case of loss to murder, symbolic interactionist theory helps reveal the meaning that victims assigned to the news of their loved one’s murder, the police’s investigation, the prosecutor’s case, and the trial (see Stretesky et al. 2016). The theory also illuminates the meanings that criminal justice workers assigned to murder cases.

After Homicide

5

As you might imagine, homicide survivors assigned significantly different meanings to things than did criminal justice workers, particularly in the early stages of the murder investigation. How people interpreted and responded to these disputed meanings applies to many other fields and social encounters. Given the apparent disconnect between victims’ rights and their satisfaction and our confusion about victims’ needs, the symbolic interactionist perspective clarifies the meaning of the case and the criminal justice process. Guided by the empirical research on victims and the symbolic interactionist perspective, I focus on the following research questions:

1. What do victims want and need from the criminal justice system? 2. How do victims experience the criminal justice system, including workers and criminal justice procedures? How do these experiences influence their recovery? 3. How do criminal justice workers (e.g., detectives, prosecutors, counselors, judges, defense attorneys, and advocates) perceive and handle victims? 4. What role do victim services counselors play in survivors’ experiences? 5. What do these findings tell us about homicide survivors, the criminal justice system, and victims’ rights legislation in the United States? 6. What do these findings say about the role of victims’ rights in meeting victims’ needs? 7. How might these findings apply to other victims, individual– organization relationships, and social situations?

Crime Victims’ Rights

At the time of this study, the victims’ rights laws around the country were comprehensive and did not differentiate between various types of victims. In the state of study, the victims’ rights were2

1. The right to receive from law enforcement agencies adequate protection from harm and threats of harm that might arise from cooperating with prosecutors; 2. The right to the prompt return of any of the victim’s property that is held by law enforcement or the prosecutor when the property is no longer needed;

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After Homicide

3. The right to be informed by a law enforcement officer about the defendant’s right to bail and the procedures in criminal investigations, and by the prosecutor’s office about criminal justice procedures, including guilty plea negotiations, restitution, and the appeals and parole process; 4. The right to have the magistrate take the safety of the victim or their family into consideration as an element in fixing the amount of bail; 5. The right to be informed of relevant court proceedings and to be informed if those court proceedings have been canceled or rescheduled prior to the event; 6. The right to provide pertinent information to a probation department conducting a presentencing investigation concerning the impact of the offense on the victim and their family by testimony, written statement, or any other manner prior to any sentencing of the offender; 7. The right to be informed of parole procedures, to participate in the parole process, to be notified of parole proceedings concerning a defendant in the victim’s case, and to be notified of the defendant’s release; 8. The right to be provided with a waiting area, separate or secure from the offender, offender’s relatives, and other witnesses; 9. The right to have the prosecutor notify the victim’s employer of the need for the victim’s cooperation and testimony in proceedings; 10. The right to receive information regarding victims’ rights compensation; 11. The right to counseling regarding AIDS and HIV and testing for AIDS and HIV.

Wemmers (2012) has described victims’ rights as human rights that recognize victims’ independent interest in the system.

Victims’ Experiences with the Criminal Justice System

Research indicates that victims’ independent interest in the system includes the perceived fairness of procedures, access to information about the case, and workers’ responsiveness to their concerns. Having a sense that the procedures are fair can reduce anxiety, which may aid healing, particularly when the final outcome of the case (e.g., convic-

After Homicide

7

tion, sentence length) remains unknown (Tyler, Goff, and MacCoun 2015; Wemmers 2013). Wemmers (2013) found that victims’ perceptions of the fairness of criminal justice procedures (i.e., procedural justice) positively correlated with their psychological recovery from the crime, and the quality of their interaction with criminal justice workers informed their sense of procedural justice (see also Tyler, Goff, and MacCoun 2015). The therapeutic jurisprudence literature recognizes the potential for the law as a social force to produce positive or negative psychological effects in victims and offenders (e.g., healing or empathy, respectively) (Winnick 1997). In a study of homicide survivors, Milman and colleagues (2018) found that survivors’ perceptions of the fairness of the system were positively associated with mental health outcomes (e.g., depression, complicated grief). Indeed, the victims’ rights movement has championed the notion that the law can serve as a “therapeutic agent,” where research on mental health and victimization informs legal practice (Winnick 1997: 185). Advocates have argued that having a voice in criminal justice proceedings would benefit victims’ psychological recovery from the trauma of the crime (Ashworth 2000; Kelly 1990; Wiebe 1996). The opportunity to give a victim impact statement during the sentencing phase of a trial has been one of the more visible platforms for victims’ voices to be heard (see victims’ right no. 6). Openly sharing with the court the effect of the crime on the victim’s life is thought to offer a cathartic release. Yet evidence indicates that victims who gave a victim impact statement to the court felt no more satisfaction with the system than victims who did not (Erez, Roeger, and Morgan 1997), raising questions about what victims want. Victims may want information about the investigation and the prosecution more than a role in proceedings (Englebrecht, Mason, and Adams 2014; Stretesky et al. 2016). This study explores victims’ and criminal justice workers’ perceptions of the criminal justice system with elements of procedural justice and therapeutic jurisprudence, shedding light on how we might better meet victims’ independent interests.

Loss to Homicide

The loss of a loved one to homicide is a relatively unusual experience. Approximately 9 percent of adults have lost a family member or friend to homicide in the United States (Amick-McMullan, Kilpatrick, and Resnick 1991). In the late 1990s, when most of these study participants had lost their loved one, the murder rate in the United States was on the

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decline: 5.5 per 100,000 people in 2000, down from 10.2 in 1980 and 7.9 in 1985 (Fox and Zawitz 2003). The murder rate in Union County proved similarly low at the time of the study, with an average of 45 murder victims a year for a population of approximately 750,000 people ([Omitted State Name] Department of Health 2000; US Bureau of the Census 2001). The bereavement process following a murder tends to be complicated by the sudden and violent nature of the death, the criminal justice system’s involvement in the case, and others’ discomfort with the manner of death (Amick-McMullan et al. 1989; Amick-McMullan, Kilpatrick, and Resnick 1991; Burgess 1975; Englebrecht, Mason, and Adams 2014; Jacobs et al. 2016; Kenney 2004; Nakajima et al. 2012; Rando 1993; Stretesky et al. 2016). This book focuses on the system’s involvement in the case. Unsuccessful police investigations, lenient court officials, and insensitive criminal justice workers can negatively affect survivors’ grief process and contribute to posttraumatic stress disorder, complicated grief, substance abuse, and depression (Burgess 1975; Gekoski, Adler, and Gray 2013; Milman et al. 2018; Nakajima et al. 2012; Rheingold and Williams 2015; van Denderen et al. 2015). Several books examine this type of victimization (Bucholz 2002; O’Hara 2006; Rock 1998; Spungen 1998), but none of them approach the issue by using systematically collected interview data from survivors’ and criminal justice workers’ perspectives. This book examines homicide survivors’ sequential journey through the criminal justice system from the death notification to the trial.

Data for the Project

I chose to collect qualitative data for the study for several reasons. First, qualitative methods allow researchers to learn about a topic from the participant’s perspective, which is an empowering experience for marginalized or stigmatized groups. Second, homicide survivors represent a relatively small segment of the population, which means that probability sampling is not a practical method for recruiting participants (AmickMcMullan, Kilpatrick, and Resnick 1991). Third, it is time for victims to define the issues. This study gives victims a platform for voicing their concerns and defining the problem, while also considering workers’ experiences and constraints. Finally, qualitative research methods are appropriate for highly sensitive topics and emotionally vulnerable populations. I used a multimethod approach to data collection, including in-depth interviews and participant observation. I conducted audio-recorded interviews with 58 participants in total, including homicide survivors,3 detec-

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tives, prosecutors, counselors, judges, defense attorneys, and crime victim advocates (for a detailed explanation of the data, see the appendix). These different perspectives reveal where victims’ needs sometimes collide with and connect to criminal justice workers’ responsibilities and interests. All participants came from Union County with the exception of three victims who participated in pretest interviews in the early stages of the project; a fourth pretest interviewee came from Union County. To preserve confidentiality, details about some of the more high-profile murder cases have been altered to protect participants’ identities. For two years, I conducted participant observation of the Union County criminal justice system by volunteering as a victim services counselor with the police department, attending support group meetings for victims of murdered loved ones, and observing court hearings and trials in murder cases. The participant observation data provided context for and validation of the interview data. For more details on the project data, see the appendix.

Participants’ Demographic Characteristics Homicide Survivors

To provide context for participants’ experiences, it is important to note the demographic characteristics of the study participants. The homicide survivors participating in the study were 78 percent female and 22 percent male; in addition, 53 percent of the survivor participants were white, 31 percent were Latino, and 16 percent were black (for more details on the sample, see the appendix). The mean age of homicide survivors was 49 years. Most survivor participants were the parent of the deceased, and 56 percent of their cases were solved and resolved (i.e., a suspect was indicted, charged, and either tried or plea-bargained; a resolved case did not necessarily mean the suspect was found guilty) at the time of the interview. Survivor participants’ quotes are identified with a “V” or “Pretest” case number and pseudonym. Criminal Justice Professionals and Crime Victim Advocates

The 19 criminal justice professionals and 3 crime victim advocates participating in the study averaged 11 years of work experience and 107 murder cases over the course of their careers. The criminal justice

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worker participants included five detectives, four prosecutors, four counselors, three judges, and three defense attorneys, and all worker participants were from Union County. Three crime victim advocates from a Union County nonprofit organization also participated. Sixtyfour percent of the criminal justice worker and advocate respondents were male and 36 percent were female; in addition, 72 percent were white, 14 percent were Latino, 9 percent were Native American, and 5 percent were black (see the appendix). These participants’ quotes are identified with “CJ” case numbers and job titles. Survivors’ Perceptions of Bias

The racial and ethnic background of the homicide survivors differed from the criminal justice professionals and advocates in the study, such that a smaller proportion of whites appeared in the survivor sample than in the criminal justice professional and advocate sample. Given the significance of race and ethnicity in today’s world and in the criminal justice system, it bears noting that two homicide survivor participants (V23, Xavier Nettles and V02, Donna Taylor) described racial bias as a factor in the criminal justice system’s work on their loved ones’ murder cases. Xavier believed detectives assumed his son, a 21year-old African American man, died in a drive-by shooting fueled by a drug war, but Xavier knew his son had no drug ties. Donna believed the white defendant’s defense attorney portrayed her younger brother, a 20-year-old African American man, as a violent gang member to play on jurors’ racial biases and promote his client’s self-defense claim. Despite the paucity of homicide survivors’ mention of racial bias during the interviews, several described their perceptions of socioeconomic bias in the system. In these scenarios, homicide survivors indicated that families with money and political power received a “better process” (V31, Carmela Esparza) than “poor peon” (V25, Karinna Sheridon) families with “no money” (V17, Deidra Fiero). Throughout this book, survivors’ accounts of racial and socioeconomic bias are discussed as they arose in different parts of the system.

Plan for the Book

Homicide survivors wanted things not guaranteed by victims’ rights legislation, and the partial healing of the harm of their loss occurred in unexpected ways within the criminal justice system. These findings

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shed light on the lack of significant improvement in victims’ satisfaction with the criminal justice system. No one and nothing can truly heal the harm of a loss to murder; nothing can or will make it right. But the findings indicate that we can make the system and our responses to the loss better. By identifying some of the problems and offering suggestions for how to address them, I hope to inform the work of criminal justice professionals and victim advocates. In addition, this book relates to work and research in sociology (e.g., criminology, emotions, and death and dying), social work (e.g., bereavement counseling, crisis counseling), and the criminal justice system (e.g., law enforcement officers, prosecutors, counselors). The chapters are organized according to homicide survivors’ chronological walk through the criminal justice system from the initial death notification to the defendant’s trial or negotiated plea. I map the chronological milestones in a murder case—death notification, police investigation, prosecution, trial—against the conceptual themes identified in the data. Each chapter provides direct quotes from homicide survivors, criminal justice workers, and advocates. Each chapter begins with comments from one or two participants and features one participant’s specific experience; these opening comments and experiences crystallize the overarching themes in the chapter. Throughout the chapters, victim and criminal justice worker experiences are included as boxed text (see Victim Accounts, Counselor Accounts, and Detective Accounts); these boxes contain more detailed accounts of participants’ stories. Chapter 2 discusses how survivors learned about their loved one’s murder and how they responded to the news. The evidence suggests that the person who delivered the news and how it was delivered influenced survivors’ acceptance and recovery. Law enforcement officers admitted to disliking death notifications, and often delayed making the notification or asked counselors to make the notification on their behalf. Survivors responded to the news with crying, shock, and disbelief. Some survivors alternated between expressing and restraining their grief to both feel and function immediately following the news of the murder; the back-and-forth movement between grief and emotional restraint gave survivors more control over their physical response to the news. Chapter 3 turns to patterns in survivors’ encounters with law enforcement. The findings reveal two major sources of conflict with police: over the deceased’s body and over the investigation. First, detectives viewed the deceased’s body as a piece of evidence to preserve and protect while surviving family members viewed the deceased’s body as

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someone to hold, hug, and say good-bye to. These different definitions of the murder victim’s body created tremendous conflict in survivors’ relationship with detectives and the criminal justice system. In these encounters, homicide survivors felt harmed, not helped, by the police officers investigating their loved one’s murder. Survivors also wanted to provide detectives with information about potential suspects and motives and learn about the status of the investigation, but detectives wanted to keep a tight lid on case information and disliked getting advice from victims. Chapter 4 describes survivors’ perceptions of and experiences with the prosecutor handling their loved one’s case. State statutes and legal scholarship define the prosecutor as a representative of the state, not as an attorney for the victim (Erez and Roberts 2007). However, victims frequently contested this legal definition. Homicide survivors expressed an intense desire for the prosecutor to emotionally connect with them in a deep and meaningful way, and the triangulated project data demonstrate that—contrary to previous research on victims and prosecutors— many Union County prosecutors bonded with the families of murder victims. These emotional bonds benefited victims’ recovery and gave meaning to prosecutors’ work. Chapter 5 reports on homicide survivors’ encounters with victim services counselors in the Union County Police Department, Sheriff’s Office, and Prosecutor’s Office. As a relatively new position in the criminal justice system, counselors assisted victims and their families by providing crisis counseling immediately following the trauma, offering information about resources in the community, and explaining the bureaucracy of the criminal justice system. Counselors were put into place to reduce the likelihood of a secondary victimization. The findings from this research, however, raise questions about the effectiveness of victim services counseling following a loss to homicide. Although homicide survivors appreciated counselors’ offers of practical assistance (e.g., cleaning up blood on carpets and retrieving personal belongings after an investigation), many disliked counselors’ offers of emotional support. Homicide survivors sought an emotional connection with prosecutors, not with counselors (see Chapter 4). This emotional connection paradox appears to relate to survivors’ perception of the usefulness of emotions in criminal justice workers’ efforts on the murder case. Chapter 6 details victims’ expectations for and experiences with the murder trial and case resolution. Survivors sought a public airing of the facts and thought the solemn legal ritual of a trial would give them those facts and the reason for their loved one’s murder. The trial rarely

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gave victims the answers they sought or the relief they expected. Prosecutors anticipated and tried to warn victims of the post-trial letdown many families experienced. Chapter 7 examines the meaning of the murder case to survivors and for recovery. The murder case represented both an opportunity to do something for the deceased and the social significance of the deceased’s life. Whereas others assumed the murder case represented “closure,” survivors vehemently denied the link between closure to the murder case and an emotional closure to their loss. At the same time, survivors longed to have an ending to the case. Interestingly, survivors whose loved ones were killed in a murder-suicide had lower levels of depression than those whose loved ones were killed and the defendant was pursued (e.g., negotiated plea, guilty verdict, or not-guilty verdict). Exploring murder-suicide survivors’ discussions about case information revealed a strong positive link between survivors’ ability to learn details about the death and their recovery process; murder-suicide survivors learned case details sooner than other survivors, which appears to have helped their recovery. In Chapter 8, I offer some concluding remarks on the question of whether the criminal justice system does and can heal the harm of a loss to murder. The short answer is, in some ways yes, but in most ways no. This chapter explores the meaning of procedural justice and therapeutic jurisprudence in the context of participants’ experiences with the system. Finally, the appendix describes the setting for the study and the methods of data collection and analysis.

Notes

1. Homicide refers to the killing of one human being by another, and murder is the most serious type of homicide. In the literature, people who have lost a loved one to homicide are referred to as homicide survivors, homicidally bereaved, covictims, or bereaved victims (Goodrum 2008; van Denderen et al. 2015). In this book, the terms homicide and murder are used interchangeably because the distinction is irrelevant to the bereavement process for those who have experienced this type of loss. 2. The name of the state has been withheld to protect the identity of study participants. Some of the details of survivors’ experiences, as well as criminal justice worker participants’ job titles and years of service, could make them identifiable if the name of the state were revealed. The language from the victims’ rights legislation has been paraphrased for brevity and the listing of the rights has been reordered to further conceal the state’s and participants’ identities. 3. Two pairs of study participants shared the same loss: (1) Delia Jiminez (V18) and Rachel Donado (V20) talked about the murder of Erica, their 24-year-old

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After Homicide

niece and daughter (respectively); and (2) Norman and Maryanne Howard (Pretest A and B) talked about the murder of their 32-year-old daughter, Amy. Obtaining data from two participants with the same loss provided an opportunity to obtain different insights on the same murder case and victim–criminal justice interactions.

2 The News Is Delivered

That was our reality that [we] got thrust into. One [minute] she’s alive and the next hour you’re making plans to bury her. —Delia Jiminez, aunt of 24-year-old homicide victim (V18)

So [the detectives] told me that [the] body had [my son’s] kind of jewelry [on it]. I said, “That’s not my son. He’s going to show up any minute now . . . walk through that door and say, ‘I’m home mom.’” . . . The next day I . . . still didn’t believe [my son was dead]. —Andrea Castaneda, mother of 18-year-old homicide victim (V07)

One Tuesday night in the spring of 1998, Andrea Castaneda, a 48-year-old widow and mother, left work early to make her sons, Nolan and Damon, chicken enchiladas—their favorite dinner. She made the dinner and she and Nolan waited for Damon to join them. When Damon did not show up after an hour, they ate without him. When she thinks back on that night, Andrea admits to having felt really angry with Damon. After dinner, she called him several times, and when he did not return her calls, a behavior uncharacteristic of him, she started to worry. After dinner, she cleaned up and saved the leftovers. She worked on a volunteer project, and Nolan worked on a homework assignment at the dining room table until about eleven o’clock, when they headed to bed—with still no word from Damon. Andrea described her sleeplessness, as she lay in bed: 15

16

After Homicide

I couldn’t sleep. My eyes were wide open. Finally, about two o’clock [in the morning] the doorbell rang, and I jumped out of bed. I went to see who it was. There were two men from the Sheriff ’s Office . . . and then there were two ladies dressed in black T-shirts saying “Victim Services.” So, I looked at them, and I said [to myself], “What did my son get into, some kind of trouble or something?” (V07)

The deputies asked Andrea whether she owned a Buick LeSabre and if she had a son. Andrea answered “yes” to both questions. The deputies explained that earlier that evening off a dirt road in the county, they had found a burned Buick with a dead body next to it. The license plate registration showed that the car belonged to her. They wondered if it was her car and son. Andrea responded with disbelief and offered several reasons the dead body could not have been her son, such as Damon must have loaned the car to a friend, he was staying at a friend’s house, and he had no reason to be on a dirt road in the county. For three days, Andrea held onto those reasons and her disbelief. * * *

As you might imagine, the news of a loved one’s murder is devastating. Symbolic interactionist Norman Denzin (1990: 104) calls it a “shattering emotional experience,” which “leave[s] indelible marks on human character and human relationships.” These marks are formed as a result of the shocking nature of the news, the violent nature of the death, and sometimes how the survivor learns of the death. In this chapter, victims describe how they first learned of their loved one’s murder and how they reacted to the news. As the findings indicate, victims told their notification stories in exquisite and painful detail, often mentioning the precise time of day they heard the news, the exact words the teller used, and the immediate thoughts they had. The data reveal a clear relationship between the manner of the notification (e.g., made by police, friend, relative, or hospital staff) and the victim’s willingness to accept the news. Survivors more easily accepted the news when it came from a trusted friend or relative. In addition, criminal justice workers described death notifications in murder cases as difficult and time-consuming, and detectives sometimes delayed the notification or passed it off to a counselor to avoid witnessing the family’s grief and making the time commitment. Current victims’ rights legislation does not specifically address when and how family members should be notified of a loved one’s murder, and practically speaking, laws may not be able to address the timing or delivery of this type of news. As you might expect, there are few

The News Is Delivered

17

“good” ways to deliver the news, but the accounts indicate that there are several “bad” ways to do so. These notification stories started families on a journey they did not wish to take, and they often found themselves replaying the notification event over and over again in their minds (see also Gillies, Neimeyer, and Milman 2014). The findings are presented in three main sections: how victims learned the news, how they came to accept the news, and how they responded to it.

How They Learned the News Notifications Made by Law Enforcement

People learned of their loved one’s murder in four main ways: (1) from the police, (2) from a friend or relative, (3) by witnessing the murder or coming upon the scene, and (4) from a coroner or hospital worker (see Tables 2.1 and 2.2). Six of the 32 homicide survivor participants (19 percent) learned about their loved one’s death from the police,1 and like Andrea, these police-made notifications typically began with a knock on the door in the middle of the night.2 Andrea had received some hints of the bad news because of Damon’s absence and the arrival of the police. She thought about what the deputies’ and counselors’ presence might mean, and she immediately thought about Damon. She thought, “What did my son get into, some kind of trouble or something?” In research on telling bad news, Maynard (1996) found that news givers can “forecast” bad news with nonverbal and verbal cues, and this can help warn recipients about the bad news to come. Indeed, Andrea noticed and reflected on several of the nonverbal cues in law enforcement’s notification, including the identity of the people at her front door, the timing of their visit, and the solemn look on their faces (see Maynard 1996). As Andrea’s account suggests, detectives also used verbal forecasting cues in their notification, by providing a detailed description of the evidence. She said:

The [detectives] started asking me some questions [and if I had a 1983 Buick]. . . . I said, “It’s my car, but I bought it for my son Damon.” . . . I had some pictures of my son [in the living room] . . . and they [asked], “Is that your son?” I said, “Yeah, that’s my son.” So, they told me they had found a car like mine that was set on fire. They had found a body next to it, a dead body that had been shot in the head. But they didn’t know who the person was, because most of the body was already burned. They were wondering if that was my son. (V07)

18

Table 2.1 Background Characteristics of Homicide Survivor Participants and the Deceased Case

V01 V02 V03 V04 V05 V06 V07 V08 V09 V10 V11 V12 V13 V14 V15 V16 V17 V18 V19 V20

Homicide Survivor

Pseudonym

Nadia Becarria Donna Taylor Wendy Lawrence Steve Hernandez Vicky Kestler Katherine Talbert Andrea Castaneda Karen Noland Brad Carson Vince Norton Melissa Iker Zoe Nunoz Sal K. Halvata Katrina Danza Wanda Diaz Klementine Milton Deidra Fiero Delia Jiminez Carly Thompson Rachel Donado

Racea Ageb

L B W L B W L W W W W L W L L B B L W W

— 26 50 54 27 46 48 52 75 48 50 45 65 54 42 70 30 36 44 48

Pseudonym

Deceased

Trevor Becarria Frank Taylor Ken Napier Nicole Hernandez Korey Kestler Kelly Stevens Damon Castaneda Mark Noland Carl Carson Seth and Karen Norton Timothy Goreman Kelson Nunoz Henry Halvata Brian Danza Dominique Diaz Jr. Larry Bradshaw Nicholas Fiero Erica Donado Allen Keller Erica Donado

Agec

31 20 77 24 43 42 18 17 38 74 23 25 33 27 20 49 24 24 18 24

YOD

1995 1998 1998 1994 1994 1998 1998 1998 1996 1996 1997 1997 1996 1998 1997 1998 1998 1997 1997 1997

Relationship to Deceased Status of Case sister sister daughter father daughter sister mother mother father son mother mother father mother mother mother wife aunt mother mother

unsolved solved-resolved solved-resolved murder-suicide unsolved murder-suicide unsolved solved-resolved solved-resolved murder-suicide solved-resolved solved-resolved solved-resolved solved-resolved solved-resolved solved-resolved solved-resolved solved-resolved unsolved solved-resolved

continued

Table 2.1 Continued Case

V21 V22 V23 V24 V25 V26 V27 V28 V29 V30 V31 V32 A B C D

Homicide Survivor

Pseudonym

Natalie Harris Melissa Merton Xavier Nettles Dana Gifford Karinna Sheridon Nora Harden Fannie Quintanilla Barbara Yanez Martin Evans Steven Erikson Carmela Esparza Cara Eberhart Norman Howard Maryanne Howard Janice Edwards Lauren Spears

Racea Ageb

W W B W W W L L W W L W W W W W

55 52 61 51 46 45 43 46 65 57 38 46 — — — —

Notes: a. L = Latino/a; B = black; W = white. b. Age at time of interview. c. Age at time of death.

Pseudonym

Deceased

Alexander Belton Bonnie Merton Kennedy Nettles Noreen Gifford Roy Sheridon Harry Harden Terrill Espinoza Gary Yanez Luke Evans Ben Erikson Tamidor Rodriguez Kelly Herrera Amy Howard Amy Howard Erin Edwards Kevin Spears

Agec

49 23 21 17 33 25 21 19 25 23 18 46 32 32 17 23

YOD

1997 1996 1995 1996 1997 1998 1996 1997 1996 1998 1998 1998 — — — —

Relationship to Deceased Status of Case sister mother father mother wife mother mother mother father father sister sister father mother mother mother

solved-unresolved murder-suicide unsolved solved-resolved unsolved solved-unresolved solved-resolved solved-resolved murder-suicide solved-resolved unsolved solved-resolved unsolved unsolved solved-resolved solved-resolved

19

20

After Homicide

Table 2.2 Survivors’ Death Notification Deliveries and Timings How Survivors Learned the News

From a friend or relative From the police By coming upon or witnessing the scene From a doctor or coroner When Survivors Learned the News

Within 3 hours of the death 4 or more hours after the death

Percenta

n

53 19 16 13

17 6 5 4

59 41

19 13

Note: a. The percents may not total 100 due to rounding.

Little by little, the detectives shared the facts with Andrea, asking her to confirm her ownership of the Buick, the photographs of her son, and the jewelry he wore. This kind of listing of evidence represents a syllogism (i.e., the presentation of information to encourage deductive reasoning), where the news giver presents the facts and directs the recipient toward a particular conclusion (Maynard 1996). In a syllogism, the news giver does not actually state the conclusion (i.e., your son is dead). Instead, this approach gives recipients time to realize the news on their own and draw their own conclusions. Some believe this approach gives recipients more control over the timing of their realization and acceptance. In a death notification, the use of a syllogism may take more time than a straightforward notification, such as “Your son is dead,” but many detectives know that delivering a death notification in a homicide case takes time with or without a syllogism. A counselor with the Sheriff’s Office (see Table 2.3) said:

So, our people are trained [and] if I’m doing that death notification, I’m going to be very compassionate. I’m going to understand that I may have to deliver that message more than once. I’m going to have to give this person time to express their emotions about that and usually when you give a death notification of that nature it’s going to take fifteen or twenty minutes before that person is going to be able to come to any kind of understanding of what you’ve told them. (CJ09)

21

Victim Account 2.1 Receiving a Notification from the Police In the early morning hours of May 14, 1996, Norman Howard, a retired colonel with the US Army and the married father of four grown children, awoke to the sound of his doorbell ringing and loud knocking on his front door. He was home alone. His wife, Maryanne, was in Connecticut visiting her elderly mother, and his children had all moved away. Feeling alarmed and groggy, Norman climbed out of bed, shuffled to the front of his house, and looked out the front window. He saw two police officers standing on his porch. One of the officers saw him and said, “Can we talk to you?” When Norman opened the door, the officers said, “We’re looking for Norman or Maryanne Howard.” Norman said, “Yes, I’m Norman.” They continued, “Are you the father of Amy Howard?” Still feeling groggy and finding it hard to understand why two police officers were standing at his front door at two a.m., Norman rubbed his eyes and grumbled, “Yes, yes. Amy is my daughter, but she doesn’t live here. She lives in California.” He was feeling some uncertainty—not about his responses but about the reason for the officers’ questions. One of the officers said, “We’re sorry to bother you, but you’ve got to call California. Here’s the phone number.” Norman said that at that moment, he knew he was in trouble. He called the number, and the detective answering the phone delivered the horrible news—his 32-year-old daughter, Amy, the youngest of his four children and the apple of his eye, had been killed. Norman collapsed in shock. In thinking back on that moment, he can barely recall the officers helping him off the floor and hanging up the phone for him. The police officers helped him call his other daughter, Katie, who lived nearby. The officers insisted on staying with him until she arrived. When Katie arrived, the officers left and Norman called Maryanne. In her interview, Maryanne said, “The phone rang at four o’clock in the morning . . . and Norman got on the phone and he said, ‘There’s been an accident’ or something like that. And right away I said, ‘What happened to Amy?’ [Even though I have four kids and several grandchildren,] I just knew there was something wrong with Amy, but I never thought that she was dead. And he just Norman and Maryanne Howard (Pretest A and B)

continued

22 said, ‘She’s dead.’ And I just couldn’t believe it. I really couldn’t. It didn’t sink in, and I said, ‘Oh.’” Maryanne, Norman, and their son Norman Jr. (who lived in North Carolina at the time) all booked flights to California. They met up at the airport in California and rented a car. They immediately went to the police station to meet with detectives, and Norman Jr. made the identification of Amy from a photo in the coroner’s office. Norman and Maryanne expressed heartfelt appreciation to their son for his willingness to make the identification. In thinking about his time in California, Norman said, “I was a basket case.” He said, “They finally had to call a doctor back [home], and he called in a prescription [for me], and they put me down. I don’t know what it was, but it made me rest and relax a little bit.” He says that even now, four years later, he has trouble concentrating on things, he dislikes talking with friends, and he feels removed from his other children. He used to love playing golf, but his inability to concentrate on the game has led him to lose interest. Maryanne responded to the news much differently, and her account suggests that Norman fell apart while she helped pick up the pieces. Maryanne said, “It was strange. You’d think I’d burst into tears or something, ’cause Norm couldn’t stop crying, but I couldn’t cry. It just seemed too profound for tears. . . . It was like I had almost no emotions at all. It was just numbing.” While in California, Maryanne started to make Amy’s funeral arrangements; she arranged to have her daughter’s body flown home, she selected a burial outfit from her daughter’s closet, and she got medicine from the vet to fly Amy’s dog, Sunshine, home with them. In describing her and Norman’s different responses to Amy’s murder, Maryanne said, “I just [did] things, and [Norm] got a prescription.” Norman readily admits that he fell apart while Maryanne kept moving. He said that he had trouble standing, sleeping, and holding back tears. Maryanne, on the other hand, couldn’t cry. Norman says that he has not been the same since his daughter’s death, and even after “46 months” (as he described), he still waits for justice. Norman’s experiences and his view that a trial in his daughter’s unsolved murder case would help him feel better capture the central question motivating this research: Can the criminal justice system help heal the harm of a loss to murder?

The News Is Delivered

Table 2.3 Criminal Justice Workers’ Background Characteristics Case

CJ01 CJ02 CJ03 CJ04 CJ05 CJ06 CJ07 CJ08 CJ09 CJ10 CJ11 CJ12 CJ13 CJ14 CJ15 CJ16 CJ17 CJ18 CJ19 CJ20 CJ21 CJ22

M/F

Average

F F M M M F F M F M M M M M M F F F M M M M

Racea Age

L L L W W W W B NA W W W NA W W W W W W W W W

37 38 48 48 46 57 43 50 44 60 34 38 60 50 55 36 53 75 53 35 45 48

Position

Counselor Counselor Detective/Sgt. Prosecutor Detective Counselor Prosecutor Judge Counselor Detective Prosecutor Detective Advocate Defense atty. Judge Detective Advocate Advocate Judge Prosecutor Defense atty. Defense atty.

Division

Police DA’s Office Police DA’s Office Police DA’s Office DA’s Office Courts Sheriff’s Office Sheriff’s Office DA’s Office Sheriff’s Office Advocacy group

Courts Police Advocacy group Advocacy group Courts DA’s Office

23

Years Exp.

Cases/ Year

Cases Total

11

13

107

6 12 8 30 8 2 16 3 3 11 8 4 1b 21 18 2 11 20 8 3 20 17

32 11 35 10 15 5 6 36 2 4 5 6 — 3 14 3 24 — 9 10 4 17

173 126 280 200 150 10 88 108 4 20 40 15 — 18 243 7 270 — 45 20 38 289

Notes: a. L = Latino/a; B = black; W = white; NA = Native American. b. One year as director of the advocacy group and 37 years as police officer with the last 7 of those as the director of victim services.

To be more specific, detectives used “investigative syllogisms” to deliver the news of murder to family members. Andrea’s example and other study data suggest that the investigative syllogism serves two purposes in murder notifications: (1) it helps detectives confirm the facts in a case and (2) it helps survivors realize the likely conclusion on their own. First, when detectives have some but not all of the evidence in a case, they use the death notification to gather additional information. By asking homicide survivors questions about the current evidence and their knowledge of or relationship to that evidence, detectives can rule out some possibilities and confirm others (e.g., Do you own a 1983 Buick LeSabre? Is this your car [showing a photo]? Do you have a teenage son? When was the last time you saw or talked

24

After Homicide

to him?). The step-by-step presentation of questions about the evidence helps verify some information (e.g., Yes, I have a 1983 Buick Le Sabre) and rule out others (e.g., No, my son is not home right now). Second, the syllogism means that the detective does not actually have to state the conclusion, “Your son is dead.” Survivors can reach that conclusion on their own. Andrea’s and other participants’ experiences suggest that there is a drawback to the investigative syllogism in death notifications. A reluctant or denial-prone survivor may dismiss one or more of the facts and delay their realization and acceptance of those facts. Andrea reasoned, “Maybe [my son] lent the car to somebody. Are you sure it’s him?” Then she emphatically told detectives, “That’s not my son. . . . He’s going to show up any minute now” (V07). If the survivor can cast doubt on any one of the pieces of evidence detectives present in the investigative syllogism, she can maintain disbelief and postpone acceptance. Other survivors accepted detectives’ news of the death without hesitation. One Friday night, Deidra Fiero’s 24-year-old husband had gone out to wash and vacuum his car shortly before they planned to go out for dinner, but he never came home. Deidra fell asleep on the couch waiting for him. She said:

I was [woken up at] around two in the morning [by the police at my door]. That’s when they came and told me that he had been shot and killed, and they asked me when was the last time that I saw him and I told them around seven something. And they asked me did I know of his whereabouts and I told them, “Yes, I was aware that he was at the car wash because he called at 8:03 and he told me [he would be home soon].” . . . That’s all I can tell you about that day. It was over and done with and my life changed after that. It really did. (V17)

In Deidra’s case, detectives delivered the news of her husband’s murder rather bluntly. They did not have questions about the make or model of her husband’s car or the identity of the body found at the car wash. Instead, they told her “that [her husband] had been shot and killed,” and Deidra quickly accepted the reality of the news. However, the project data also indicate that the Union Police Department and Union County Sheriff’s Office did not always handle death notifications in a timely manner. In fact, more than one-third of homicide survivor participants (n = 11) learned about the murder a day or two after the police learned about the death. The time lag between the police’s awareness of the death and their effort to deliver the news

The News Is Delivered

25

to the next of kin upset several survivors, and this frustration represented the first major source of dissatisfaction in homicide survivors’ encounters with police in particular and the system in general. While evidence does not suggest that these inefficiently made notifications hindered survivors’ long-term recovery, they did become notable sticking points in their stories and evaluations of the police. Police delay death notifications in murder cases for three main reasons: (1) investigative work took priority in the case, (2) detectives felt uncomfortable with the notification encounter, and (3) detectives sometimes had difficulty identifying and locating the deceased’s next of kin. First, detectives’ primary responsibility is to solve the murder, putting the death notification low on their list of priorities. Detectives know that the likelihood of solving a case declines rapidly after the first 48 hours, and this fact weighs heavily on their minds. One detective, with 11 years of experience, explained: “The first 48 hours in a homicide are critical. It’s the most critical time. If you have not latched onto a pretty good suspect within 48 hours, there’s a pretty good chance that it’s not going to solve overnight. It’s going to be a little while down the road” (CJ10). Detectives wanted to focus on conducting a solid investigation, not on notifying the family. They knew from prior experience that notifications are time-consuming. To convey the amount of work required, one detective listed all of his responsibilities in a murder investigation. He said:

[My responsibilities include] finding the crook [and] catching him. Doing it right [by asking]: Do you need a search warrant? Do you not? Can you interview [the suspect]? Can you not? There are lots of decisions that gotta be made right now, and you hope you’re right. So, the whole process is tough. You’re called out; you’ve been up all day; you’re in bed for ten minutes; you’re called out [again], and you finally talk to your suspect. . . . There’s just a lot of questions and a lot of things coming up that you gotta analyze and figure out what to do. So, it’s all tough. (CJ05)

Another detective explained:

Sometimes a family member will need to sit there for two hours and cry or scream or do whatever they need to do [following the notification]. . . . We usually make the notification, and we will stay around for a while, but unfortunately, time constraints don’t let us stay with the family for four or five hours to try to make sure they get through

26

After Homicide

it. . . . The counselor has the time to sit there and kinda go through the process with them. (CJ16)

Detectives frequently asked counselors to accompany them on the notification, and counselors often made the actual notification. One detective explained: “[Victims’ assistance has] really been a godsend to investigators. . . . Because you deal with the family as much as you need to [in the notification] and yet you’re not burdened in your investigation. . . . You’re not burdened with—and don’t take this wrong—all the minor questions they have” (CJ10). The counselors provided crisis counseling at the scene and information about case procedures (e.g., evidence collected, warrant issued, bond set, indictment issued, hearing scheduled). Counselors explained the steps in the criminal justice process, such as the coroner performing an autopsy, the deceased’s body being released to the funeral home, and detectives conducting an investigation. One counselor said she trained her staff to allow for a lot of time in death notifications: “The one thing that I think that I do and I train my staff to do, is when you’re delivering this type of message, don’t have a time frame in mind that says that, ‘I need to be out of here in an hour.’ [The notification] takes as long as it takes” (CJ09). Observations of the Union Police Department’s volunteer victim services training program confirmed that full-time and volunteer counselors were expected to allow plenty of time for death notifications to next of kin. These observations—along with homicide survivors’ accounts— revealed that no standard protocol existed for death notifications in murder cases. But no standard protocol may be possible. Each case involves a unique set of circumstances (e.g., violent stabbing, victim missing and presumed dead, accidental shooting) and various stages of resolution (e.g., suspect identified and arrested, suspected identified and not yet arrested, suspect not yet identified); as a result, no single formula can be used to notify families of a loved one’s murder. A detective with 11 years of experience said, “No two cases are the same. Every case is different” (CJ10). The participant observation and interview data indicate that detectives and counselors typically made the notification together and in person, but when the deceased’s family lived out of town or out of state, Union County law enforcement agencies relied on the surviving family’s local police department to make the notification on their behalf or they made the notification by phone. At times, the police delayed making the death notification by several hours or even a day. Nora Harden’s 25-year-old son, Harry, had

The News Is Delivered

27

recently returned home to live with her after breaking up with his livein girlfriend. When Harry did not come home one Friday night, Nora thought maybe he was staying with his ex-girlfriend and trying to work things out. The following afternoon, however, the ex-girlfriend’s mother left Nora a voicemail asking her to call her so that they could talk. Nora said, “[My son’s ex-girlfriend’s mother came] over and that is when she told me that [my son] had been shot and that he had died [the night before] and that he was in the Union County morgue. At first, I just told her that was probably a rumor that she had heard, because if anything, I would have heard about it right away, because I’m his mother.” Once she saw her son’s body at the morgue, she said, “All the questions started racing through my mind. ‘Why didn’t anybody [from the police] call me?’ [I mean,] my address is on my son’s license!” (V26). Nora assumed she would have been immediately informed of her son’s death because she was his mother and her home address was on his license. In addition, the murder occurred just down the street from her house. Nora questioned detectives’ ability to gather the evidence and build a strong case for her son when they could not even locate his mother. Several participants learned about the death from a friend, not the police. When Melissa Merton’s daughter’s office called her to say that her 23-year-old daughter, Bonnie, had not shown up for work by 9:30 a.m., Melissa knew something was wrong. So, that day, we kept calling the police [for five hours], and they kept saying, “Well, the detectives are going over to her apartment.” [Then, they said,] “Well, the detectives are breaking in now. We’ll know something in a little while. We’ll call you,” and they didn’t call. Well, then the crime victims’ services girls showed up and I said, “Why are you here?” They said, “Because you have a missing person,” which I kind of doubted but I made three more calls to the police department and it was now about 2:30 p.m. [with still no word].

Melissa continued: “Bonnie’s best friend came to the door crying and she said, ‘I’m so sorry,’ and we said, ‘What?’ And here this little girl [my daughter’s best friend] had to tell us that Bonnie had been found, that Sloan [had shot and] killed her . . . [and had] shot himself.” When a victim services counselor finally arrived to her home six hours after her first call to police and an hour after her daughter’s friend told them the news, the counselor said, “I’m sorry to inform you your daughter has been killed.” Melissa said, “I just went off on him. . . . I said, ‘Well,

28

After Homicide

it’s a fine time for you to tell us! My parents had to find out on the news!’” (V22). Melissa was outraged that despite her repeated phone calls to the police and the victim services counselors coming to her door, she heard the news from her daughter’s best friend. Victims described the notification as devastating, life-changing, and shocking, and they viewed their relationship with the deceased as sacred and important. To not get the news of the death in a timely manner suggested that their relationship to the deceased proved insignificant and their needs ranked low in police department priorities. The delays in the notification also presented problems for victims’ trust in the police and their work on the case. Some of these late-notified survivors felt that if the police could not find them and notify them of their loved one’s death, how would they ever find and arrest the suspect? Moreover, the realization that the death happened the day or evening before the police made the notification made the news seem unfathomable and difficult to accept (e.g., “This cannot be. I would have heard about it!”). It is difficult to measure the impact these delayed notifications had on homicide survivors’ trust for and confidence in the police and the system. The second reason police may delay the death notification relates to the emotionally draining nature of the encounter. Elena, a victim services counselor with more than five years of experience, said the hardest part about her work with victims was making the death notification. “The death notification is pretty hard. . . . I think the first day [and] the first interaction with [the family] is the hardest, ’cause their emotions are very, very intense. It’s kind of hard to deal with that. Just seeing them through the pain is hard” (CJ01). One detective admitted that he did not like seeing homicide survivors’ raw emotions; he preferred to meet with them after they had been told about the death. He said, “Talking to the family [at the death notification] . . . is tough. I’d rather talk to them after they’ve been told. ’Cause they’ve already gotten that, for the most part, crying out of the way, that raw emotions. So, that’s the part I don’t like. I don’t like notifying next of kin” (CJ05). Another detective, with eight years of experience, agreed that seeing death notifications proved difficult because nothing he or anyone else did could alleviate homicide survivors’ intense pain.

Watching somebody go through an experience like [a death notification] is not easy. I mean, it’s a really difficult thing to do. But there’s really very little that we can control about that. There really isn’t too much that we can control. . . . We can try to be sensitive, [but] . . .

The News Is Delivered

29

regardless of what we do, I’m really not sure that much registers at that time. (CJ03)

Death notifications prove draining, and detectives’ ability to help the bereaved is quite limited. Not much that detectives say and do registers with or helps victims at the time of the notification. The shock is too intense; the loss is too devastating. In her work on the sociology of emotions, Peggy Thoits (1989) speculates that offers of support correlate with the level of need in a curvilinear manner, such that those with moderate levels of need receive more support while those with low and high levels of need receive less support due to perceptions that support is not needed or will not actually help. Counselors and detectives may delay the notification simply to avoid a difficult encounter where “there’s really very little that we can control.” Law enforcement professionals, particularly detectives, like control. They like solving problems—identifying the bad guy, finding the bad guy, and arresting the bad guy. Working with traumatized victims, however, is a major part of detective work. Homicide detectives engage in emotional labor in their work with victims’ families (see Goodrum and Stafford 2003; see also Hochschild 2003). Emotional labor is “the management of feeling” of others (and the self) in a work setting (Hochschild 2003: 7).3 Every day, workers engage in emotional labor to influence how others (e.g., coworkers, clients, supervisors) feel about a particular situation. Workers on the front lines (e.g., sales clerks, receptionists, flight attendants, bill collectors) swallow their frustration and appease others’ anger as part of their work and to meet organization goals. For example, when professors deliver bad news about failing exam grades, they often try to kindle hope for better grades on future assignments and instill fear to promote stronger study skills. Faced with difficult encounters, such as death notifications and suspect interrogations, detectives must manage their own and others’ emotions like professionals (Goodrum and Stafford 2003). However, criminal justice workers’ emotional labor efforts grew more difficult when the detective or counselor could imagine himself or herself in the survivor’s situation. A detective with the Sheriff’s Office elaborated on this point:

When I have a grieving mother or father that lost their kid, that’s really hard, really hard. . . . As far as dealing with the victims, a lot of times whenever they get real emotional, I can understand what they’re going through. I’ve seen it many, many times, and sometimes it bothers me and

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sometimes it doesn’t. And I guess it bothers me more whenever it’s children involved or somebody young than [when] it is an older person. And that may be because I have kids. I can’t imagine losing my kids. (CJ12)

The detective said he “can’t imagine” losing his kids. In all likelihood, he does not want to imagine it. That image makes these encounters quite rough. Role-taking, or putting oneself in another person’s shoes, promotes smooth social interaction (Blumer 1969), and emotional roletaking allows observers to imagine another’s feelings. When observers decline to imagine the victim’s feelings, it limits their ability to extend sympathy. Professionals often do not want to take the role of the other in these situations, and this resistance emerges as a strategy for managing their emotions. In a departure from most other law enforcement workers, a detective with 11 years of experience said that he preferred to do the death notification in homicide cases. He said, “I kinda feel it’s my responsibility [to do the death notification]. [In all] the homicides that I have worked, I have done the death notification.” When asked, “How come you feel it’s your responsibility?,” he replied:

Who else is going to do it? Who else knows where the person was found, how the person was found, because these are questions you’re going to get asked. And . . . your answers are going to have to be tempered. You’re not going to tell a mother that her 19-year-old son was found with his face shot off with a shotgun. So, you’ve got to temper the questions to the person’s emotional stability at that particular point. And the majority of them will listen to you. I’m not going to tell you what he looked like; I’m not going to tell you what the condition of his body was. We’ll [just] tell you he was killed by a shotgun. (CJ10)

While most detectives avoided death notifications, they admitted that they sometimes used them to eliminate or confirm the survivor as a murder suspect in the investigation. In fact, detectives consider “emotional” reactions from survivors to be “normal,” and they use emotional reactions to categorize survivors into “normal survivor” and “abnormal survivor” categories. The “abnormal (or unemotional) survivor” is a suspect in the murder. One counselor explained, “[Detectives] are all very paranoid. . . . Everybody’s a suspect until they find out what happens” (CJ01). Similar types of “normal crime” categorization schemes have emerged among public defenders (Sudnow 1965). Public defenders use their understanding of offense category types, offender characteristics, and offense location to stereotype or categorize their clients’ cases. This stereotyp-

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ing provides an efficient tool for caseload management (Sudnow 1965). Skolnick (2011: 237) also finds stereotyping in police departments. He explained, “As a system of organization, a bureaucracy can hope to achieve efficiency only by allowing officials their own means for solving specific problems that interfere with their capacity to achieve productive results.” A detective’s categorization of a homicide survivor as a normal or abnormal bereaved provides a shortcut for eliminating or implicating the survivor as a suspect in the investigation. The third and final reason for delays in police-made notifications involved the difficulty in identifying and locating the deceased’s next of kin. The identification and location process can take time—particularly when the family lives out of state, when one or more family members is a suspect in the murder, and when the deceased’s body is found without identification. The challenges with notification became particularly evident during observations of the Union Police Department. During one of my shifts as a volunteer victim services counselor:

The director of victim services, Elena, and I were called to the main station to conduct a death notification in a homicide case. When we arrived, Detective Benivedez said he was still trying to identify the deceased’s next of kin. He said, “We suspect that the deceased’s wife committed the murder and she is currently in police custody. I still need to find out information on the man’s other relatives. Can you wait a little while for me to gather that information?” Elena and I agreed to wait another 15 minutes, until Elena started to grow impatient and asked the detective, “When can we notify the victim?” A second detective overheard Elena’s question and jokingly yelled, “The victim is dead.” Elena rolled her eyes and said sarcastically, “Very funny.” The first detective never offered a serious answer. We waited 30 more minutes, but then Elena grew frustrated. She told the detective, “When you have the next of kin, call me. I have other calls to take. We’re leaving.” Elena later confided, “They always say [stuff like the victim’s dead]. They like to get a rise out of me.” (Participant Observation Field Notes)

Counselors sometimes felt caught between detectives’ priority to solve the murder and victims’ need to hear the news of the death. In the early stages of a murder case, counselors must wait for detectives to identify the next of kin to make the notification. Counselors cannot identify the next of kin themselves, and they held little authority over when the notification could actually occur. Detectives made the decision on the timing of the notification, but they typically did not want to be the ones to actually make the notification.

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Notifications Made by Friends or Relatives

Most participants (53 percent) heard about the murder from a friend or relative, not the police. Of all the ways to learn about the death, hearing the news from a friend or relative appeared to help bereaved family members accept (or realize) the news more quickly than the other three types of notification methods common in this study (police-made, self-made, and hospital-made). Melissa Iker, the mother of 23-year-old Timothy, lived out of state at the time of her son’s murder, but her stepson—who lived locally—received the news of the death from a friend, called his father (Melissa’s ex-husband) with the news, and his father contacted Melissa’s local police department. She said: The [dispatcher] that took the call from my ex-husband [about my son’s murder] . . . is a friend of the family’s and . . . her sons were all friends with my son. So, she sent the police to find my husband [and son’s stepdad] to come to my office and tell me because she didn’t want the police to do it. [When asked, “How did your husband tell you?” she said with her voice shaking,] “In tears.” [Crying.] “All he could say was, ‘Timothy died.’” (V11)

Having a relative or friend make the death notification in a murder case yielded two modest benefits. Homicide survivors’ accounts suggest that one benefit is that the news is slightly easier to accept and realize when a friend or loved one delivers it because of the intimacy of the relationship between the deliverer and the recipient. Survivors described knowing “the worst” when they saw the expression on their relative’s or friend’s face. The nonverbal cues from a friend or loved one may prove easier to read than the nonverbal cues a stranger provides. When a loved one approaches us with a solemn face, we know the news is bad. When a stranger approaches us with a solemn face, we may question the meaning of the expression—Is he mad? Is he sad? A relative’s or friend’s facial expression, however, can provide familiar and meaningful forecasting cues, which make the realization easier to process. The second benefit relates to the victim’s perception of the friend or loved one as a trusted source. The evidence indicates that homicide survivors were less likely to doubt or question the news of the murder when a friend or relative delivered it—even when that friend or relative had first learned about the news from police. The survivors notified by a friend or relative did not seem to struggle to make sense of or

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believe the news during the notification, like the notified-by-police survivors did. Friends and relatives may be better equipped to provide victims with specific kinds of support (e.g., hugs, compassion, understanding) than are police. In a few cases, however, the friend or relative delivered the news in an insensitive manner. One Sunday afternoon, Dana Gifford started trying to contact her 17-year-old daughter, Noreen, who had spent the weekend with friends. Her daughter’s teenage friends were unable— or perhaps unwilling—to tell Dana where her daughter was, and some of the information the friends shared did not make sense. Noreen’s friends were trying to cover up her drug relapse, and Dana knew it. After many calls and desperate voicemail messages, Irina, one of Noreen’s girlfriends, finally called Dana. With anger and sadness in her voice, Dana said:

Irina [was] screaming, “She’s dead!” She was hysterical. I said, “What?” She said, “She’s dead!” I said, “What?” She said, “She’s fucking dead! They fucking killed her!” . . . I was shaking from head to toe and of course, I was thinking that it was a mistake, that she was unconscious, and that I was going to go to her and get her help . . . [Cries]. (V24)

Dana thought it was a mistake. But Noreen was not unconscious; she was dead from a gunshot wound to the face. Two main factors distinguish Dana’s notification experience from others in this category. She received the news by telephone (not in person) and in an insensitive manner (e.g., “she’s fucking dead”). Because this kind of screaming delivery sounds overly dramatic and because a teenager made the notification, it may not have seemed believable. In a finding that has important implications for other types of bad news notifications, the evidence suggests that families accepted the news more readily when it was delivered in a sympathetic and heartfelt way by a trusted friend or loved one. Sociologist Douglas Massey (2002) has argued that the emotional part of the brain can prepare the rational part of the brain to interpret and understand information, because the emotional brain perceives information from the outside world before the rational brain does, which helps condition the rational brain to receive information. Thus, a sympathetic delivery of the news from a trusted source may act as the compassionate lens that disarms a survivor’s inclination to dismiss this unfathomable news and allows the grieving process to begin.

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Coming upon or Witnessing the Scene

Five of the 32 survivors learned of the death by either discovering the deceased’s body or witnessing the murder. As we might expect, the survivors who witnessed the murder or discovered the deceased’s body had higher levels of emotional distress than those who learned of the death from someone else. Unknowingly coming upon the murder scene provoked the most long-term psychological distress among victims. Wendy Lawrence was a hardworking mother of two grown children and two grandchildren, and she shared a two-bedroom apartment with her elderly father. She described coming upon the scene:

[When] we got [home], the screen was off the window and sitting right by the door and the window was open and the blinds were blowing. It didn’t register with me [that something was wrong]. But my (nine-yearold) granddaughter [knew something was wrong]. . . . [Her 77-year-old father was lying on the floor of the living room]. I bent down to feel for a pulse and I didn’t [feel one] and he was cold already. So, I knew that it was too late and I went straight and got the phone, called 911 and I told them that something was wrong. (V03)

The police’s response became a “big mess,” because for three days, detectives classified her father’s death as “natural,” not a homicide. Eventually, investigators revealed that a crack-addicted woman broke into their apartment, forced her father to the ground, and stole money from him. The altercation led to his heart attack. Wendy suffered from posttraumatic stress disorder, including flashbacks and memory loss. Looking off into the distance during our interview, she said, “I’m just barely hanging in there.” Vince Norton also unknowingly came upon the scene of his elderly parents’ murder-suicide. When his aunt had not been able to reach his parents by phone for several days, she grew concerned and asked Vince to do a welfare check. He explained, “I [told my aunt] ‘I’ll go over and check on them.’ So, I went over there and that’s how I found out [that my father had shot my mother and then himself] ’cause they were dead when I got there” (V10). Wendy and Vince unexpectedly came upon these murder scenes in their own and their relatives’ homes. They found themselves in a familiar setting, trying to make sense of a disturbing and unfathomable scene. If the news of murder represents a “shattering emotional experience,” the discovery of a murder represents a shattering visual scene, a scene that proves difficult to shake and impossible to erase.

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Victim Account 2.2 Witnessing the Murder It was a beautiful spring afternoon when Katrina Danza, a 54-year-old divorced mother of four adult children, made a large dinner for her family. She was excited because all three of her sons—Brian, Daniel, and Frank—were coming home for dinner, and her oldest son, Brian, had just finished coaching his son’s Little League baseball game. When Brian came bursting through the door, he was excited about the baseball team’s progress since the last season and his son’s home run that evening. She said Brian walked by the stove to see that his mom had made his favorite dinner, liver and onions, and he went down the hall to change his clothes for dinner. Katrina was in the kitchen watching TV and finishing the dinner when she heard her sons yelling in the front yard. She went out to her front porch in her bare feet to see what was going on, thinking she would be outside for just a minute. When she looked out, she saw Brian, standing across the street. She said: Katrina Danza (V14)

I didn’t know what was going on. . . . I stood at the edge of the porch and . . . I kept hearing [two of my sons] say, “Brian, he’s got a gun! Get down! Brian!” . . . I saw Brian telling the guy, “Man, don’t do it! Don’t do it!” [Brian] had his hands up and he was telling the guy, “Man, we don’t have a weapon. Don’t do it!” That guy . . . pulled up his hand and he shot one shot in the air . . . and in a split second, he brought the gun down like that and he just shot at him twice . . . and he turned around and started running. I ran over to where Brian was, and my other son, Daniel . . . said, “Mom, don’t, don’t! You don’t want to get near him!”

Katrina could not stay away. She had to be near him, and she wanted to help. She said:

And I don’t know how I pulled myself through. I went and got near him and I was calling him and he wouldn’t answer me . . . my boyfriend had taken me some holy water and I was blessing Brian. (We’re Catholic.) So, I was blessing him and asking God to help him and if he was dead, for him to forgive him his sins. . . . When the [paramedics] turned him around, I undid his leg and when I undid his leg, it just went down and I knew he was dead, because he had no [control].

continued

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After Homicide

Katrina witnessed her son’s murder, and while she had trouble making sense of the reasons for his death, she did not have trouble understanding that he was gone. Like other survivors who witnessed their loved one’s murder, she seemed to move relatively quickly to understanding and acceptance. While victim services counselors eventually confirmed Brian’s death for her, Katrina said she knew he was dead when the paramedics rolled him onto his back and she saw how limp his leg was.

A handful of homicide survivors actually witnessed their loved one’s murder. They saw the events of the murder unfold before them, sometimes in what felt like slow motion. Karen Noland was at home with her two teenage children one Friday evening in April when another teenager, with a drug problem, trespassed onto their property for an attempted burglary. Karen’s 17-year-old son, Mark, tried to stop the trespasser, but during a scuffle on their front porch, the other teen stabbed and killed Mark and ran from the scene. Karen described:

It was about four o’clock in the morning and Kate, my daughter, woke me up [yelling], “Mark’s in a fight in the front yard!” And my son had never been in a fight in his life. And I get up and I go out on the front porch and [Mark]’s holding the kid, and he’s punching him and trying to get him to be still. And [he was] telling us to call 911. . . . And I go back to check on my son and he [was] staggering in the front door. . . . [The suspect] stabbed my son through the heart and lung and he fled . . . [and then] the ambulance got here . . . [but] I knew in my heart that he was dead, but they didn’t actually tell us that for three hours. . . . But seeing your son sit there and say, “Mom, I don’t want to die,” and then collapsing on you. You never get over that. (V08)

The coming-upon-the-scene and witnessing-the-murder types of notifications represented the most traumatic types of notifications for two reasons, which are obvious and important. First, seeing the deceased’s body is a disturbing image that proves difficult to shake. Second, when family members unwittingly came upon or witnessed their loved one’s murder, they had no warning of the horrible news to come (e.g., a friend’s sad expression, the police’s presence). Those kinds of nonverbal cues can prove quite beneficial to bereaved family members’ understanding and acceptance of the news. Surprisingly, although we might

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expect that coming upon the scene would enforce reality and, therefore, acceptance of the news of the loss, the findings on responses (shared in the second section in this chapter) suggest otherwise. Notifications Made by Hospital Staff or the Coroner

Four of the 32 survivors learned of the death from an emergency medical technician, emergency room doctor, or coroner. Homicide survivors’ accounts suggest that medical professionals delivered the notification in surprisingly insensitive ways. Carly Thompson learned that her 18-yearold son had been shot when a nurse in the local emergency room called her shortly after midnight one Saturday morning. She explained: I got a phone call from Castler Hospital that I needed to get down there because my son had been shot. . . . [When I got there] the first thing [I asked was], “What are the odds? What are the chances [he’s going to make it]?” And they [told] me, “No chance.” . . . On TV [they will say, he has a] 50-50 [chance], but [the nurse] had nothing for me.

Carly had difficulty believing the news when the nurse gave her no hope for her son’s survival, and she questioned the amount of effort the doctors and nurses put into trying to save him. She said, “The doctor came out and talked to me and he said that he didn’t have much of a chance [because] he was still bleeding. They had missed a nick in him, where the bullet went in. In my opinion, at that time, I don’t think the doctors did a [good] job on him. They had already given up on him” (V19). Giving a parent some hope that their injured child may recover could provide enough forecasting for the survivor to mentally prepare for the news of the tragic and sudden loss, and some hints—like a relative’s sad face or a detective’s investigative syllogism—may help survivors begin to process and eventually accept the devastating news. Forecasting (e.g., “I have some bad news”; “Your son was severely injured”; “His chances are not great”) may alleviate some survivors’ dissatisfaction with a blunt or insensitive notification (e.g., “He’s not going to make it”). Sal Halvata, a state legislator in a neighboring state and a successful entrepreneur, learned of his 33-year-old son, Henry’s, murder from the Union County coroner. After a difficult adolescence, Henry had started getting his life back on track and he had recently made a fresh start in Union County. He had a bike, a new job, and a new apartment. He rode his bike to and from work, and one night after work, he went to

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a neighborhood bar. While at the bar, he got into an altercation with another patron and the bouncer. Sal said:

[I got a call from] the coroner’s office. “Are you Sal K. Halvata?” and I said, “Yes.” And he said, “Do you have a son by the name of Henry Halvata?” and I said, “Yes.” And he said, “Well, he was killed in an accident last night.” And it was pretty cold, and I said, “Uh, what happened?” He told me as much as he knew, gave me kind of a clinical detail of how he died. And he said, “Are you going to make arrangements to have his body picked up?” [Nervous laughter] And I said, “Sir, I can’t talk to you about this right now. I don’t know at this point what I’m gonna do about anything.” So, he said, “We’re pretty crowded.” (V13)

Participants described these hospital- and coroner-made notifications quite negatively. For professionals who frequently deliver bad news to family and friends, they appeared to be the least compassionate and least prepared to offer support. What do all of these notification stories tell us about survivors’ experiences with the notification? What do these stories tell us about how to improve the death notification encounter? First, at the risk of stating the obvious, it is a horrible situation. Detectives, counselors, hospital staff, friends, relatives, and coroners do not want to deliver the news of a murder, and homicide survivors do not want to hear it. They all know this. Yet there is room for improvement. A comparison of the notification stories reveals that many could have been delivered in a more timely and sensitive manner. Of course, the dissatisfaction with the notification may provide a safe place to put a victim’s anger over the larger situation—the loss of a loved one to murder. Indeed, dissatisfaction with the notification may provide a distraction from the loss and grief, which could give the individual time to accept the devastating news and a break from the emotional pain of the loss. Anger is action oriented. Grief, on the other hand, is carried internally and can feel debilitating (not empowering). Thus, feeling angry toward the person delivering the news for the way they did so may be a better alternative to feeling grief over the loss, at least temporarily.

How They Came to Accept the News

Most homicide survivors immediately understood and accepted the news of their loved one’s murder, but a handful had difficulty believing

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it. Andrea Castaneda, who learned about her son’s death from a latenight visit from law enforcement detectives and counselors, quickly dismissed detectives’ claim that her son had been murdered. She said, “I told them, ‘No, that can’t be my son.’ I said, ‘Maybe he loaned the car to somebody and stayed at somebody’s house overnight or something’” (V07). For almost three days, Andrea held out hope and offered alternative explanations. She hoped that her son would “walk through that door.” She hoped that his dental records would not match the teeth on the body that detectives found. While Andrea delayed acceptance of the news significantly longer than most survivors, she was not alone in her feelings of disbelief. A victim services counselor explained:

To this point in their [lives], they believed they were going to live the rest of their life—and this is hard for me [to talk about]— . . . without anything like this ever happening to them. . . . And [when we notify them of their loved one’s murder] that belief system is broken, and it’s going to be broken for the rest of their [lives]. (CJ09)

When Andrea thinks back on the notification, she said that it was not until she admitted to herself that her son would never have stayed out of contact with her for an entire day that she accepted the news of his murder. She said:

That’s when it hit me in the heart. [When he hadn’t returned my calls] I realized that that boy, that my son, wasn’t coming back. So, I started picking up the phone book, calling the funeral home, and making funeral arrangements. . . . I was really trying very hard to believe that that wasn’t him. [But eventually,] I said [to myself] but my son doesn’t stay out of contact, out of touch that long. (V07)

Andrea said she “was trying really hard” to not believe the news. She made an effort to not believe it. When she thought about detectives’ reports, along with the corroborating evidence that he was out of contact with her for a full day, she said, “that’s when it hit me in the heart.” Other participants referenced the feeling in their hearts when they learned and processed the news of the murder. Karinna Sheridon also had a hard time accepting the news of her husband’s murder, even though she had found him lying on the floor of their bedroom, called 911 to summon an ambulance, and watched as paramedics tried to revive him. In describing the moment of awareness, Karinna said, “When it dawned on me in the bedroom that he was probably dead, my

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heart died, and I just knew I couldn’t make it. I just knew I wouldn’t be able to live another day” (V25). She did live another day, but she continued to have a hard time accepting the loss for several days. She eventually accepted the news with the love and support of her parents, dogs, and coworkers. How victims learned about the murder influenced how long it took them to fully accept the reality of it. Two key factors made a difference in the acceptance of the news: (1) the presence of corroborating evidence and (2) the homicide survivor’s relationship to the person making the delivery. First, like Andrea, several homicide survivors did not fully accept the reality of the news until they had corroborating evidence to support detectives’ claims, such as their loved one’s unexplained absence or the deceased person’s body. It appears that by taking time to seek corroborating evidence, survivors gained some control over an unfathomable situation, and this control helped them come to terms with the horrific news. Second, homicide survivors appeared more willing to accept the news when a friend or relative made the notification, instead of a detective. One would think that detectives—with their official badges, legal authority, and investigative experience—would provide a more trusted source of information in a murder case. But homicide survivors tended to hold onto their disbelief longer when police officers delivered the news. In addition, victims had fewer questions about the death and less trouble with their long-term recovery when a friend or relative made the notification than with other types of notification. In a death notification for murder, the nonverbal forecasting cues (deliverer’s solemn demeanor, deliverer’s identity, and deliverer’s timing) may be the only clues the recipient gets about the bad news to come (see Maynard 1996). Fannie Quintanilla, the mother of 21-year-old Terrill, had been waiting to meet her son at a restaurant when her brother and husband came to deliver the news of her son’s death in person. “My brother [and my husband] found me [at the restaurant], and [when I saw them], I just knew. I saw their eyes [were] watery red, and my son was late [to meet me]. . . . I knew the worst. . . . My brother’s reaction carried me. I knew it was my son” (V27). A loved one’s nonverbal signals give the recipient a small warning of the horrible news to come. This warning may help prepare them for the news, may help them process the news, and may help them accept the news better than a stranger’s nonverbal cues. The trust and intimacy between the person making the delivery and the recipient may provide an important foundation for accepting the news of a murder. Several participants said they “just knew” when

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they saw their relative’s face. These accounts support Maynard’s (1996) claim that the realization of bad news involves collaboration. When asked about the effect of the news on their longer-term recovery, most victims did not think the delivery made a major difference. It did make a difference in how they felt about their notification, however. As we might imagine, in the end and over the long run, the fact of the murder proved much more devastating than the circumstances of the notification.

How They Responded to the News

Psychologists and social workers describe the opportunity to anticipate the death of a loved one (e.g., with a terminal illness) as a critical factor in acceptance and recovery. A sudden death (e.g., homicide, car accident, suicide), however, deprives survivors of the opportunity to anticipate the loss (Rando 1993). Learning about a loved one’s murder can overwhelm adaptive responses and increase anxiety (Rando 1993). Some survivors dismiss the news as unreal, delaying their realization of the loss (Maynard 1996). This realization “of the news . . . indicates cognitive apprehension” (Maynard 1996: 109). As people come to accept and understand the meaning of a loss, they experience numbness, shock, and disbelief (Sprang, McNeil, and Wright 1993; Weizman and Kamm 1986). The disbelief and denial responses (typically temporary) may help buy time to process the news and incorporate it into a new way of being. It shatters the mind and is hard to reconcile with the way the survivor thought life would be. Detectives and counselors recognized that there was “little we can do” at this point and “it just takes time.” Spungen (1998: xix) has said that families define murder as “the blackest hell” accompanied by a pain so intense that even breathing becomes “an unbearable labor.” My findings indicate that survivors responded to this “blackest hell” in two main ways: (1) expressed emotional upset and (2) contained emotional upset. Expressed Emotional Upset

Most homicide survivors immediately expressed intense emotional upset after hearing about their loved one’s death, and some became even more upset when they learned that the death was ruled a murder. Natalie Harris, the older sister of 49-year-old Alexander Belton, described:

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It was a Friday in the afternoon, the early afternoon, and I heard a knock on the door and a policeman was standing at the door and he asked me if I had a brother by the name of Alexander Belton whose birthday was February 28th, 1948, and I said, “Yes, I did,” and he said, “Well, I am sorry I have to inform you that he expired.” That was the word he used. And I started crying immediately. . . . Eventually, I got through to somebody [at the coroner’s office]. They told me that there was foul play and that he’d been murdered, and then I was really hysterical. (V21) These homicide survivors did not pause to accept the news of the death to question the authenticity of the information; they did not pause to consider the reality of the news. Contained Emotional Upset

The second type of reaction that homicide survivors reported immediately following the death notification resembled a contained (or latent) emotional reaction. Unlike the emotional upset response, the contained emotional response involved no visual expression of emotional upset, such as crying or screaming. Instead, these responses reflected a high intensity of feeling and a low level of self-reflection, meaning the individual made few or no indications about the loss to the self. The news is not fully processed. Mills and Kleinman (1988: 1011) explain, “In certain circumstances, individuals will suspend their ability to make self-indications.” The individual avoids contemplating the meaning of the situation for the self to avoid experiencing undesired feelings. This suspension of thoughts, however, does not minimize the intensity of the emotional experience; it simply minimizes the likelihood that the person will outwardly express the emotional experience. “The fact that people have some say in whether they feel angry or in love does not detract from the intensity of the feeling” (Mills and Kleinman 1988: 1011). Shock, disbelief, and spontaneous action represented the most common types of contained emotional responses.

Shock. Numbness implies an absence of feeling but it actually represents an overwhelming feeling state, not a nonfeeling state (see Mills and Kleinman 1988). This state involves a “reduction in cognitive faculties” and appears to protect the person from experiencing unwanted emotions (Mills and Kleinman 1988: 1012). Battered women who feel compelled to stay with their violent partners for financial, safety, or

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other reasons suspended self-reflexivity to minimize pain and sadness following their partner’s abuse; the numbness offers emotional protection. Several homicide survivors reported feeling shocked and expressing little emotional upset for a period of time after the notification. Two parents described: It was a very strange experience. I can’t really tell you [how I felt] because I think the shock started immediately when I got in the car [to drive to the coroner’s office]. I knew . . . even though there was disbelief, I still knew this had to be true. (V26)

Anyway, my sister-in-law called me and didn’t tell me what it was. [Her message] just said, “Call her immediately.” I tried calling, and I didn’t get through. . . . So, I called her again and I got through and she said, “I just want to tell you that [your son] Luke has just been killed.” . . . I was just stunned mostly. I was shocked. (V29)

Homicide survivors did not consciously reflect on what the death meant, a helpful response when people cannot get out of a situation or do anything about it. One battered woman in Mills and Kleinman’s study said, “I had gotten to the point where I felt like I was dead or a zombie. . . . I didn’t really feel like I was alive” (1988: 1012). Feeling like a zombie is an emotionally protective response to a horrific situation.

Disbelief. Disbelief and denial responses allow homicide survivors to stall acceptance of the loss by not thinking about it. With disbelief, the person can think about the event, but those thoughts focus on finding an alternative explanation for the situation, not consciously considering what the loss might mean for the self. This stall keeps the self in a suspended state of reflexivity. The person does not ask him- or herself “what does this loss mean for me?” because the initial interpretation of the death notification is that the information is invalid and thus has no meaning. In this response, the self-interaction process stops short of meaningful interpretation. In these cases, individuals find other explanations for the news, and these other explanations help block selfreflection and postpone emotional upset. Disbelief provides people with a resourceful means for coming to terms with difficult news. Eight of the 32 homicide survivors (25 percent) said that they simply did not believe that their loved one had died or been murdered. In these situations, the survivor postponed acknowledgment and acceptance of the loss until convinced otherwise. In a few cases, the disbelief

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continued for several days and became denial, “a primitive defense, consisting of an attempt to disavow the existence of an unpleasant reality” (Hinsie and Campbell 1970: 199) or a type of conscious deception (Kastenbaum 1986: 233). When Karinna Sheridon came home from work to find her 33-year-old husband, Roy, lying on their bedroom floor, she called paramedics, who tried to revive him. She did not remember much about the day after that point; four days later, she said, “I thought it was still a trick. Roy had done some work for the FBI, and I thought, ‘Okay, he’s gotten into something, and they need to make him disappear.’” Karinna doubted the reality of her husband’s death for four days, during which time detectives questioned her as a suspect and subjected her to two lie detector tests. It was not until she talked to one of Roy’s coworkers at the FBI that she knew her husband was dead. She asked the coworker, “Is the FBI plotting to hide Roy?” The friend explained, “Karinna, we’re not that good.” She said, “That’s when it finally dawned on me that it was real” (V25). Her disbelief allowed her to stall acceptance of his death. Although disbelief did not completely prevent emotional upset, it did allow some survivors to temporarily postpone serious acknowledgment of the loss and overwhelming feelings of hysteria. Disbelief offers the bereaved an opportunity for escape and time for adjustment (Mills and Kleinman 1988).

Spontaneous Action. Spontaneous action refers to situations where overwhelming feelings spur one into action, and this reaction tends to arise when people feel unsettled or shaken (Mills and Kleinman 1988). Routine behaviors, such as cleaning, packing, or organizing, offer a consciously selected alternative to reflecting on and processing the horrific news (Mills and Kleinman 1988). During a visit to care for her elderly mother out of state, Maryanne Howard received a late-night call from her husband. The call woke her from a deep sleep, and she immediately sensed that something had happened to her daughter, the youngest of her four children. Maryanne said:

I hung up [the phone] again and I thought, “Well, mother’s asleep. [I don’t want to wake her up to tell her this.]” It’s strange, but when I’m stressed, I have to do something. So, I washed my hair and went downstairs and got down a hang-up bag. . . . And I got things ready for breakfast and so forth and tried to keep busy. . . . It was strange. You’d think I would burst into tears or something. [My husband] Norman couldn’t stop crying, but I couldn’t cry. It just seemed too profound for

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tears. It’s just like—you cry if you hear a sad story or watch a sad movie or you have a disappointment—but the death of a child, and especially, a murder. There’s got to be something more you can do besides cry, and I don’t know what it is. But it just left me feeling numb more or less. It was like I had almost no emotions at all. (Pretest B)

Another mother of an adult daughter explained, “I guess your mind reacts in such a way that you protect yourself. All I remember is I did not want [her brother] Zachary finding this out [from the news]. . . . So, I didn’t really relax to grieve until my brother-in-law went to Zollertown [pseudonym] and got him and had him call me, and I could tell him” (V22, Melissa Merton). Katherine Talbert, whose sister was killed in a murder-suicide witnessed by her three children, said, “Just to keep myself from going totally nuts, I started cleaning the house, packing, and doing laundry. . . . My husband said, ‘You’ve got to calm down or you’re going to come apart at the seams.’ [But] every time I started to slow down, I started crying” (V06). Katherine’s impulse to do things provided an alternative to thinking about the meaning of and feeling sad about her sister’s death. She says it kept her “from going totally nuts.” The spontaneous action reaction is a patterned and organized response to an uncertain and overwhelming situation, and it offers an excellent example of how people can use thoughts about routine activities and even behavior as a means of managing a response to devastating news. This coping technique gives a person control over when and how they feel and exhibit their emotions. It may also represent a means of restoring a sense of personal control. When an unwanted life event damages feelings of control, social psychologists find that people try to increase control in other areas of their life, which may boost well-being (Mirowsky and Ross 1989; Pearlin 1989). The decision to go into and stay in “supermode” offers something to do, instead of something to think about, a useful strategy for emotional control during a chaotic period.

Conclusion

Spungen (1998: xxiii) has written, “The most defining event of a homicide, other than the murder itself, is how a family is notified of the victim’s death. [An] empathic and informed death notification is essential to the victim’s acceptance and recovery.” Homicide survivors’ accounts indicate that the actual words used can become important in

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their recollection of the event. When police or others shared the news in an insensitive manner, survivors described the encounter with pain and outrage—even years later. Understanding how the words used to make a death notification influence survivors’ realization of the news and their recovery from the loss may inform police, counselors, coroners, and others on the best ways to share this devastating news. According to detectives and counselors, detectives sometimes used the death notification as an opportunity to either rule out or consider the family member as a suspect in the case. Detectives know that approximately 80 percent of all murders are committed by a friend, acquaintance, or relative (Dawson and Langan 1994). This knowledge shapes detectives’ approach toward and perception of the families of homicide victims, particularly in the early stages of an investigation. Detectives watch to see if family members reacted as a “normal bereaved victim” would react to the news of the murder (i.e., shock, distress, crying). These kinds of classification schemes allowed workers to use their perceptions to make case management decisions (see Sudnow 1965). Victim services counselors did not use this type of categorization scheme. In the police training program for volunteer victim service counselors, counselors were instructed to think of and treat survivors only as survivors, not as suspects. At times, the differences in detectives’ and counselors’ interests presented a challenge, particularly when detectives asked counselors if a survivor’s reaction was a “normal reaction” to receiving news of a murder. In these situations, counselors were trained to respond, “Every reaction is a normal reaction.” Although counselors may categorize survivors for other reasons, such as psychological evaluation or treatment purposes, they declined to do so for investigation purposes.

Recommendations for Death Notifications in Murder Cases

• Make notification to immediate family as soon as possible, or at least within hours of the death. • To speed up the notification process, consider authorizing counselors and other law enforcement officers to identify the next of kin while homicide detectives work on collecting evidence and conducting the investigation. • If at all possible, notify a friend or relative of the next of kin, so that the trusted friend or relative can deliver the news to the

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immediate family on the police department’s behalf or perhaps with their presence. • Make the notification in a sensitive and compassionate manner, using clear and thoughtfully selected words, such as passed away or died. • Do not use terms like expired or phrases like “she did not make it.” • Do not ask the next of kin to make major decisions (about organ donation, body transfer, or funeral services) within minutes of the notification.

Notes

1. All four of the pretest participants learned of their loved one’s murder from a police officer. 2. Most participants learned about the news of their loved one’s murder from a phone call. Fifteen of the 32 participants were told by phone because they were out of state or at work at the time of the notification. Ten survivors learned about the murder in a face-to-face meeting with a police officer, relative, or friend; five survivors witnessed the murder or came upon the scene shortly afterward. 3. Emotion work, on the other hand, is the management of feelings of the self (Hochschild 2003).

3 The Police Investigate

I hung up [the phone with my sister], got dressed, and immediately rushed to [the Union County Police Department]. [My partner and I went] to the information booth and start[ed] confronting the system. —Delia Jiminez, aunt of 24-year-old homicide victim (V18)

Sometimes there’s some conflict because our job is probably at odds with what comes naturally to the [relatives of a murder victim]. That is, they want to go to the body, they want to grieve next to the body, or they want to touch the body, kiss it . . . say good-byes. Typically, it is really difficult for us to allow that to happen. —Homicide detective and sergeant, Union Police Department (CJ03)

In the middle of the night, Delia Jiminez’s phone rang, jolting her out of a deep sleep. When she answered, she heard her older sister, Rachel, crying on the other end, and she immediately knew something was wrong. Rachel could barely talk but managed to explain that her 24year-old daughter, Erica, had been found dead in her apartment. Delia was stunned. Because of their closeness in age, Delia had always thought of Erica as a sister more than a niece. After getting off the phone, Delia jumped out of bed, got dressed, and drove to the police station to meet her family. When they arrived, they “start[ed] confronting the system,” and as with many other survivors, the first confrontation was over Erica’s body. Rachel wanted to see her daughter. Delia recalled, “All my 49

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sister wanted to do [was] see her daughter, even though she was dead. She wanted to see the body. She wanted to be with her.” Delia understood her sister’s need, but as a business consultant, she also knew the limits of a bureaucratic organization like the criminal justice system. She wanted to help her sister, but she knew it was unlikely they would get to see Erica’s remains at the scene. * * *

In murder cases, victims’ encounters with police prove emotional and tense. Police officers must balance their responsibility to conduct an effective murder investigation with the family’s heart-wrenching desire to see the deceased’s body and learn the details of the investigation. Detectives and counselors anticipate these conflicts, but victims do not, and their lack of experience with the system creates confusion and distress. More than 30 years ago, Bard and Sangrey (1980) recommended that first responders provide skillful and sensitive assistance to victims immediately following a crime to improve recovery. The President’s 1982 Task Force on Victims of Crime (US Department of Justice 1998) recommended that agencies take four steps to improve victims’ experiences with police: (1) train police officers on victims’ needs and relevant victimrelated services, (2) develop procedures for the prompt return of victims’ property, (3) provide victims with periodic updates on the case investigation, and (4) investigate victim-witnesses’ reports of threats to their safety. The Task Force (Herrington 1982: 6) stated, “Officers should keep victims informed about their cases, see that their property is returned promptly, and be able to refer victims to the services they need.” In an experiment to evaluate police officers’ work with victims, Rosenbaum (1987) looked at the effect of officer sensitivity training on victims’ experiences. Police officers with specialized training in victim services had no effect on victims’ psychological recovery from the crime or their satisfaction with the system, raising questions about the importance of officers’ sensitivity in these crises. Case information may better address victims’ needs than officers’ sensitivity (Carr, Logio, and Maier 2003; Rosenbaum 1987). However, victims’ rights do not typically guarantee victims information about the police investigation, and only 3 of the 11 rights directly address the victim’s relationship with the police, including (1) the right to protection from threats, (2) the right to the prompt return of property, and (3) the right to information about investigation procedures (see the victims’ bill of rights). This chapter examines homicide survivors’ experiences with the police, and the findings prove surprising. Victims discussed their need to gain access to the deceased’s body,

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Victims’ Bill of Rights in the State of Study 1. The right to receive from law enforcement agencies adequate protection from harm and threats of harm that might arise from cooperating with prosecutors. 2. The right to the prompt return of any of the victim’s property that is held by law enforcement or the prosecutor when the property is no longer needed. 3. The right to be informed by a law enforcement officer about the defendant’s right to bail and the procedures in criminal investigations and by the prosecutor’s office about criminal justice procedures, including guilty plea negotiations, restitution, and the appeals and parole process.

Police-Related Rights

4. The right to have the magistrate take the safety of the victim or their family into consideration as an element in fixing the amount of bail. 5. The right to be informed of relevant court proceedings and to be informed if those court proceedings have been canceled or rescheduled prior to the event. 6. The right to provide pertinent information to a probation department conducting a presentencing investigation concerning the impact of the offense on the victim and their family by testimony, written statement, or any other manner prior to any sentencing of the offender. 7. The right to be informed of parole procedures, to participate in the parole process, to be notified of parole proceedings concerning a defendant in the victim’s case, and to be notified of the defendant’s release. 8. The right to be provided with a waiting area, separate or secure from the offender, offender’s relatives, and other witnesses. 9. The right to have the prosecutor notify the victim’s employer of the need for the victim’s cooperation and testimony in proceedings. 10. The right to receive information regarding victims’ rights compensation. 11. The right to counseling regarding AIDS and HIV and testing for AIDS and HIV. Non-Police-Related Rights

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frustration with being treated as a suspect, and desire to exchange information about the investigation.

The Body as Loved One vs. the Body as Evidence

Immediately following the news of the murder, homicide survivors felt an intense desire to see and touch the deceased’s body to confirm that there had not been a mistake, make the identification, and say good-bye. Homicide detectives, however, could not allow survivors to see or touch the deceased’s body until after the autopsy due to concerns about contaminating crime scene evidence (see also Gekoski, Adler, and Gray 2013; Riches and Dawson 1998). Many family members had to be physically restrained from seeing the deceased’s body at the crime scene and in the coroner’s office (see Victim Account 3.1). The deceased’s body held a great deal of significance for homicide survivors. The body represented someone to care for, someone to see, and someone to touch. Victims talked about the deceased’s body as if it could receive care and hear a farewell message, and they desperately wanted to provide that care and give that message. The following accounts came from Katrina and Wanda, two mothers who reported an intense need to see and hold their children following the murder. Katrina was at home when she saw her 27-year-old son Brian shot down across the street following a dispute at a Little League game. She immediately went to Brian and waited for paramedics to arrive. She said, “[The paramedics] asked me to please move [away from my son], [and they wanted someone] to take me away from [the scene]. . . . They had to work on him and they wouldn’t let me stay near him anymore. . . . [Then, the police] started putting that yellow [crime scene tape] around and they wouldn’t let us near him anymore” (V14). Within minutes, Brian went from being her beloved son whom she could help and hold to being a piece of evidence to rope off and preserve. The yellow tape provided visual evidence of the shift in her relationship to her son and in the police’s ownership of the body. One Sunday afternoon, Wanda Diaz’s 20-year-old son was shot and killed in a drive-by shooting just 15 minutes after leaving her house to run an errand. Wanda could hear the sirens and commotion unfolding just down the street, and when she went outside, she saw her son’s truck parked sideways in the middle of the street with police cars and fire trucks blocking traffic. She ran toward her son’s truck, but a police officer quickly stopped her. She said:

[The police] didn’t let me go see my son. . . . I don’t know if [that] was good or bad. I still kinda think about it, because when my son was up

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there lying [at the scene], I showed the police officer a picture of my son [from my wallet]. I thought maybe somebody had stolen [his] truck or something, and I kept showing him the picture . . . and he said, “Yes, that’s him. Yes, that’s him.” I kept on asking him, “Are you sure? Are you sure?” I don’t [know] if he was doing it for my own good—[if] not letting me see my son [is] their procedure. [But] I never got to see my son until I saw him in the funeral home [crying]. The worst part [is] that—in your mind [it’s] not true, [and] you don’t get to see them [and believe it] until they’re ready [at the funeral home]. (V15)

Wanda wanted to see Dominique for herself. She doubted the officer’s claim. Seeing the deceased’s body meets a basic social psychological function in the bereavement process; it allows the survivor to begin to make sense of an unreal situation (see Rando 1993). It also represents a physical way for homicide survivors to assert control in a chaotic situation. Psychiatrists and victims’ rights advocates believe that restoring a sense of control can empower people and help facilitate victims’ recovery from the crime (Kilpatrick and Otto 1987).

Victim Account 3.1 Wanting to See the Body A 51-year-old divorced mother of three children and a successful realtor, Dana Gifford had juggled a lot in her life. By 1996, it seemed that things were turning around for her. She had sold more properties in her real estate agency than any other realtor in Union County. Her oldest child, Richard (age 30), had just had her first grandchild, a baby girl named Madeline, and Dana and her two younger children had settled into a good routine. Of course, Dana still worried about Noreen. At 17 years old, Noreen had struggled with drug and alcohol problems, and she had already spent six weeks in a residential drug treatment facility. Upon her release from treatment, Dana worked hard to keep Noreen on the right path. She took her to individual and family therapy sessions every week, and she even tried to distance Noreen from some of her more destructive friends, particularly Irina and Savannah. The effort, however, had created a wedge between them, leading Noreen to storm out of their last joint therapy session. Dana Gifford (V24)

continued

54 Just six weeks after rehab, Noreen started to fall apart. When Dana and I met for the interview at an upscale restaurant, she ordered three glasses of wine and talked for three hours without a break. She alternated between whimsical reflections on Noreen’s beautiful blue-eyed face, popularity in school, and kindness to her younger brother and angry rants about the prosecutor’s incompetence and the offender’s long criminal record. In the days before her death, Noreen spent the weekend at a hotel partying with friends, and it sounds as though she had fallen off the wagon—in a very bad way. Dana finally grew tired of Noreen’s absence on Sunday night. Dana recalled:

It was six o’clock on Sunday evening [when] I started looking for Noreen. She had left her phone at home and I was [calling] her boyfriend . . . her friend, Tara, and two of her girlfriends. . . . No one was returning my phone calls and this went on until approximately eight o’clock [when] Irina [called] and was telling me this bizarre story [that] Noreen was with a very good friend of hers . . . [and that she was] going to go get her in 42 minutes. I said, “What are you talking about?” I didn’t like [Irina] and I clicked back over and Tara told me that [Irina] was lying to me. . . . [She] said, “[Noreen’s] with bad people. . . . [Irina] knows where she is.” [Finally, at 10:30 p.m.,] I got a phone call from Irina, [and she was] screaming, “She’s dead!” . . . I said, “What?” She said, “She’s dead! . . . She’s fucking dead! They fucking killed her!” I dropped the phone. . . . I was shaking from head to toe. . . . As I was driving down Columbus Street [to the hotel], running every red light, I could hear Noreen saying, “Mom, I’m scared. Mom, I’m scared.” I said, “I know, I know. I’m coming. I’m on my way, on my way. [Voice cracks] I’m coming.” [Cries] And I got to Columbus [and] there was a black police car. I didn’t know where to go. I was hysterical and I looked down and I saw all these lights flashing . . . and I pulled up into the drive and the fire truck was there and there was a policeman standing there and I tried to run [toward the hotel]. [I saw] the EMS man look at the policeman and he went [holding his hand out] and I started trying to push past him [crying] and he wouldn’t let me through. . . . I was beating on his chest. I was screaming. I said, “I have to see her! I have to go to her. I have to hold her.” continued

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She continued:

And victims’ services [counselors were] there immediately, and they took me to a car in the parking lot and I couldn’t think. I just kept begging to be with her.

Police had to physically restrain Dana from entering the crime scene and seeing her daughter. They likely restrained her so that she would not contaminate the crime scene and so that she would not see her daughter’s dead body. Her 17-year-old daughter had been shot in the face at point-blank range.

A closer examination of victims’ responses reveals that they wanted to see and touch their deceased loved one for two specific reasons. First, they wanted to say good-bye. Saying good-bye meant a great deal to homicide survivors, who found themselves trying to come to terms with the news of the murder. Previous research indicates that seeing the deceased’s body can give surviving loved ones— in all types of death—the opportunity to say good-bye, and grief counselors recognize this act as an important start to the bereavement process (Janzen, Cadell, and Westhues 2004). Parents felt a particularly strong need to say good-bye to their dead children, and in this study, mothers (not fathers) expressed the greatest interest in seeing their children’s bodies. In fact, 8 of the 11 women who expressed this interest were mothers of the deceased. The second reason that homicide survivors wanted to see the deceased’s body was to verify that there had not been a mistake. Several victims found it hard to believe that a nonrelative’s assessment or a simple driver’s license photograph could have provided adequate proof of their loved one’s identity. Two mothers explained:

I wanted to see my daughter. . . . [I wondered] who’s going to identify her? Somebody has to identify that [it] is in fact my daughter. [They said,] “No, you can’t see her. We know it’s her from the driver’s license picture.” I said, “Just with that you know that’s my daughter?” (V20, Rachel Donado)

[The coroner] told me I couldn’t touch him or anything but I could look through a glass window [to see my son], and I went into the room and

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they had blinds and they raised the blinds and the only thing I saw was Harry’s head. He was fully sheeted with a white sheet and everything. It was a very strange experience. I can’t really tell you because I think the shock started immediately. (V26, Nora Harden)

Without exception, however, law enforcement workers (and one funeral home director) denied homicide survivors’ requests to see and touch the deceased’s body. One mother said that despite her screaming and pleading, “[the officer] wouldn’t let me through.” Another mother reported that they wouldn’t let her into her house to say good-bye to her son because of “policy.” Indeed, access to the deceased’s body or other crime scene evidence is not a legislated right. Victims’ right no. 2 addresses the victim’s right to property, but even this only allows victims “the right to the prompt return of . . . property . . . when the property is no longer required [by law enforcement officers or prosecutors].” In this brief encounter over the body, a major shift occurs. Homicide survivors learned that their seemingly obvious definition of the body as a loved one conflicted with detectives’ definition of the body as a piece of evidence. Detectives expected this conflict, but homicide survivors did not. The detective featured at the opening of this chapter captures the law enforcement perspective on this issue. He said, “it is really difficult for us to allow” what comes naturally to homicide survivors— to “grieve next to the body . . . to touch the body”—because it conflicts with the effort to protect and preserve the crime scene evidence. Many detectives viewed the deceased’s body as the most important piece of evidence in building a strong case against a suspect. What would happen in a case if detectives allowed homicide survivors to see and touch the deceased’s remains at the scene and before the autopsy? If a survivor hugged or kissed the body, DNA (e.g., saliva, blood, semen) evidence could be contaminated with the survivor’s DNA or lost entirely by rubbing off on the survivor’s clothing. In addition, in tracking the chain of possession of evidence, a defense attorney would likely ask during trial, “Who had contact with the evidence?” and “Could any DNA have come from someone other than my client?” To avoid any problems, detectives maintain the integrity of a murder scene by taping off the perimeter with police tape and keeping a log of the investigators entering the perimeter. As found in other research, the criminal justice system’s goals and workers’ responsibilities supersede and sometimes trample victims’ needs and interests (see Frohmann 1998; Konradi 1997; Martin and Powell 1994), no matter how profound or heart-wrenching those needs and interests may be.

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From the detective’s viewpoint, limiting victims’ contact with the deceased’s body at the scene serves two purposes: preserving the integrity of the evidence and minimizing homicide survivors’ distress. A detective with four years of experience on murder cases explained the first reason: “Our sole responsibility is to find who committed that crime. . . . I don’t [usually] talk to the [homicide survivor] right off the bat. . . . My priority when I get to the scene is to make sure that the scene is being preserved properly” (CJ12). While all of the workers and advocates expressed genuine sympathy for homicide survivors, detectives emphasized that their first priority was solving the crime. Several detectives indicated that if they did not get their investigation right, the victim’s family members would complain. Thus, in their first meeting, detectives found themselves in a difficult situation with family members. Homicide survivors were the first to complain when they were not permitted to see the deceased and the first to criticize when the police did not carefully preserve the evidence. One detective noted, “A lot of families feel like if the investigation had been better . . . they might have been able to keep the [offender] behind bars” (CJ16). The second reason law enforcement workers did not want homicide survivors to see the deceased’s body related to their desire to minimize the family’s emotional distress (see also Goodrum and Stafford 2003). A detective explained, “I try not to let [the family of the] victim come back on the scene. A lot of times they want to, they want to see their son or whatever for the last time and most of the time, I don’t want them to have that last thought [in their mind] of seeing their kid or whatever” (CJ12). A victim services counselor extended this protection to photographs of the deceased’s body from the crime scene and autopsy. “It’s not something that in the beginning you’re going to want them to see” (CJ09). The meaning we assign to events (e.g., weddings, funerals), people (e.g., children, parents, friends), and things (e.g., jewelry, homes, bodies) arises out of the life experiences we have with others. The meaning an object holds is not the same for everyone everywhere, and the meaning is not inherent in the object itself. Instead, meaning is negotiated through social encounters with others. When homicide detectives establish their definition of the deceased’s body as a piece of evidence, they simultaneously establish their role as “the” authority in the victim–law enforcement relationship. This shift proved difficult for many victims to accept. When a significant status difference exists between two parties—as is the case with a detective and a victim—the lower-status party typically has to concede their definition. The social relationship may continue

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despite the disputed meaning, but the relationship may prove awkward or difficult, and subsequent interactions may be tense. In this fairly brief exchange about the body, homicide survivors’ lack of shared understanding about police procedure became uncomfortable (see Konradi 1997) and upsetting. Fannie and Rachel described: I wanted to see him, and I went crazy because they wouldn’t let me. I didn’t know that once you get murdered, you can’t see them. You can’t see them. (V27, Fannie Quintanilla)

I sat there and I was so upset. [I thought], “It’s my daughter, not yours. How is it that you decide that I can’t see her?” That was most upsetting to me that they took possession of my daughter. . . . It was very, very upsetting to me that their criminal investigation took precedence over just letting me see her. (V20, Rachel Donado)

In other types of criminal cases (e.g., rape, domestic violence) and other parts of the criminal justice system (e.g., prosecutor’s office), workers prioritize case demands over the victims’ emotional needs (see Konradi 1997; Martin and Powell 1994). Law enforcement workers’ “downstream orientation” (see Martin and Powell 1994) or their desire to build a strong case leads them to anticipate the demands of the criminal court system and victims’ expectations for justice. Detectives know that if they fail to conduct a thorough investigation, homicide survivors will blame them and will feel even more upset. A detective with eight years of experience explained, “[Homicide survivors] want an arrest made and somebody prosecuted and tried . . . and when that doesn’t happen, I think it’s really difficult for family members. Sometimes [it’s difficult] to deal with them. That’s kind of tough, you know. I don’t like disappointing people” (CJ03). Though it is not surprising that homicide survivors’ desire to see the deceased’s body conflicts with detectives’ interest in preserving evidence, no other research on bereavement after murder suggests that seeing the body would be a major source of conflict with law enforcement. In fact, this finding runs contrary to the commonsense notion that homicide survivors would want to be sheltered from images of violence apparent in the deceased’s remains. Furthermore, current victims’ rights legislation does not grant survivors of a homicide victim the right to see the deceased’s body. The conflict over the body can have a debilitating effect on homicide survivors’ well-being and leave them extremely dissatisfied with the system. Victims often have vivid recollections of these encounters (Carr Logio, and Maier 2003). “Our research indicates that the initial contact with police plays a very important role in shaping the

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experience of victims, regardless of the type of offense. Specifically, those that had a positive interaction with police officers felt more involved in their case” (Carr, Logio, and Maier 2003: 134). The conflict over the body represents the first time many homicide survivors noticed that the role they expected to play—active and involved victim—differed from the role they actually got to play. At the same time, detectives saw themselves as the gatekeepers of the investigation, protecting evidence and preserving the scene; they held the gate knowing that survivors disliked them holding the key to the entrance (figuratively and literally) but also knowing that it’s best for the case in the long run.

Under a Cloud of Suspicion

The second major source of conflict in victims’ encounters with law enforcement emerged when detectives pursued them as a suspect in the murder. Most murders are committed by a person known to the victim; so, detectives often first suspect the murder victim’s relatives, friends, and acquaintances. Detectives initially questioned 4 of the 32 survivor participants (or 12.5 percent) as potential suspects in the case (see Victim Account 3.2). Describing police–homicide survivor relationships in the United Kingdom, Paul Rock (1998: 64) said, “It is a consequence that, just at the time that a family is trying to assimilate the unassimilable, they may find themselves under suspicion, stripped of control, kept at a distance, and subject to repeated, intense, and often aggressive interrogation.” When detectives came to Deidra’s home late one Friday evening to tell her that her husband had been shot and killed at a nearby car wash, the detectives making the notification asked when she had last seen her husband and whether they owned any guns. Deidra speculated:

It seems like when a husband or a wife is killed, the [police] automatically assume that it’s the spouse [who did it]. The first thing they asked after they told me that he had passed [was]: “Do we own a gun?” And I’m like, “No, we fight too much to have a gun!” [laughed]. . . I was being honest. And he was like, “Well, it’s just only precaution that we ask.” (V17)

Deidra understood (and even found some humor in) the detectives’ questions about gun ownership. She also knew that her husband had been dealing drugs, and she had often worried about his safety. In this police-made notification, detectives sought to rule out Deidra as a suspect and establish a timeline for the murder. Most participants treated as suspects did not appreciate detectives’ leading questions.

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Victim Account 3.2 Being Pursued as the Primary Suspect Karinna Sheridon came home from work one Monday evening to find the house unusually dark. Her two elderly dogs, Tucker and Yeller, nervously greeted her at the door. She found it odd that the door to her and her husband’s bedroom remained ajar; they usually left it closed to keep the dogs from pulling things off their bedside tables. When Karinna walked into the bedroom, she saw Roy, her husband of 11 months, lying on the floor. She immediately thought he was playing a trick on her. She said, “Roy, this is a good one. I’ll get you. I’m calling 911.” She dialed 911, and when Roy did not get up, she asked the dispatcher to send an ambulance. The paramedics said they did everything they could to save Roy, but it was too late. He had died. Karinna later learned that he had been shot in the back of the head, a bullet wound she could not see when she stood over him. Karinna (46 years old) and Roy (33 years old) had been married less than a year when he died. Karinna’s whole world revolved around Roy; she described him as her light. In looking back, she says that she would not have changed a thing. She learned a lot from him, and she felt lucky to have known and loved him. Almost immediately after detectives arrived on the scene, they began to pursue Karinna as the primary suspect in the case. In recounting her first few meetings with detectives after Roy’s death, she admits that she probably got off on the wrong foot. She initially lied about her husband’s activities on the day of his murder because she did not want her husband’s coworker at the FBI, Sherman, to hear her explanation. (In fact, for several days, Karinna did not believe Roy had died. She thought the FBI had faked his death to put him in a witness protection program.) She said: Karinna Sheridon (V25)

I have to admit that first night I was not telling the whole truth [to the detectives] because of [my husband’s fight] with Sherman. Sherman was in the next room [at the police station] and knew one part of the story, but he didn’t know Roy had been home all day. I didn’t want him finding out. And I could hear him talking to the officer [in the neighboring interrogation room]; so, I knew he could hear me. But the next day I told the whole truth about what had been going on. continued

61 Detectives questioned Karinna about her sex life and her marriage; they subjected her to two polygraphs, and they tailed her movements at home and work. They asked her the same questions over and over again. She told one detective:

Look, I know what you’re trying to do. You’re trying to trip me up, but I’m telling you the same thing I’ve told you over and over and over again. [Then, he asked,] “Were there any sexual problems? . . . If there were some sexual problems or whatever or if he was asking you to do things you didn’t want to do and you killed him, we’ll understand that.”

Eventually, detectives said they had evidence that her husband had cheated on her, claiming that more than 20 of her coworkers described her marriage as a sham. (She later learned that detectives only interviewed two of her coworkers.) She said, “They started telling me that they had proof that my husband . . . was sleeping with every female in town and that I came home in a jealous rage and killed him on my cigarette break from work. . . . [They said,] “Well, doesn’t this make you question him?” I said, “No.” Karinna remained calm under detectives’ intense questioning and disturbing accusations. At one point, she replied:

“Let me ask you something: Are you married?” He said, “Well, yeah.” And I said, “So, if a bunch of people came and told you something about your wife and your wife said it wasn’t true, would you believe your wife?” And he says, “Well, I hate to admit it, but no.” She said, “Well, then that’s your problem. I trusted my husband and I loved my husband, and he loved me.” I said, “You have five minutes to start [asking me questions about] something else or I’m out of here and you can talk to my lawyer.”

Detectives conducted surveillance on her movements at work and home for weeks after the murder. She related: I’d come home for lunch and look up and there they’d be sitting, watching my house. . . . I talked to our human resources director and they called and talked to her, and she told them that she would be more than happy to help them in any way she could, [by giving them] phone records continued

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[or] whatever, but they needed a subpoena. . . . They never showed up. They talked to two people [at my work]. . . . [But] in [my] last interview, they told me they talked to at least 20 different people. . . . [The detectives said my coworkers] told them they were embarrassed for me at my wedding. . . . So, not only did I lose my husband, but they were trying to make me doubt he even loved me, and that was awful.

Karinna believes that detectives focused so much on her as a suspect in the early days of the investigation that they missed the opportunity to find the real killer. Certainly, the location of Roy’s body in the bedroom and their age difference raised doubts about the quality of the marriage for detectives. Their assumptions about the offender in a “normal” homicide (e.g., relative, friend) may have caught them off-guard in this case; they assumed that the wife, in this somewhat unusual marriage, killed her husband in a fit of rage over his infidelities. She said the experience soured her on the police in general, particularly detectives, because they not only questioned her innocence, they questioned the legitimacy of her marriage, a marriage she had waited a long time to have. She said:

I understand they deal with a lot of scum, and they deal with a lot of drug dealers, and they deal with a lot of really, really ugly people, but I’m sorry—I’m not one of them. I finally came to the conclusion that it is not the Union Police Department [officers] that are the bullies. The police officers I had contact with were actually very nice. It was the detectives. I watch Law and Order and Law and Order: Special Victim’s Unit . . . when they bring someone in who has lost a loved one, they’re always saying, “I’m sorry for your loss.” Not one time did any of them tell me that.

Zoe Nunoz, a single mother of five children, said that detectives treated her and two of her sons as suspects in the murder of her oldest son, Kelson. Zoe and her sons were at home when Kelson was shot and killed when a rival drug dealer pointed a gun into his bedroom window and shot him. Zoe said she first realized that she was under investigation when her address book went missing from her purse shortly after

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the shooting. She said, “When I got to the hospital, I started to make some more phone calls [and I noticed that] my address book was missing. The cops took it from my purse! And then they denied it!” (V12). Counselors returned Zoe’s missing address book and explained the police’s acquisition of the book was “procedure.” The participant observation data, however, suggested that the return of the address book and explanation did not represent standard procedure. The volunteer victim services training program asked that counselors always remain neutral in murder investigations. To build trust with and offer support to victims, counselors learned to distance themselves from the investigation and treat all victims as victims, not as potential suspects. Zoe’s experience indicates that the counselors in her case crossed a line; they helped detectives by returning the address book and by explaining the theft as “procedure.” As Zoe implied in her interview, she lost faith in the counselors and detectives after that incident, and she continued to lose faith in their work through two more encounters. She explained: [The detectives were] always bringing us in, asking us to cooperate, and [they said] they couldn’t find the murder weapon, they couldn’t find the bullet fragments. [They said that] the . . . way [the blood] splattered [when the bullet hit Kelson that] there [was] no way he could’ve been shot the way [that we said he had been shot]. It was just frustrating the way they were dealing with it. The underlying accusations [were] that one of my other sons was involved. [They said that] it couldn’t have happened [the way we said it had happened], but I don’t know. It was just frustrating that way. (V12)

Zoe’s family wanted to do everything they could to help police find who killed Kelson, but they did not appreciate the suggestion that she and her other two sons were involved. In these cases, families tried to help police up to a point—either when detectives’ suspicions alienated them completely or when they hired a defense attorney (see Victim Account 3.2). Unfortunately, for Zoe, the harassment of her and her sons continued even at Kelson’s funeral. She said:

We [were] leaving the cemetery [after Kelson’s graveside service] and going to [a] club to have dinner . . . and we’re caravanning, right down Market Avenue . . . and two police cars pulled over my sons’ green car and were giving them a hard time [because the car] didn’t have license plates on it [because we had just had it painted]. . . . I was totally

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pissed. I mean, here we are in a funeral procession . . . and they pulled us over and they pulled their guns out on my sons! I was pissed. I was livid! [cries] (V12)

At a time when victims need validation and support for their loss, they find themselves having to pause their grief to fight accusations and reassert their victimhood. Rock (1998: 63) stated, “There is always a reasonable expectation at the outset [of a homicide case] that, where there is a family, it will be one of its members who will have been responsible for the killing.” Several detectives admitted that they did not always feel they could trust family members in murder cases. Families sometimes hid information about the deceased’s drug history, and a family’s concerns about implicating themselves in illegal activity sometimes hindered their willingness to cooperate. One detective said that in these cases, it proved challenging to give family members the benefit of the doubt. [In one case,] we found the [son’s] body in the county and Mama was being real evasive with us. The answers she was giving to our questions gave you a little bit [of] information but didn’t give near as much as you knew was there. [Of course,] there’s always the possibility that you’re 100 percent wrong. And I guess the human side of anyone is you don’t want to cause any more pain to those bereaved than they’re already going through. (CJ10)

Detectives walked the line between trying to get the information they needed while maintaining a civil relationship with families. Even when family members lied to detectives, they tried to remain cordial—to ensure their cooperation and avoid causing additional pain. The detective continued, “So, if you start—in our parlance—jumping on them with these specific questions looking for specific answers, you’re going to widen that gap [between you and them]. . . . You’re going to run them off. And on the other side, you’re going to cause some more emotional trauma.” He used a delicate approach with victims, regardless of the family’s truthfulness. He said, “No matter if they’re being honest with you or being half-assed honest with you. . . . Excuse my French. You have to be a little cognizant of what they’re going through” (CJ10). Detectives had to figure out how to encourage families to provide information without alienating them, but the exchange of information represented one of the biggest challenges detectives faced in their encounters with families of murder victims.

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Conflicts over the Flow of Information

Conflicts over the flow of information represented the third source of conflict in families’ relationships with the police. According to homicide survivors, detectives did not like getting advice from victims, and victims did not like when detectives disregarded their suggestions (e.g., potential suspects, evidence) or withheld information (e.g., status of the investigation, suspects under interrogation). Victims described these problems as conflicts about information, and a closer look reveals that these problems represented conflicts over case roles. Social roles provide people with tools “for organizing and structuring social situations” (Callero 1986: 343), and they give people a perspective with which to interpret the social world and life experiences and to plan action. A role is also a resource that people can use to achieve individual and organizational goals. Homicide survivors expected to play an active role in the investigation into their loved one’s murder—as an informant and as an informed participant. Detectives did not share that expectation. Thus, the open exchange of information emerged as homicide survivors’ most common and greatest source of frustration with law enforcement. Eighteen of the 32 homicide survivors mentioned problems with offering information to and receiving information from detectives about the investigation. Interestingly, 10 survivors expressed heartfelt appreciation for the detailed information that detectives provided. Four did not mention information exchange (as positive or negative) in their responses. All 10 of the law enforcement workers and crime victim advocate respondents, on the other hand, mentioned the struggle to find a balance between survivors’ desire for information and law enforcement’s obligation to solve the murder. Homicide survivors’ conflicts with police over the flow of information arose for three main reasons: (1) victims wanted to be an informant in the case, (2) victims wanted to be informed about the manner of the death, and (3) victims wanted to be informed about the status of the murder investigation. Wanting to Be an Informant in the Case

First, homicide survivors expected detectives to listen to their concerns about their loved one’s whereabouts or suspicious death, welcome their insights about potential suspects, and pursue their leads on suspects and evidence. However, 7 of the 32 study participants reported that detectives blatantly dismissed their information about the death, suspects, and evidence. These dismissals usually occurred at the very beginning

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of the investigation, when detectives doubted that the survivor’s missing or deceased loved one had been murdered (see Victim Account 3.3). Rachel Donado, the mother of 24-year-old Erica, said:

That [first] night, the worst night of our lives, [a] detective named Nesbit, who was assisting [Lead Detective] Qualley, asked me, “Can you tell me why your daughter would commit suicide?” [I said,] “My daughter didn’t commit suicide.” And he said, “Well, we don’t know that, do we?” [I said,] “Well, I know it and that’s good enough for me.” He said, “Was your daughter unhappy? . . . Was she having problems at work? . . . Why didn’t your daughter live with you? Did you kick her out?” . . . I answered his questions, but I didn’t know where we were going and finally, I said, “Okay that’s enough! . . . Tell me something, how many people do you know would kill themselves by stabbing themselves in the chest?” And I guess he realized that I knew how she died and when I asked him that, that completely ended the interview and . . . we weren’t bothered again. (V20)

Victim Account 3.3 Trouble Sharing Information with Police Brad Carson and his wife, Sandy, had just celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary with friends in South Carolina and were expecting their son Carl to call them to say, “Congratulations!” But Carl never called. Brad said they did not think much of it when he did not call that Sunday, but when they could not reach him on Monday or Tuesday, they started to grow concerned. Then, on Tuesday afternoon, Brad called Carl’s house again, expecting to catch him on his return from work. Carl’s friend Mike answered and said, “No, I haven’t seen him since last week.” That’s when Brad and Sandy started to really worry. Even at age 38, Carl always told his parents when he was planning to take a trip, and he never missed work with his accounting firm. Brad and Sandy knew something was terribly wrong. On Thursday, Brad and his other son, Cameron, flew to Union County to figure out what had happened. When they arrived, they Brad Carson (V09)

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checked into a hotel and went to the police department to file a missing person’s report. The detective Brad encountered did not take his concerns seriously. Brad explained:

The guy in charge of missing persons was very cavalier about this [situation] and said, “[You’ve got] nothing to worry about.” He thought [my son] went to Vegas for a few days or something like that. “I’ve been at this job for nine months, [and] everybody has always shown up. So, don’t even think about it.”

Brad and Cameron went to Carl’s house. “[Then I] went to Carl’s house and something was dreadfully wrong. You could tell [by] the condition of the place and everything. Things were missing . . . his car was gone. . . . So, I called the guy from missing persons [again] and I said, ‘Somebody oughta look this house over,’ and he said, ‘Well, we’ll see about that.’” The missing persons detective dismissed Brad’s concerns not just once but twice, and Brad felt frustrated that it took five days to get someone to start an investigation. He explained:

I was highly disappointed in the attitude of the guy at missing persons. I’m sure he’s heard the same story from countless people, “Hey, my child is different.” [Or] “this victim’s different.” . . . But I just felt he could have been a little bit more cooperative. I think I’m a credible person, [as was] my son. When we saw this guy in the missing persons, I just feel that they should have jumped into it more quickly.

Rachel wanted detectives to take their focus off of her daughter’s psychological state and put it on the potential suspects in the case, but she had difficulty getting them to listen to her ideas about the most likely suspect, Erica’s ex-boyfriend, Marcus. Rachel asked detectives:

“Now, [do] you want to listen to me and who I think it was?” So, now [at this point] we have a different relationship. [His name is] Marcus Ortega [and] this is his [cell] number, this is what his car looks like, this is where he works. So forth and so on. [What confused detectives

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was that] the guy who discovered Erica’s body was her [current] boyfriend and the police automatically suspected him because he was at the scene [when the police arrived]. (V20)

According to the victim data, detectives’ disinterest in victims’ input on cases proved surprisingly common. In Australia, Erez and Rogers (1999) reported that court officials developed a routine understanding of the “normal” victim in a wide range of offenses (e.g., burglary, rape, incest) (see also Sudnow 1965). Detectives in Union County appeared to have a similar categorization scheme; they tended to dismiss facts that appeared inconsistent with the “normal” murder or missing person’s case (see also Englebrecht, Mason, and Adams 2014). A problem for some homicide survivors arose when an abnormal crime was mislabeled as a noncrime. In these cases, the victim’s voice was silenced, and detectives’ assumptions about the “normal” murder delayed the investigation and frustrated homicide survivors. Homicide survivors found this particularly frustrating because outside of hiring a private investigator, they did not have the authority or resources to begin an investigation on their own. When detectives denied that the case required investigation, they also denied that the individual was a victim and that he or she could or should play a part in the system. If a role is a resource, denying a person’s claim to that role and the evidence supporting it hinders the individual’s ability to accomplish his or her goals. In another case, an adult daughter made repeated attempts to tell the police that something was not right about her 77-year-old father’s death from an apparent heart attack. The police labeled the cause of death as “natural” for three days before admitting that the evidence suggested that a crack-addicted woman facilitated the heart attack when she broke into the apartment, pinned the man to the floor with a towel, and robbed him. “The most difficult [part] was that they did not take it seriously that I felt like he had been murdered. That was the hardest part and that they didn’t fingerprint the door, they didn’t do any of those things, they didn’t take the towel, they just watched it all. That was the most difficult [part]. It still is” (V03). The initial dismissal of Wendy’s claims about the significance of the towel in her father’s murder probably arose for two reasons. The first reason relates to detectives’ assumptions about the “normal” murder. As with Rachel’s daughter, detectives did not feel that the evidence initially pointed to murder. They did not confiscate the towel in Wendy’s dad’s case, because they did not define it as evidence. Wendy saw the towel

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as significant and hid it under the front seat of her car for three weeks until detectives asked for it. The second reason detectives dismissed Wendy and others was because they disliked being told what to do and how to do it (see also Konradi 1996a; Stenross and Kleinman 1989). One detective described:

Well, sometimes . . . they want to help and sometimes when you have an unsolved case, they take on the role of doing their own detective work. Sometimes that clouds a lot of things because they let out information that we don’t want out. They taint some of the investigation. Their intentions are good; it’s just that they want to be too involved in something that they should just let us handle as a professional. (CJ16)

Victim involvement can taint an investigation, but other research suggests that workers’ pride may also come into play. Victims’ suggestions about evidence and suspects can annoy detectives. A police department counselor with more than two years of experience on homicide cases confirmed this view when she cautioned victims to “understand that the police are trying to do their best. Sometimes, there are some families that are a little pushy and demanding and that is the worst way to start interactions with the detectives” (CJ01). Detectives offered a different perspective on survivors as informants. They said that homicide survivors often provided crucial information about the murder victim, potential murder suspects, and their possible motives. A detective with 11 years of experience explained:

Once [the family] gets [over] that initial shock, you try to get as much information from them at that point as you possibly can without causing them to go into any more emotional trauma than they’re already having. You want to find out what their relationship was to the victim, maybe who their friends were, when the last time they saw him [or her], what they were driving, where they were going, what they were doing, where they were working. You want to get as much information in that short amount of time as you possibly can. (CJ10)

Two issues explain the dramatic difference between homicide survivors’ and detectives’ views on survivors as informants. First, as mentioned earlier, the “normal” murder schema may prevent detectives from openly accepting the information provided by homicide survivors (see Erez and Rogers 1999; Sudnow 1965). Second, law enforcement workers’ experience and homicide survivors’ inexperience with murder cases

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may shape perceptions on this issue. For the victim, the case represents a new and extremely traumatic event, one in which all information and evidence seems critical. For detectives, the case is one of many. That experience may desensitize legal professionals to the horror and tragedy felt by victims (Erez and Rogers 1999). This desensitization can create differences of opinion on the significance of some information, and these differences of opinion may create additional conflict. Detectives’ discretion to dismiss victims’ ideas about their loved one’s death diminished their sense of control over the situation and their subsequent well-being. Andrea, the mother of a murder victim, said that the combination of her tremendous sadness over her loss and her anger over the detective’s unresponsiveness to her phone calls made her feel helpless. Wendy explained her frustration over detectives’ disregard for her concern about a piece of evidence and said, “I have no really good comments about the homicide department of the police” (V03). Feeling a lack of control over the criminal justice process increases victims’ sense of powerlessness and leads to further victimization (Kilpatrick and Otto 1987). This secondary victimization complicates recovery (Orth 2002; Rando 1993). Having a sense of personal control over situations positively affects well-being (Mirowsky and Ross 1989), and Amick-McMullan et al. (1989) found a positive association between satisfaction with the criminal justice system’s management of a murder case and homicide survivors’ psychological well-being. The idea that victims’ involvement in the criminal justice system would help restore control and facilitate healing seems sound, but when involvement does not meet needs, problems can arise. Indeed, none of the 11 victims’ rights afford victims the explicit right to give information to the police about their criminal case or to have that information be taken seriously. In many ways, all victims—not just homicide survivors—are at the mercy of the detectives handling their cases, and there is little that they can do to change that. Wanting to Be Informed About the Manner of the Death

During the early stages of a murder case, many families believed that someone in law enforcement knew and could tell them exactly how their loved one died. These victims wanted to know every detail of their loved one’s last few moments of life. Many felt a compulsive need to understand the specifics of the death so that they could find meaning in and make sense of the loss (Rando 1993: 541). Knowledge can help

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people make sense of difficult and harmful situations. A crime victims’ advocate with 11 years of experience counseling victims (primarily homicide survivors) and promoting victims’ rights explained, “Victims want the truth, no matter how painful it is; they need the truth, instead of going around the truth. They can deal with the truth a lot better than keeping them wondering [about how their loved one was murdered]” (CJ17). Detectives and counselors tried to answer homicide survivors’ questions as best they could and within the limits of their policies. A victim services counselor with more than five years of experience explained, “When the families are wanting information, they meet with the primary detective on the case, and I am also present. Because, of course, he knows all the details, and he knows what he can disclose at the time and what he can’t” (CJ01). This counselor asked detectives not to share any information about the case with her that could not also be shared with the family (CJ01). Another detective explained, “[In the early part of a murder investigation] most of my energy is spent trying to get them some real basic information. Typically, the information that we can give them at that time is very incomplete, very sketchy. So, it’s usually not something that’s very satisfying to them” (CJ03). For some homicide survivors, like the father described next, the interest in information about the death proved intense. As a former legislator and a successful entrepreneur in a neighboring state, Sal Halvata was accustomed to getting answers to his questions. But when it came to learning about how his son Henry died, he faced repeated obstacles. The police’s unwillingness to release information to him about Henry’s death worried him.

[I wish] they would’ve been more forthcoming at the very beginning and told me what they knew. . . . It sounded as though they may’ve thought that something was there . . . which made me uncomfortable . . . because I didn’t know whether there was something that Henry was doing, whether it was drug involved or something like that. (V13)

When Sal’s repeated requests for information about Henry’s death went unanswered, he said, “Just to satisfy my own curiosity, I hired a private detective. They gave me two or three reports, and they frankly could not find out a heck of a lot more than the police” (V13). Although the police withheld some information, Sal eventually learned that they did not know much about Henry’s death. Very few witnesses came forward to talk, and those who did described the incident as an accident.

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Several detectives explained that sometimes they simply did not have the information victims wanted. Detectives and victims’ advocates understood the intense desire for information. A detective with eight years of experience on more than 300 murder cases acknowledged, “Family members oftentimes have a tremendous desire to know everything” (CJ03). He continued, “Information is really difficult to come by for the most part. And technology, even though it’s come a long way, it’s not what people expect. People expect that you can do anything. It’s sometimes difficult for family members to [understand] that some things aren’t doable, even though they saw it on TV” (CJ03). For additional insight on the detective perspective, see Detective Account 3.1.

Detective Account 3.1 Wondering Why Survivors Don’t Contact Them Detective Brian Edwards, a 20-year veteran of law enforcement with 8 years on homicide and 12 years on sex crimes, had witnessed the impact of violence on numerous victims in his career. When he agreed to an interview for this project, we met in his office cubicle on the third floor of the Union County Police Department’s main station. As I placed the recorder on the corner of his desk (which was covered with loosely organized stacks of paper), he eyed it suspiciously and joked, “Are you going to interrogate me?” with the grumbling chuckle of a seasoned detective. His stocky build and reserved demeanor gave him a tough-guy appearance, but his stories about his work with homicide survivors revealed a sincere warmth. After a detailed accounting of the challenges that homicide survivors presented to his work, he paused and off-handedly mentioned that families rarely contacted him after the investigation. He seemed surprised by their lack of contact. He said, “For the most part, after the case is closed, and the trial is [over], the victims’ families never talk to us again. . . . They don’t call us. . . . I don’t know what it is, but for the most part they don’t check on us, or want to say ‘hey’ or [voice trailed off].” I asked, “Or [say] thank you?” He said, “Yes.” He seemed disappointed that his intensive investigative work and his often close relationship with the family could Detective Brian Edwards (CJ05)

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end so abruptly. He continued, “I’ve seen some [survivors] out [in the community who] recognize me, and we talk, but for the most part, you don’t ever see them. I don’t know why. I guess it’s just bad memories.” But Brian wanted more. He wanted to know survivors were doing okay. He wanted to know they appreciated his hard work. Admittedly, the detectives participating in this project tended to see themselves primarily as crime solvers, not as victim helpers; to be certain, this view limited the time and energy detectives devoted to victims during the investigation (see Stenross and Kleinman 1989). At the end of the case, however, they hoped their work would heal some of the pain, and this is what kept them going. Another detective explained: That hole [in their heart] is never going to heal a hundred percent. But if [survivors] give their trust and their understanding and their confidence [to detectives and prosecutors], . . . the criminal justice system through investigations, through prosecutions, through victim assistance services . . . can help fill it up some so it’s less of a huge hole. (CJ10)

Detectives recognized their investigative work—and the information it yielded—as an emotional hurdle in survivors’ recovery process, and deep down, they wanted to know their work helped. The detective continued, “I really think that I have made a difference; it may be [in] a very, very small percentage of people’s lives, but I have made a difference” (CJ10).

Homicide survivors’ intense need for information about the murder makes sense. People use information to understand the meaning of a situation and guide choices about how to act. When obstacles to information-seeking emerge, feelings of powerlessness arise. Dismissing requests for meaningful information can create frustration and a type of “secondary victimization,” and this can further damage homicide survivors’ belief that the world is fair and just (Reed and Blackwell 2006; see also Lerner 1980; Rando 1993). A detective explained his view of sharing information with families:

Now at some point in time you may have a chance to sit down with them and share this information that you have. But you want to do it very sparingly because these people, the bereaved, they talk, and those

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people talk to other people, and before you know it everything that you’ve done is all over that particular area, or those particular individuals. It’s like wildfire. (CJ10)

Police hold tremendous discretionary power over what information to share and what information to withhold (see Skolnick 2011). Skolnick writes, “an extremely important jurisprudential fact [is]: it is impossible to eliminate discretion entirely from the administration of criminal law” (2011: 72). Some argue that this discretion is the cornerstone of police work, allowing officers to consider circumstances and follow hunches. Others suggest that it may also be at the center of victims’ problems with the criminal justice system. Although many homicide survivors faced obstacles in their quest for information about the murder, several got the information they wanted. These survivors gained access to information about the murder when detectives or prosecutors declined to pursue a murder charge in the case (e.g., murder-suicide) or when a detective felt sympathy for the bereaved family. Melissa, the mother of 23-year-old Bonnie, said that she needed information about how her daughter died to “go on.” She said that she could not stop wondering if Bonnie had been raped by her ex-boyfriend before he killed her and then himself. To get answers, Melissa met with the medical examiner. She said, “The unknown was making me feel bad from the standpoint of could it have been worse? Did she suffer? . . . I could take the answers, but I needed the answers so I could go on. . . . I got a lot of comfort in talking to the medical examiner” (V22). Melissa’s acknowledgment that she needed the answers to “go on” suggests that when people receive helpful information, they stop asking questions about what, how, and why something happened (see Montada and Lerner 1998). A seasoned crime victims’ advocate said, “Everybody [who loses a loved one to murder] has questions; everybody needs answers” (CJ17). Some of the answers are simple, like when did this happen, and others are more complex, such as why did this happen. Vince Norton, whose 74-year-old father killed his mother and then himself in a murder-suicide, explained, “We didn’t even know the exact date that it happened, and for some reason, that kind of stuff becomes important. But the police couldn’t answer it; nobody could really answer” (V10). Katherine Talbert, whose sister was killed by her husband in a murdersuicide, expressed tremendous appreciation for the information that law enforcement workers provided. “The [homicide detectives and counselors] even gave me a copy of all . . . the police reports that came in on

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[the night of my sister’s murder]. . . . So that I would understand the sequence of events and what was done and how it was done.” She continued, “The [homicide detectives and counselors] were wonderful. I mean, I was on a first-name basis with this one liaison person and she said, ‘I’m going to check on this and call you back and see what we can take care of’” (V06). Several law enforcement workers confirmed that some cases permitted more openness than others, in part because of the status of the investigation. “You can tell [homicide survivors] a lot more if you have a suspect in custody than if you don’t. . . . You can tell them anything that’s in the affidavit, anything that’s in the search warrants” (CJ05, police department detective). A disappointment for victims arises when law enforcement workers cannot answer their biggest question: “Why did this happen?” When Vince learned that his father had shot and killed his mother and then himself after almost 50 years of marriage, he felt stunned. He said, “This was a big shock . . . there were just a lot of ‘why’ questions. What was going on [with them]? [Eventually,] you finally get the answer. There is no answer” (V10). Victims who lost a loved one to murder-suicide came to the “there is no answer” conclusion and stopped seeking answers to why it happened much sooner than did victims who lost a loved one in other types of murder cases. For instance, when victims had to wait for the defendant’s case to go to trial, they waited for answers, and many of the answers learned at trial proved disturbing and unsatisfying. The search for answers to questions about why may affect homicide survivors’ wellbeing. Mirowsky and Ross (1989: 13) write, “A world that cannot be understood cannot be controlled.” Homicide survivors sought information to understand their loss. Current victims’ rights legislation, however, does not guarantee victims an answer to the question of why, nor can it. The truth is that often there is no good answer. Wanting to Be Informed About the Status of the Murder Investigation

Homicide survivors also wanted to know about the murder investigation. Andrea’s son’s murder case had remained unsolved for more than a year when we met for an interview. The detective investigating the case rarely answered his phone or returned Andrea’s messages. When he finally answered his phone one afternoon, Andrea gave him an earful.

I told him, “I left you several messages on your voicemail and I haven’t gotten any callbacks.” He goes, “Oh well, I have problems with my

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voice message.” I said, “Detective, you’ve been telling me that for over a year. Do you mean you haven’t gotten that voicemail fixed?” . . . He said, “I think they’re going to fix it.” . . . Right! Liar! So, I told him, “I just feel that you should be returning my calls whether I page you or leave a message on your voicemail.” (V07)

Andrea later explained that the detective’s unresponsiveness to her phone calls made her feel helpless, a feeling she had not experienced often in her life. While advocates, legislators, and others have fought to give victims a “voice” in the system, homicide survivors’ experiences suggest that their voice is not always heard. In Andrea’s case, her voice was mostly heard by the detective’s voicemail. Law enforcement workers know that homicide survivors want information about the murder investigation, and they sometimes feel caught between the victim’s need for information and their need to build a strong case. One detective explained the dilemma:

That’s a really difficult part—to try to balance out the fact that they’re wanting information, and oftentimes our investigation is much better served if we don’t provide any additional information than what we need to provide. That’s just a basic tenet of sound investigative procedure. You really have to watch what you say. (CJ10) Another detective made a distinction between solved and unsolved cases when sharing information with families. He explained:

If it’s unsolved, and no [affidavit has] been issued . . . you gotta be blunt [with the family and say] there’s a lot of things I can’t discuss with you [and] you may not like that at this point but as time goes on, you’ll understand it. All’s we can tell you is so-and-so’s dead, he was shot to death or run over, or whatever it may be. And we’re looking for suspects. Then start asking them questions about who might have done it. (CJ05)

Explaining investigation procedures (victims’ right no. 3) can reduce some of the tension that the information struggle creates (Erez 2000). Victims want information about the status of the investigation, and they assume that detectives will openly share that information. Like with the conflicts over the body, victims learned through encounters with detectives that their assumptions were wrong. Few victims have experience with murder investigations. As a result, they have little knowledge of and many assumptions about their rights and privileges in law enforcement interactions. They have little

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knowledge of the policies that guide a murder investigation and detectives’ work, although this knowledge increases as they gain more experience. Although victims’ rights legislation gave victims the opportunity to retrieve their property (right no. 2) and learn about investigative procedure (right no. 3), those rights do not guarantee the right to information about the investigation. The struggle for case information frustrated many homicide survivors. Karen, the mother of 17-year-old Mark, explained, “I hated that period of time between [the suspect’s] arrest and when I finally got to go to a pretrial hearing. I felt like I was totally out of the loop. I mean, they would tell me things, but they couldn’t tell me why they were there, or what was there, or what happened” (V08). The fact that homicide survivors wanted to know the status of their loved one’s case and felt frustrated when they could not get this information supports the view of powerlessness as alienation. Homicide survivors who felt that they had no control over the criminal justice system’s management of the case felt alienated from the system that they expected would welcome their involvement and give them updates. The law is a powerful resource, but detectives control victims’ access to it. “Information is crucial for victims” (Carr, Logio, and Maier 2003: 133). Victims want information about and involvement in the police’s investigation. In their survey of victims’ encounters with the juvenile justice system, Carr, Logio, and Maier (2003) found that as victims’ access to information increased, their satisfaction with the system also increased (see also Erez 2000; Hagan 1982; Kenney 1995).

Conclusion

The two respondents quoted at the beginning of this chapter—a survivor and detective—capture the essence of the struggle between a survivor’s need to begin grieving and the detective’s responsibility to conduct an airtight investigation. Underlying this struggle is the issue of power, which emerges repeatedly in research on all types of victims and at all stages of the criminal justice process. Here, homicide survivors felt powerless because law enforcement workers—as agents of the criminal justice system—controlled the investigation process. They determined the survivor’s access to the deceased’s body; they also determined the direction of the investigation and the amount of information exchanged in the case. Law enforcement workers’ control and homicide survivors’ relative lack of control frustrated and upset many survivors and hindered their recovery from the crime. Perceptions of procedural justice

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(i.e., fairness of procedures) are influenced by the way authorities treat victims (Wemmers 2013). Thus, despite the implementation of victims’ rights legislation in states across the United States, the relationship between victims and law enforcement workers remains largely unequal. This research calls for several major changes in the rights and services granted homicide survivors and other victims in the United States. First, when we closely examine the content of various states’ victims’ rights legislation, we see that victims have few rights at the law enforcement stage of the criminal justice system. In this state, for example, only 3 of the 11 victims’ rights address rights at the law enforcement stage, and none address the needs and concerns that survivors raised and that law enforcement workers and crime victim advocates recognized in this study. Thus, a major policy change to come from this research would be to increase victims’ rights at the law enforcement stage. Some of the changes to law enforcement procedure that homicide survivors want may not be feasible under the current legal culture. For instance, allowing homicide survivors the opportunity to see and touch the deceased’s body at a murder scene and before an autopsy may not be possible, given detectives’ and prosecutors’ concerns about preserving evidence. However, steps can be taken to carefully and empathetically explain these procedures to homicide survivors. In addition, because one of the reasons that homicide survivors wanted to see the deceased’s body was to make an identification, law enforcement detectives could consider showing homicide survivors a photograph of the deceased’s face to help survivors confirm the identity and begin the grief process. This approach may not work well in cases where the deceased’s face has been violated or damaged, but it may work as a compromise in others. To address homicide survivors’ complaints about the flow of information, a more radical change may be required. Law enforcement agencies could consider making homicide survivors (and other types of victims) a consultant to the investigation once they have been cleared as a possible suspect. Allowing survivors to feel like a part of the team investigating their loved one’s murder—if they wish—may help them begin restoring their sense of control. In addition, when homicide survivors offer information or suggestions that do not appear relevant, law enforcement officers should not dismiss them so quickly. Survivors could be invited to give an interview to the police, invited to receive regular updates on the police’s investigation, and made to feel that their concerns are taken seriously. These changes to the rights and services

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offered to survivors at the law enforcement stage may work well with other types of victims and at other stages of the process. Finally, current victims’ rights legislation treats victims of crime as a homogeneous group. It may be time to revise victims’ rights laws to recognize that not all victims want or need the same rights and services. Just as the criminal code recognizes different sentences for different types of offenses (e.g., robbery, sexual assault, murder) and different kinds of offenders (e.g., juvenile, adult), victims’ rights legislation could recognize different rights and services for different types of victims at different stages of the process. For example, as suggested, homicide survivors could be granted the right to see a photo of the deceased to facilitate the identification process and minimize the feeling of disbelief about the death. Sexual assault victims, on the other hand, could be afforded the right to meet with prosecutors to practice their witness testimony and discuss case strategy (see Konradi 1997). In summary, the findings presented here suggest that homicide survivors do not have the rights they expect in the law enforcement process or the involvement they want in the investigation into their loved one’s murder case, indicating that it may be time to revise victims’ rights legislation—for homicide survivors and possibly other victims of crime.

4 Prosecutors Take Over

[The prosecutors] did care, and I could tell that it wasn’t just another case to them. They cared a lot about this case. . . . They wanted justice to be done. —Donna Taylor, sister of 20-year-old homicide victim (V02)

If the family of the victim is involved, that takes time away from [my] focusing on the actual legal preparation. . . . That’s where that first meeting comes in and why that’s important. . . . If they leave with a warm fuzzy that things are under control, then hopefully, the amount of hand-holding that I have to do is limited. —Prosecutor, Union County District Attorney’s Office (CJ20)

Just three days after her son Harry’s murder, Nora Harden asked the prosecutor assigned to the case to meet her at the crime scene. Nora wanted to know all the details of the events leading up to Harry’s death, and she wanted to hear those details from the prosecutor. She said the case was “too personal” to discuss with anyone else. As they walked the front lawn of the home where Harry was shot and killed during a party, the prosecutor, Catherine, delicately explained that some of the evidence suggested that Harry had been trying to sell drugs at the party. His behavior enraged the party’s host, who chased him out of the house, into the front yard, and shot him in the back. 81

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The 911 calls captured a chaotic scene with Harry’s friends frantically screaming in the background, begging to get their friend medical help. To Catherine’s relief, Nora was not surprised to hear about Harry’s drug dealing; she knew he had been having financial problems, particularly in making child support payments. The drug dealing did not bother her, and Nora appreciated Catherine’s cautious approach to her and the case. Nora said:

[Catherine] was always very warm. As a matter of fact, this year she sent me some beautiful flowers on the third [anniversary of my son’s death]. I think she’s taken a very personal edge to this case and I think that she’s made a commitment that is very strong in her heart—to prove this case . . . beyond [a] shadow of doubt—that this guy intentionally shot my son [four times in the back] and meant to kill him. (V26)

Nora’s view that Catherine was “always very warm” is particularly noteworthy given the three-year wait for justice in the case. At the time of our interview, the first trial had ended in a mistrial and she was anxiously awaiting the second one. Although she complained about the jury and the judge in the first trial, Nora had nothing but admiration for Catherine. * * *

Most academic research characterizes the victim-prosecutor relationship as strained. Victims expect too much from prosecutors, and prosecutors do too little for victims. To be certain, a great deal of truth rests in these characterizations, but the data presented here reveal a subtle but important shift in the victim-prosecutor relationship. Over the time I spent talking to families, prosecutors, and counselors in the Union County criminal justice system, one fact became apparent: families wanted a prosecutor who cared about the case and the murder victim, and most prosecutors cared. These prosecutors knew the importance of a caring approach, and they frequently offered it—sometimes genuinely and sometimes strategically. Ewick and Silbey (1998) have argued that we need to examine how regular people experience, understand, and contest legality (i.e., institutionalized and socially constructed power) to appreciate the effect of law (e.g., victims’ rights). In these encounters, victims and prosecutors both challenged the legal definition of a prosecutor as a representative of the state. Carol Heimer’s (2001) explanation for how organizations and individuals approach a situation with different levels of interest and emo-

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tion provides a useful framework for examining the victim-prosecutor relationship. Organizations handle numerous cases, streamline work, and maintain objectivity, while individuals seek personalized attention and feel emotionally attached (Heimer 2001). Indeed, Union County prosecutors gave homicide survivors more personalized attention and emotional investment than detectives did for two main reasons. First, once the case moved to the prosecutor’s office, homicide survivors were no longer suspects, and they were no longer interrogated about their own or the victim’s role in the events leading up to the homicide. They did not have to prove their innocence or their identity as a legitimate victim. Prosecutors recognized them as victims, a validating experience. In Susan Hirsch’s (2008: 44) account of her encounters with the justice system following her husband’s murder in a terrorist attack, she explained, “Getting recognition as victims—especially from officials in power—often becomes a crucial goal for those struggling to bring coherence to a damaged and wildly fluctuating sense of self in the wake of a violent attack. . . . But exactly what constitutes recognition for those who have been harmed varies tremendously.” The findings presented here suggest that what constitutes recognition does not vary tremendously among homicide survivors. Second, at the prosecution stage, victims learned some of the answers to their long-held questions about what happened and why. During a murder investigation, detectives erected physical boundaries around the murder scene and the deceased’s body, and they tightly controlled the flow of case information—sometimes not sharing information with the family and at other times not listening to information from the family (see Chapter 3). In addition, because of the time constraints and emotional drain, detectives rarely met with families to provide updates. Once the case moved to the prosecutor’s office, many of the barriers to information diminished. Zoe Nunoz, mother of 25-year-old Kelson, said, “[When the case went to the prosecutor’s office] we [were] already past the investigation stage, where the cops wouldn’t tell you anything, and [the cops were] just telling you things in circles, trying to pacify you so you [would] shut up and leave them alone. But [the prosecutors] were open and honest” (V12). For Zoe, this openness represented a major shift in her relationship with the system, because in the early stages of the investigation, detectives treated her and her younger sons as suspects. Prosecutors, on the other hand, treated Zoe like a victim—sharing information about the investigation, the likelihood of a conviction, and the timing of court proceedings. Zoe said, “I guess [I appreciated] the fact that [the prosecutors] were so up front” (V12).

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This chapter explains what victims expected of prosecutors and how prosecutors managed those expectations by exploring the following research questions: (1) How do homicide survivors describe their encounters with prosecutors? (2) What do these descriptions reveal about their expectations for prosecutors and the criminal justice system? (3) How do prosecutors and counselors describe homicide survivors? Four major findings emerged from the data. First, homicide survivors wanted to choose the prosecutor handling their loved one’s murder case. Second, homicide survivors sought (and often felt) an emotional connection with the prosecutor handling the case. Third, these emotional connections positively influenced homicide survivors’ satisfaction with prosecutors. The data indicate that shared emotions between victims and prosecutors represented a key mechanism for connecting victims to the criminal justice system. Fourth, these emotional connections helped victims with their recovery and helped prosecutors meet system goals.

Why Can’t I Select the Prosecutor?

Several victims complained about their inability to select the prosecutor handling their loved one’s murder case, particularly in light of the defendant’s ability to choose a defense attorney. Wanda Diaz, the mother of 20-year-old Dominique, questioned her limited role in the selection of the prosecutor. She asked, “Why [are] all the rights . . . only for the defendant [and] not for the victim? . . . [If] the defendant gets to pick his own attorney, why aren’t the victims allowed to do that? Why can’t we pick our own DA? [I wanted to select] someone that [had] a good record of putting [offenders] in prison” (V15). Wanda felt it unfair that defendants had more choice than victims (see also Hirsch 2008; Spungen 1998). Karen Noland, the mother of 17-year-old Mark, explained, “I didn’t have a choice [in the prosecutor for my son’s murder case]. It wasn’t like going out and hiring an attorney. And I just wanted to see and hear [the prosecutor] for myself” (V08). What victims wanted was a prosecutor with a strong record of success. Of course, state statutes define the prosecutor as a representative of the state, not an attorney for the victim (American Bar Association 1993). Victims’ rights legislation grants victims the right to notification of court dates and the right to make a victim impact statement at sentencing, but not to handpick or endorse the prosecutor. Bureaucratic organizations often restrict individuals’ influence in an effort to reduce bias and improve efficiency (Heimer 2001). A prosecutor acknowledged the frustration vic-

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tims feel: “It seems like they have no control, that the defendant is in total control of what’s going to happen, because the system focuses on the defendant, not on the victim’s family” (CJ04). Erez and Roberts (2007: 278) note, “The adversarial system of justice [in the United States] accords victims no formal standing in the prosecution of their offenders.” In the context of this system, victims tend to see the defendant as an enemy to defeat, and they view the prosecutor as their legal ally. Given their inability to select the prosecutor, victims sought other evidence of and reassurance about the prosecutor’s skill and commitment during their one-on-one meetings. Karen Noland, the mother of 17-year-old Mark, explained, “I didn’t know the DA, [and] I wanted to put places and faces and voices together and [it] took . . . an eternity [until I could meet him]. . . . It really bothered me, because I needed to put everything in perspective” (V08). What victims wanted to put “in perspective” included the prosecutor’s legal experience and case knowledge. Natalie Harris, the sister of 49-year-old Alexander Belton, who was bludgeoned to death and set on fire by his roommate after a financial dispute, expressed concern about her prosecutor’s level of experience. She said, “Unfortunately, [the prosecutor handling my brother’s case] has never been first chair on a trial before; although I’ve talked to her and she seems very sharp” (V21). In these first meetings, victims quickly size up the prosecutor. Some came away with a positive assessment and others came away with a negative assessment. Rachel Donado, the mother of 24-year-old Erica, said, “At first . . . to us, it [seemed] like the DA was not getting the evidence together. [We thought] ‘They’re not doing it! They’re not doing it!’ And they weren’t doing it! Honestly, they weren’t. We could tell because [during our second meeting, the prosecutor said,] ‘okay, let me refresh myself’” (V20). When families perceived the prosecutor as informed and optimistic, they felt more confident about their work. Brad Carson explained, “When I met the assistant DA for the first time, it was very positive, because she said that they had a very, very strong case” (V09). In Zoe’s son’s case, four different prosecutors were assigned to the case over 20 months. She said, “The postponements and changing of prosecuting attorneys [frustrated me]. [Whenever a new prosecutor] would come on, he wouldn’t know the case, and [he was] asking the same questions [of me that the last prosecutor asked]. It was just frustrating because they just kept changing” (V12). When Zoe learned that the prosecutor originally assigned to her son’s case was reassigned to higherprofile cases in the community, she felt bad. She felt as though her son did not count as much as the other victims; her family had no influence

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on the system or the prosecutor. The assumption underlying these comments reveals that families wanted a prosecutor who would take their case from beginning to end. They viewed this investment of time and energy as an important indication of the prosecutor’s dedication, which served as validation for the significance of their loss and the value of the deceased’s life (see also Englebrecht, Mason, and Adams 2014).

Wanting an Emotional Connection with the Prosecutor

While victims wanted a prosecutor with experience and knowledge, they also wanted one with compassion for their loss. Victims sought a prosecutor who would emotionally invest in the case and in their grief. They wanted someone who cared—about them, about the deceased, and about justice. In the absence of expertise about the legal system, an emotional connection helped victims feel reassured that the prosecutor would work hard for them and the deceased. An emotional investment may help victims feel that their loved one’s case means something to the prosecutor (see Heimer 2001). Nora Harden felt her son’s case was too personal to discuss with a counselor. She only wanted to talk with the prosecutor. She explained, “I basically stuck straight with Catherine [the prosecutor, not the victim counselor]. Whenever I called, I called for her specifically as to how the case was going and things. It was too personal to feel I could go through anybody else. That’s the way I felt about it” (see Victim Account 4.1). Several prosecutors anticipated victims’ desire for personal legal representation and their inevitable disappointment with the limitations of the victim-prosecutor relationship by meeting with the family as soon as the case was assigned to them. A prosecutor with three years of experience (also quoted at the start of this chapter) said:

In my experience, the family wants to have contact [with] and be reassured by the attorney responsible for the case [not the victim witness counselor]. And I understand that . . . but I guess that’s where that first meeting comes in and why that’s important. Because if they leave with a warm fuzzy that things are under control, then hopefully, the amount of hand-holding that I have to do is limited. And they’ll trust that things are under control. (CJ20)

Victims genuinely appreciated getting a “warm fuzzy” from the prosecutor, particularly when it came to sharing their grief and their anger over the loss.

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Victim Account 4.1 Getting a Compassionate Prosecutor Nora Harden, a proud single mom, raised her two sons (Harry and Oliver) on her own. For more than 20 years, she had worked hard to provide a stable home life, and in the previous year, her own life had started to improve. She had put herself through beauty school and court reporting school, and she eventually earned her real estate license. She had landed a job with the post office and had met and married a man. They had just moved into a new house near Union Lake, and Nora felt that her life was on track. But just two months after their wedding, her 25-year-old son, Harry, was shot and killed at a party in their neighborhood. Nora and Harry were quite close. When we sat down at a large table in the kitchen of her house, she showed me a photo of Harry at three years old, and she quietly cried, “I don’t like to say that he was murdered. It’s much easier to say—he died.” Even three years after his murder, the case dragged on in the courts and the circumstances surrounding his death confused Nora. First, she was not notified about his death until more than 24 hours afterward, even though the murder happened less than a mile from her home and her home address appeared on his driver’s license. Eventually, detectives pieced together some of the details. Harry had been selling drugs at a party, when the wealthy and troubled host started yelling at him. The host chased Harry out of the house and into the front yard and, in a rage, pulled out a gun. He fired the gun into the air above his head. Guests screamed and ran for cover, spilling into the yard and driveway. Harry also ran. But seconds later, the host followed Harry to the front lawn, brought the gun down to shoulder level, and shot Harry twice in the back. According to the 911 recording and witness testimony in the first trial, when Harry fell to the ground, his friends screamed, “You shot my friend! You shot my friend!” From the start of the case, Nora forged a personal relationship with the prosecutor, Catherine Nicols, and Catherine reciprocated. Catherine sent Nora flowers each year on the anniversary of Harry’s death and met with Nora at the scene to discuss case details. Nora’s experiences poignantly capture the role that a compassionate connection can play in alleviating a victim’s pain and sadness and ensuring satisfaction with the prosecutor (although maybe not the outcome of the case). In the cases where the prosecutor forged an emotional relationship with Nora Harden (V26)

continued

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the victim, the victims managed to separate their satisfaction with the prosecutor from their satisfaction with the system and outcome. Heimer (2001) has noted that people often seek intimate working relationships with organizational representatives, but representatives often rebuff them, preferring distance and objectivity. Nora’s example illustrates how the intimate working relationship that Heimer describes can include the prosecutor’s investment of time (meeting the victim at the crime scene) and expression of sympathy (sending flowers on the anniversary of the death), which may offer a type of therapeutic jurisprudence that eases the victim’s pain (see Winnick 1997).

Sharing Sadness

The warm fuzzy the prosecutor tried to offer homicide survivors in his first meeting meant less hand-holding down the road. He continued, “If the family of the victim is involved, that takes time away from [me] focusing on the actual legal preparation” (CJ20). Yet homicide survivors wanted a prosecutor who shared their devastating grief over their loved one’s murder. Seventeen of the 20 homicide survivors (85 percent) who encountered a prosecutor mentioned the prosecutor’s compassion (or disturbing lack of compassion) for them and their deceased loved one. The following four accounts come from three parents and a daughter of the deceased; all four described their prosecutor as caring and concerned.

[The prosecutors] were excellent and they seemed to, whether they did or not, they seemed to really take heart in what we asked for. (V30, Steven Erikson)

I think [the prosecutor] just went the extra mile. I mean, it felt like [the prosecutor and the counselor] cared. (V12, Zoe Nunoz)

[The prosecutor] stayed with us until the end [of the case and] that comforted us, because I felt like I [had] somebody there [for me]. (V15, Wanda Diaz)

[The prosecutors] explained the whole process to us as it was happening, and I thought that was very good. And she was very nice. . . . They

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were just very accommodating. . . . Their concern was apparent. (V03, Wendy Lawrence)

As these accounts suggest, emotional connections can provide the foundation for a meaningful personal relationship. When those emotional connections come after a sudden and violent loss, the opportunities for shared understanding between victims and prosecutors abound (see Burgess 1975; Kelly 1990; Rando 1993). Whether or not we admit it, we all expect sympathy in times of need (Clark 1987). When others withhold sympathy, we think of them as under-investors whose “sin” is being “aloof and removed” (Clark 1987). For victims, an emotionally uninvested prosecutor signaled a lack of a commitment to justice for the deceased. Emotionally invested prosecutors, on the other hand, held promise that they “cared” enough to go “the extra mile” in the case (V12) and that they planned to stay “with [them] until the end [of the case]” (V15). Contrary to previous research on victims and prosecutors, Union County prosecutors honored homicide survivors’ desire for sympathy. In doing so, they honored social norms about offering sympathy in times of need (see Clark 1987). One prosecutor’s office counselor explained: [We want to make] them realize that what happened to them is personal for us too. . . . Caring and [providing the kind of] sympathy that they need . . . and letting them know that just because the system moves slowly and it takes a year [to go to trial] doesn’t mean that their case is not the most important case we have, because that’s all they want to know. . . . And we’re honestly able to do that . . . just through listening. (CJ06) A prosecutor with 16 years of experience explained, “[When I meet with families, I ask myself:] ‘What’s going to make them feel better?’” (CJ07). Union County prosecutors’ willingness to share homicide survivors’ sadness over the loss marks a major change in criminal justice culture. Approximately 20 years ago, Erez and Laster (1999) found that court officials downplayed victims’ statements of harm—suggesting that victims’ natural inclination for vindictiveness diminished their objectivity. The data presented here suggest that victims’ rights legislation and victims’ rights advocates have helped alter the climate of this criminal justice system, creating more opportunities for compassionate connections between victims and prosecutors in Union County.

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Two Noteworthy Departures from the Emotional Connection Theme

Circumstantial Sympathy. Two important points of departure emerged

in the larger “emotional connection” theme. First, not all homicide survivors received a sympathetic response from prosecutors. In these cases, the victim’s participation in unlawful activity before the death reduced the prosecutor’s willingness to connect with the survivor. Two homicide survivors believed the prosecutor offered them less sympathy because of their loved one’s criminal history and gang affiliation. One prosecutor tried to prepare families for the news that their loved one was not “great.” He said, “If it’s a drug deal gone bad, I have to bring out [that information] to the jury that the victim was a drug addict or something like that. Getting families to understand why I’m having to do that so that it doesn’t look like I’m hiding the ball from the jury . . . is difficult” (CJ11). A detective acknowledged the challenge in prosecuting a murder case where the victim engaged in criminal activity. “Unfortunately, we don’t always have what I would call ‘great victims,’ if you know what I mean. We’ve actually had several cases where the juries have found the murderer ‘not guilty’ because the victim was a bigger piece of dirt than the murderer was” (CJ16). A crime victim advocate (and retired detective) reasoned that not all victims deserved a sympathetic response from prosecutors, in part because of their character. He said, “Not all victims are nice people,” and the families of these problematic victims can prove difficult to work with on murder cases (CJ13). Indeed, several prosecutors described cases where the prosecutor disliked working with the murder victim’s family for one reason or another, finding the victim-prosecutor relationship difficult to manage. When Union County prosecutors took the “affectively neutral” tone and declined to offer sympathy, they upheld the bureaucratic criminal justice system’s tradition of unemotional objectivity (see Erez and Laster 1999; Heimer 2001; Pogrebin and Poole 1991; Stenross and Kleinman 1989). They also frustrated victims who expected a kind and compassionate prosecutor. Both of the victim participants who received “circumstantial sympathy” from prosecutors came from a racial or ethnic minority group. Deidra (V17) was the African American wife of a murder victim, and Zoe (V12) was the Latina mother of a murder victim. National survey data have found that blacks and Latinos experienced more injustice in the criminal justice system than whites in the United States (Hagan and

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Albonetti 1982; Hagan, Shedd, and Payne 2005). Deidra and Zoe described their loved ones’ lower socioeconomic status and criminal record—not their racial or ethnic identity—as the reason for prosecutors’ lack of personal and professional investment in the case. BonillaSilva’s (2009) research on “color-blind racism” (or the attribution of differential treatment to non-race-related factors) offers an alternative interpretation. Perhaps Deidra’s and Zoe’s allegations of prosecutors’ class and criminal record bias—instead of racial bias—indicate that they have fallen victim to the ideology of color-blind racism prevalent in modern society. Zoe reasoned: [The prosecutors] had so many cases and at about the same time that my son was murdered [a high-profile double homicide of two college students happened in Union County]. . . . Their case took precedence over my son’s; it was just a more high-profile case and they were switching prosecutors because my prosecutor had to take that case. So, they had to find another. Those procedures are frustrating. (V12)

In general, the circumstantial sympathy theme did not represent the norm for homicide survivors. Most Union County prosecutors did not follow the affectively neutral path that Heimer (2001) and others would expect (see Erez and Laster 1999; Goodrum and Stafford 2003; Stenross and Kleinman 1989; Pogrebin and Poole 1991). They connected emotionally with homicide survivors, viewing the connection as important to victims’ sense of justice and satisfaction with the system. A counselor explained:

When they get to our office, we do a lot of listening about how they feel about what happened to them. . . . There’s a lot of pain. And it’s painful for us too. . . . I think it is perfectly fine that when you’re hearing someone talk about what happened to their child or somebody they loved, you can shed tears. . . . You don’t ever get where you don’t feel it. You might think that you would, but you have somebody come in who’s just full of so much pain. There’s just no way that you don’t share a little bit of that with them. (CJ06)

No Sympathy Needed. A second important departure from the shared sadness theme came from a few homicide survivors who chided other victims for thinking prosecutors should support them emotionally. Rachel said:

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[Prosecutors are] not there to serve as bereavement counselors. You can’t sit there and say: “Poor, poor pitiful me. My daughter died.” No! You can do that later! But the time that you do have with [the prosecutor]—if you in fact want results from whatever action they’re taking— [you need to] stay focused on what’s going on and help them. Don’t let your being a victim . . . make your daughter a victim of the system. So, get in there and help them if you can. She continued:

I think that as a family member of a dead person you expect everybody to feel sorry for you. You do, you really do, and it is not their duty or obligation to do so. They are there to do a job and they will quite naturally feel sorry for you, but they can’t feel sorry for people 52 weeks a year. (V20)

These comments capture a strong minority of victims’ feelings about prosecutors, but not the majority. Five of the 20 homicide survivors encountering a prosecutor (25 percent) did not seek or expect an emotional connection with the prosecutor in their loved one’s murder case. What accounted for these survivors’ different emotional expectations for prosecutors? A careful analysis of the victim transcripts revealed that homicide survivors from higher socioeconomic backgrounds and with stronger social support networks expected less emotional intimacy with prosecutors. Rachel had support from her husband, sister, and two adult children following her daughter’s murder and during the trial. Rachel also had a middle-class income and some college education, giving her a slightly higher socioeconomic status than most victim participants in the study (see Table A.1). Homicide survivors with more modest incomes and less social support often leaned more heavily on the prosecutor for emotional support. A counselor with the police department noted, “We have to respect what they need and what they want” (CJ01). Sharing Anger

Homicide survivors did not just want to share their grief with the prosecutor, they also wanted to share their anger. In addition, they wanted the prosecutor to telegraph that anger to the jury in the case. Thirteen of the 20 victim participants (65 percent) expressed a desire for shared anger with the prosecutor. In the two cases described next, homicide survivors

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appreciated prosecutors’ sense of “injustice of the murder” and outrage over the jury’s not-guilty verdict. Delia Jiminez’s 24-year-old niece Erica was raped and then stabbed to death by her ex-boyfriend. Delia said, “The assistant DA did a very thorough job. He understood what was going on, [and he] was able to express some of our anger at the injustice of the murder [to the jury]” (V18) (see Victim Account 4.2).

Victim Account 4.2 Conveying Our Anger About the Murder Delia Jiminez and Rachel Donado talked about the murder of Erica, their 24-year-old niece and daughter, respectively. Obtaining data from two participants with the same loss provided an opportunity to obtain different perspectives on the same case and victim–criminal justice interactions. When Delia recalled the way the murder case moved through the criminal justice system, she said she feels lucky, a surprising reflection on a murder case. She explained: Delia Jiminez (V18) and Rachel Donado (V20)

I think about it periodically. [And I think] we were lucky. Erica’s exboyfriend was found [within two months of her murder]. . . . He turned himself in and about six months later, it was up for trial. So, we were lucky. That was my sister’s fear as we started getting into it. She was afraid that Erica wasn’t famous; she wasn’t a person of influence. [She thought] we’re just gonna be treated like secondclass citizens, because I think she has a sense that the system is political. Because there are certain cases that get a lot of media attention. And you start to wonder [when they] couldn’t find the attacker. . . . We began to wonder: “Do they really care?” Because it was just Erica. She wasn’t important in the community. So, you gotta wonder: “Are the police doing their job?” We try to think the best of people, but those thoughts do come up. You wonder if they’re doing everything they can do.

As families waited for the trial, they frequently wondered if they were doing enough—enough to advocate for their loved one, enough to convey the injustice of their death, enough to bring justice to the defendant.

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The doubts proved difficult to bear. Once at the trial, those doubts began to subside as they saw prosecutors present the case. Delia explained:

Once we got to trial, clearly, Edward Parsons, the assistant DA, did a very thorough job. He understood what was going on and was able to express some of our anger at the injustice of the murder. So, it wasn’t like he was without passion once we got to trial. He was good about conveying the fact that this woman was killed innocently. I mean, she hadn’t done anything to deserve this. But it [was] just getting to that point [that was hard]. Delia appreciated Edward’s willingness to convey the anger her family felt about her niece’s murder. She continued, “[The DA] just handled the trial efficiently and with some empathy and emotion [and] . . . the jurors were crying.” Like her sister, Delia, Rachel Donado felt fortunate about the way prosecutors handled her daughter’s murder case. She said:

So, they told us the worst-case scenario and that we might not even go to trial until December. But in fact, we were through in June. So, because they showed the worst-case scenario, we were quite grateful we were over [with the trial] in June. . . . [When I see in the news] other cases that have taken 18 months and more, I know they were not pulling the wool over my eyes. They were telling the truth that cases do take that long and that we were, in fact, very lucky, to get it over with.

In Donna Taylor’s brother’s murder case, the defendant received a not-guilty verdict using a self-defense claim. Along with the prosecutors and the counselor, Donna felt completely shocked and devastated by the verdict. She appreciated seeing the prosecutors’ disappointment following the verdict, and she believed their reactions signaled their level of investment in the case. She said, “[The lead prosecutor] got upset that day in court [when the jury came back with the verdict] and I could tell this case really meant something to him” (V02). Prosecutors, judges, and counselors described their experiences with and perceptions of victims’ anger. One prosecutor said, “I’ve had people rant and rave and get mad at me, [victims who] want to scream at the judge and the jury [over the verdict in their loved one’s murder case]” (CJ11). Another explained, “I’m real open to victims expressing

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anger at us, at the system” (CJ07). This prosecutor believed that sharing anger and being involved in the case benefited victims’ satisfaction.

[By being involved in the process, homicide survivors have the opportunity to] understand what the law means and they understand why sometimes what they want, we can’t do. They can be angry about it, but as long as they’ve had the opportunity to tell us how they feel, or to be angry about it, or to be involved in the process [they feel better about the case]. (CJ06)

Even a criminal court judge with 18 years of experience on the bench understood victims’ anger and frustration. He said, “I’m always telling my staff [that] there’s going to be people that come here and they’ll be rude and yell and scream, but try to appreciate the stress and the pressure that they’re under in this situation” (CJ15). To connect the historical context of organizations to the personal— and sometimes painful—biographies of individual people, we must locate the “interstices, where two or more systems of understanding confront one another” (Heimer 2001: 73). The victims’ rights movement acted as an external force, creating new opportunities for victims and new responsibilities for workers (e.g., emotional openness and victim involvement) (see Abbott 1988). Previous research suggests that legal professionals have sought to keep victims outside of the courtroom work group (Eisenstein and Jacob 1977; Erez and Laster 1999). But things have changed. Of course, we expect to feel and share anger in our personal relationships with family members (e.g., spouses, parents, and children) and maybe in therapeutic encounters (e.g., counselor–patient). Shared anger, however, is less frequently examined or discussed in nonintimate relationships between individuals and organizations. Lawler and Thye (1999: 234) explain that “anger results from negative events attributed to arbitrary or illegitimate acts of others.” Murder typically counts as an arbitrary and illegitimate act. Thus, a prosecutor, judge, or counselor’s recognition of the horrible injustice of a loved one’s murder may help victims feel emotionally supported and validated by the system. Under a prosecutor’s control, openness to victims’ sadness and anger may be a critical emotional tool for establishing rapport and building trust in the victim-prosecutor relationship. Because current victims’ rights legislation does not guarantee victims the opportunity to share their grief or anger with prosecutors (or other criminal court workers), the fact that victim and criminal justice worker participants reported experiences with shared emotions provides evidence that the emotional culture of the Union County criminal justice system has changed.

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The Emotional Path to Satisfaction

An emotional connection with the prosecutor proved to be an important element of victims’ satisfaction with the system, and, more surprisingly, this connection mitigated the potentially devastating effect of a mistrial or not-guilty verdict in several cases. For example, Donna’s younger brother’s murder trial—where she sat for two weeks as the only African American in an all-white courtroom—ended with a not-guilty verdict. The defendant’s questionable self-defense claims, the victim’s gang affiliations, and the white-on-black murder brought a great deal of media attention to the case. The defendant’s friends and family filled the courtroom with boisterous laughter and cheers, while the murder victim’s only representative—Donna—sat quietly in the front row of the galley with a victim services counselor. Despite the jury’s verdict, Donna viewed the two prosecutors in the case as hardworking and kind. “The DA’s office went above and beyond [the call of duty in my brother’s murder case]. I don’t know what they do with other people, but in my case, I feel like they did their job plus some. They were very sensitive as to the way I would feel about things” (V02). Although a conviction and a tough sentence for the defendant can provide many victims with a sense of justice and satisfaction, the legal verdict is not the only way to help victims. By expressing sincere sympathy for the victimization and their loss, prosecutors can improve victims’ satisfaction with their work and the system. A prosecutor with 16 years of experience explained, “I think it’s real important they do have a bond and they trust the [prosecutor]. If you do go to trial, they need to trust that you really know what you’re doing, that you really care, and that you’re there to help them.” The prosecutor continued, “If they don’t trust the [prosecutor] . . . they’re never going to feel like they got a full shot at justice. There’s always going to be questions and doubts about it. So, you’ve got to establish that rapport with them so that they know that [with] any decision you make [in the case] . . . you’re looking out for them and their lost loved one” (CJ07). Some might argue that victim counselors and advocates should provide the emotional connection victims seek, but 5 of the 20 victim participants expressed a specific desire for a connection with the prosecutor, not the counselor, in their loved one’s murder case. Nora Harden explained, “Victims’ services were fine at the very beginning and as helpful as possible, but I basically stuck straight with Catherine [the prosecutor]. Whenever I called, I called for her specifically to ask how the case was going and things” (V26). These findings indicate that relegating all of the criminal justice system’s emotion work to counselors

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compartmentalizes victims’ intense feelings of sadness to a therapeutic encounter; they want the prosecutor (not just the counselor) to feel their sadness and grief, reflecting a type of therapeutic jurisprudence where encounters with the system benefit well-being (Winnick 1997). One prosecutor recognized the need for victims to meet with her. She explained, “[Victims] need to not just meet the victim counselor. They need to be able to come in and meet the person who’s gonna be in the courtroom, who’s gonna be potentially plea bargaining their case (or recommending to them what should happen in the case), and who’s going to make all the final decisions” (CJ07). The research on emotion in human evolution and the research on emotion in the law offer helpful explanations for the significance of compassion in prosecutors’ interactions with victims. Douglas Massey (2002) explains that the emotional brain processes information before the rational brain does. As a result, the emotional brain can influence the rational brain’s interpretation. This may explain why an emotional connection—of both sadness and anger—with a prosecutor might help mitigate the effect of a negative case outcome. A favorable or comforting emotional connection with the prosecutor may help positively influence the victim’s perception of the prosecutor’s work, acting as the rose-colored glasses that lighten the effect of terrible news and improve the victim’s satisfaction with the criminal justice system. The perception that the prosecutor genuinely cares about the victim, the deceased loved one, and the legal case positively conditions the victim’s evaluation of the prosecutor’s work and his or her satisfaction with the criminal justice system, even when the case does not end with a conviction or a long prison sentence.

Managing the Emotional Connection Homicide Survivors: Finding and Pulling on Prosecutors’ Heart Strings

In the early stages of the case, Fannie Quintanilla indicated that the prosecutor recommended resolving her son’s murder case by a negotiated plea with the defendant. She expressed sadness and anger about the plea bargain.

I cried when they told me they wanted a plea bargain. I left. I just got up and left and I told them I couldn’t talk to them because it wasn’t fair. I couldn’t let it go to rest without getting what Terrill deserved. So, the

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DA was wonderful. . . . There are some people that I’ve talked to [and] the DA tries to convince them to plea bargain, but that didn’t happen to me. . . . In my case, the DA never tried to convince me. She knew I had a strong case. (V27)

Interestingly, Fannie said that “I had a strong case,” not the state or the prosecutor. Thus, a prosecutor’s emotional understanding of a family’s wishes, not just an intellectual understanding of the case, played an important role in the victim’s evaluation of the prosecutor’s work. Fannie and others talked more frequently about prosecutors’ heartfelt consideration for their wishes on the case than about their technical legal work (e.g., number of witnesses interviewed, amount of evidence gathered, or presentation of evidence at trial). Victims thought the prosecutor should represent their personal interests, even when those interests were not guaranteed by victims’ rights legislation or in the best interest of the case. Prosecutors: Toeing the Emotional Line

All four prosecutors mentioned the tension between honoring homicide survivors’ wishes for a trial and securing a conviction through a negotiated plea, and three indicated that they frequently deferred to homicide survivors’ request for a trial, despite their professional opinion that a negotiated plea was sometimes a better approach.

The first time I visit with the families, I . . . will explain the range of punishment [for the defendant in the case] to them and I’ll answer questions about the case. . . . After we discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the case, [I will] ask them to tell me what their feelings are about negotiating a plea. And some of them will say, “Absolutely not! I am not negotiating a plea! I want a life sentence.” And I say, “Okay, that’s fine [we will go to trial].” (CJ04)

Defense attorneys working in Union County viewed victims’ involvement in decisionmaking as problematic. Defense attorneys’ comments suggest that victims represent a new party influencing decisionmaking in the traditional courtroom work group of prosecutors, judges, and defense attorneys (see Eisenstein and Jacob 1977; Skolnick 1967; Sudnow 1965). One defense attorney with 20 years of experience said:

We have worked for many, many years in this country to hone the criminal justice system so that decisions are made in a fair, unbiased

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way. We [have] work[ed] very hard to get away from the vigilante system of justice, and one of the downsides to includ[ing] victims’ families in the decisionmaking process these days is that we have injected into the system the most biased participants that you can imagine. . . . Consequently, I think it has caused cases to be tried that didn’t need to be tried. (CJ21) Like defense attorneys, Union County prosecutors saw two downsides to including homicide survivors in the decisionmaking process on murder cases. First, prosecutors may feel pressured to accept the murder victim’s family’s request for a trial instead of a negotiated plea to avoid negative publicity with the local press. A prosecutor explained:

[When] it’s a case where a victim’s family might be extremely vocal and the press might be listening to those people, I’ve seen wrong decisions made within this office by particular prosecutors because they’re afraid to tell a victim’s family the truth. They’re afraid to tell them, “We need to [handle the case with a plea bargain]” . . . because they’re afraid of looking bad in the press. (CJ11) Second, difficulties sometimes arose in prosecutors’ interactions with survivors who became too emotionally involved in the murder case. In some cases, the emotional involvement became burdensome for the prosecutor. A prosecutor explained:

I tried a murder case several years ago where it was a gang shooting and a young man was killed, and his mother . . . blamed herself . . . because he had started acting up at a young age (early teens) and her new husband (his stepfather) didn’t want to mess with it and basically kicked him out of the house. The kid went to the streets and turned to the gang for protection, and he ended up dead as a result. This particular woman was overcompensating by wanting to be completely involved in every aspect of the case and wanting to second-guess my decisions. (CJ11)

Erez and Laster (1999) and others would argue that court officials sometimes discredit victims’ reactions as overly emotional as a means of neutralizing their contribution to the process and reducing their credibility in the system (see also Erez and Rogers 1999). In this study, prosecutors and defense attorneys knew that an emotional bond with victims could burden prosecutors with what they viewed as troublesome psychological baggage.

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Emotional Tools: Creating Bias or Promoting Satisfaction

Law and society scholars have discussed the advantages and disadvantages of an emotionally open criminal justice system for many years now (Doak 2005; Erez 1994; Kelly 1990). Victims’ rights advocates and researchers have argued that including victims in the criminal justice system benefits their psychological recovery from the crime, makes victims more willing to report crime, and makes the criminal justice system more responsive to victims (Erez 1994; Kilpatrick and Otto 1987). Legal scholars, however, sometimes object to the inclusion of emotions in traditionally unemotional (i.e., objective) criminal court proceedings. Susan Bandes (1996) has criticized the US Supreme Court’s decision in Payne v. Tennessee, which ruled victim impact statements admissible when given by murder victims’ family members during capital sentencing hearings. Bandes (1996: 362) objected to Chief Justice William Rehnquist’s use of compassion for grounding the court’s decision in the case, arguing that empathy is “not an emotion . . . but a tool used to achieve a variety of ends.” As an emotional tool, a victim’s sympathy-seeking efforts may give some the opportunity to elicit from the prosecutors sympathy for themselves and anger for the defendant. When sympathy for victims means harsher punishments for defendants, Bandes (1996) sees it as problematic for the fair administration of justice and another place where bias enters the system. According to these findings, when sympathy for victims helps foster a close personal relationship with the prosecutor, victims feel greater satisfaction with the prosecutor and the system and have greater influence on case decisions (e.g., negotiated plea or trial, 10- or 15-year prison sentence). In her study of sexual assault survivors’ work with prosecutors, Konradi (1999) found that prosecutors viewed survivors’ emotions as a resource for presenting a convincing case to jurors. In short, expressed sympathy and elicited sympathy can serve as tools for prosecutors and victims, respectively. First, when prosecutors express sympathy, they extend themselves in a personal manner, and this personal offering may help build rapport and trust with victims, which can assure victims of the prosecutor’s care and ease the delivery of bad news about the case. When prosecutors care, victims tend to blame a negative case outcome on the jury or the system, not the prosecutor. Second, by eliciting sympathy, victims can tug at prosecutors’ heartstrings, which may lead the prosecutor to use more discretionary power in granting victims informal privileges. Prosecutors hold wide discretionary power in the

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criminal justice system (Radelet and Pierce 1985; Skolnick 1967; Spohn, Beichner, and Davis-Frenzel 2001) in how to charge the defendant and in what punishment to recommend for the defendant. These findings reveal that prosecutors also have wide discretion in what rights and privileges to extend to victims (see Victim Account 4.3).

Victim Account 4.3 Frustrating from Start to Finish Wendy Lawrence (also featured in Chapters 2 and 3) had waited 16 months for her 77-year-old father’s murder case to go to trial. On numerous occasions since her father’s death, she had felt frustrated with detectives, counselors, and prosecutors—when detectives initially ruled that his death had occurred from natural causes, when they disregarded the towel on her father’s shoulders (an item Wendy viewed as the murder weapon), and when counselors escorted her to the police station in the back of a police car (as though she were a suspect). When Wendy thought about the prosecutors in her father’s murder case, she said: Wendy Lawrence (V03)

The whole thing was horrible. The DAs, Terry Ferguson and Diana [pseudonyms], were really good, but [Terry] wouldn’t allow [the jury] to hear my 911 [call], where I said the towel was [lying neatly across the back of my father’s shoulders]. [Terry] said he didn’t think we needed that and he wouldn’t [play it]. They did a videotaped [interview] of my granddaughter—which he could’ve [shown at trial]—with her saying the same thing about the towel [but] he didn’t feel we needed that either.

When asked to describe the most difficult part of the prosecutors’ involvement in the case for her, Wendy said:

When I realized that none of them had even listened to the 911 tape [a year after the murder and] a week before we [went] to trial, [I was upset]. . . . I finally convinced [the DA] to listen to the 911 tape. [By that] time, Detective Harcourt [had] realized the importance of the

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towel [in the case, but] the DA didn’t realize its importance. So . . . I thought that wasn’t good. . . . I thought [the towel, 911 call, and my granddaughter’s interview were] very important things pertaining to [the defendant’s] guilt or innocence.

Wendy said the towel was important because the defendant used it to pin her father to the floor during her burglary. But she had trouble convincing detectives and prosecutors about the importance of the towel from the start of the investigation.

Conclusion

The victim and prosecutor quoted at the opening of this chapter capture the essence of the changes in prosecutors’ interactions with victims in the criminal justice system over the past 40 years. The victim said the prosecutor handling her brother’s murder case “cared a lot,” and the prosecutor recognized families’ need for a “warm fuzzy.” These findings reveal two major changes in the criminal justice system by the late 1990s and early 2000s: (1) a change in the emotional culture of the system and (2) a change in victims’ ability to influence prosecutorial decisionmaking. An emotional connection with criminal justice workers, particularly with prosecutors, may represent a critical path toward improving victims’ experiences with the system and their psychological recovery from the crime. Moreover, this type of emotional connection with workers may help strengthen people’s relationships with other bureaucratic organizations, such as schools, universities, hospitals, and banks. What we learn from these victims can be applied in many other organizational settings. People need allies—in life, during tragedies, and within bureaucracies. According to victims, a good prosecutor is 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

knowledgeable about the case, knowledgeable about the victim’s character, optimistic about the case outcome, committed to the case (i.e., staying with the case until the end), and caring about the case, the deceased, and the deceased’s family.

5 Crisis Counselors Intervene

My first interaction [with people who have lost a loved one to murder] could be . . . anywhere from crisis counseling [or] just giving them information about what is going to happen next, depending on how they are doing. . . . What I want to do—is be flexible enough to meet whatever needs the families have. —Victim Services Counselor, Union County Police Department (CJ01)

Victim services came and they wouldn’t let me leave [the scene of my father’s murder]; they stayed right by me. . . . I had to ride down [to the police station] with them and it really frustrated me. I did not like that at all. . . . I wanted to be with my family. —Wendy Lawrence, daughter of 77-year-old homicide victim (V03)

Late one Friday afternoon in October, Wendy Lawrence picked up her granddaughters, Lacy and Emma, from elementary school for a weekend visit with her and her elderly father. When they arrived to their apartment, Wendy noticed an opened window, broken screen, and disheveled mini-blinds. As she tried to unlock the front door, nine-yearold Lacy peeked through the window to see her 77-year-old greatgrandfather lying face down on the living room floor. Lacy started yelling, “What’s wrong, Grandpa? What’s wrong? Get up! What’s wrong with you?” When Wendy finally opened the door and walked 103

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into their apartment, she understood Lacy’s distress. Twenty-dollar bills drifted around the room, and her father was lying on the floor with a kitchen towel resting neatly across the back of his shoulders. It all struck Wendy as odd, especially the towel. She asked Lacy to pick up the money, and she told seven-year-old Emma to wait outside on the front porch. Wendy dialed 911 to request an ambulance, but when she bent down to find her father’s pulse, he felt cold to the touch. She knew they were too late. When Union County Police Department detectives and victim services counselors arrived on the scene, they began questioning Wendy and her granddaughters about the window, money, and her father’s health. While his advanced age suggested a death from natural causes, the scene suggested foul play. To gather as much information as quickly as possible, a detective asked two counselors to take Wendy to the police station to give a statement. Wendy recalled, “They put me in the back seat [of a police car] and the doors [were] locked. . . . I wanted to be with my family, but they wouldn’t let me go with them. . . . I really felt like a criminal with them” (V03). She felt criminalized by how counselors treated her, and her experience captures a troubling aspect of counselors’ work. Counselors assisted victims at the direction and discretion of detectives and prosecutors, leaving them with divided loyalties and conflicting roles. * * *

Almost 40 years ago, the American Psychological Association’s Task Force on Victims of Crime and Violence (Kahn 1985: 81) recommended that “careful and deliberate intervention be initiated early by those who are in first contact with the victim.” By the 1990s, law enforcement agencies and prosecutors’ offices across the country had created counselor positions (e.g., victim advocates, victim services counselors) and hired licensed social workers and trained volunteers to provide victims with crisis interventions, case updates, and emotional support. These counselors were hired to “help [crime victims and the] families of crime victims deal with not only the legal system, but also offer guidance to other resources that may help crime victims and their families” (O’Hara 2006: 66). Victims’ rights advocates expected that counselors would improve victims’ recovery from the crime and their satisfaction with the system (see Bard and Sangrey 1980) and prevent their “secondary victimization” (i.e., negative attitudes from or further traumatization by the criminal justice process and officials) (Wemmers 2013).

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But research has failed to support the effectiveness of crisis counseling, debriefing, and victim sensitivity training in reducing victims’ distress (Davis, Kunreuther, and Connick 1984; Raphael and Wilson 2000; Rose et al. 1999; Rosenbaum 1987; for an exception, see Campbell 2006), raising questions about the counselor role. Few researchers have asked victims what they want from counselors. This chapter examines counselors’ role in the system and victims’ perceptions of and experiences with them, revealing an unsettling mismatch between counselors’ offerings and victims’ needs.

The Counselor Role Reducing Red Tape and Caring

Counselors worked full-time in the Union County Police Department, Sheriff’s Office, and Prosecutor’s Office, and the two law enforcement agencies had an extensive network of volunteer counselors, making Union more progressive in its victim services than most communities at the time of this study. In law enforcement agencies, counselors made the death notification to the next of kin, provided crisis counseling at the scene, offered referrals to mental health services (e.g., support groups, therapists), explained legal procedures and victims’ compensation paperwork, and offered updates on the investigation. A crime victims’ advocate with a local nonprofit explained, “Victims don’t need any more red tape [or] bureaucracy. They need somebody who cares, who will be nonjudgmental, [who will] let them express themselves freely of their bereavement, of their anger, of all this and that. . . . It doesn’t take an Einstein [to be a victim services counselor]; it takes somebody who cares” (CJ13). Guided by this ethic of caring, counselors in law enforcement agencies often spent four to five hours with families following the death notification, helping them get through the initial shock and navigate the bureaucracy of the system. Counselors expressed genuine care for victims and their work: “I think what I do makes a difference. . . . For me, it’s not just a case. It’s a person, [and I] feel a responsibility for [these families]” (CJ01). In the prosecutor’s office, counselors arranged victims’ meetings with prosecutors, provided information on court dates and procedures, and accompanied victims to hearings and the trial. One counselor described, “[In our first meeting,] we’ll talk to [victims] a little bit about how we got the case and what we’re looking at [in terms of charges, a

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negotiated plea versus trial, and sentencing], [and we try to] get their feelings about things and let them talk. . . . We do more listening than anything” (CJ06). Listening to victims’ concerns represented a hallmark of counselors’ work, particularly in the prosecutor’s office, where counselors had more freedom to share case information and more time to spend with families than did those in law enforcement. Shielding Detectives and Prosecutors

While counselors expressed a heartfelt desire to assist homicide survivors, more than a third of the survivors expressed disappointment with and sometimes anger about the counselor’s role. Delia Jiminez, the aunt of 24year-old Erica, recounted, “The victims’ assistance stuff . . . they were just sort of a useless appendage in my view. They meant well, but I didn’t see that they could do anything for us” (V18). How could counselors be useless? A careful review of the data uncovered two explanations for these negative views. First, several victims noted the distance that counselors created between them and the “real” decisionmakers in the system. Admittedly, in the context of the larger system, counselors held little, if any, decisionmaking authority over the direction of the homicide investigation and the state’s prosecution. Their lack of influence became apparent to victims very early in the investigation, when detectives assigned counselors to administrative tasks. Second, when counselors could not answer victims’ basic questions about the investigation, such as the names of the suspects being interviewed, the type of evidence being collected, and the results of the autopsy because of the ongoing nature of the case, victims questioned their value. Following the murder of her daughter, Rachel Donado and her family went to the police station to provide statements and await updates. Rachel, the sister of Delia, recalled:

[The police department counselors] said, “You can sit here [in our office]. You can use the phone if you need to make long-distance calls; dial direct, don’t worry about the cost.” They would come in periodically and let us know what was going on. . . . [But in the end] all they have done is given you a quiet place with a telephone so you can talk to people and the detectives can come in and ask you strange questions. So, what are they going to do? I think it’s a waste of their degree. . . . I didn’t see a value to their time. (V20)

With condescension in her voice, Rachel asked, “What are they going to do?,” implying that counselors could not do anything of substance to

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assist her. Counselors’ provision of a quiet place to make phone calls and their periodic check-ins could not make up for their lack of influence in the system and their inability to alleviate the pain of the loss (Goodrum and Stafford 2003). What these accounts reveal is that counselors remained system insiders but homicide case outsiders. A few recognized the challenge their position in the system and status on the case presented to them and victims, and they took preventive measures to avoid conflicts. A police department counselor explained, “I’ve told [detectives], ‘If there is something that the families cannot know at this point, because it’s an open investigation, don’t tell me.’ Because I don’t want to be lying to [families]” (CJ01). Trying to align herself more closely with victims, she asked detectives to not share confidential case information with her. As a result, counselors and survivors remained outside the inner circle of the investigation and in the dark together. Delia Jiminez said, “So, it’s just information [that you want]. You don’t have information. So, that’s probably the most frustrating thing about it. They send you immediately to the victim services [counselors] and they don’t know anything” (V18). As victims experienced firsthand, detectives and prosecutors acknowledged (and loved) that counselors served as a buffer between them and victims. Two homicide detectives explained: [Counselors] build a good rapport between us and the families, a very good buffer . . . and they’re better at explaining why we’re doing things that we’re doing, because I don’t often have time to sit down and tell somebody in great details, “Well, this is why I’m doing this, and you’ve got to bear with me because this takes time.” . . . Our victim services [counselors] are lifesavers. I mean, we couldn’t do half of what we do without them. They really take a lot of heat off of us. (CJ16)

If [victims are] always calling, I can’t be out [conducting the investigation]. So, what [families] do is call victim services and then if they have a particular question, [the counselor] comes and asks me and then we work it out and then she answers the question. And I’m somewhat shielded by that. So, I don’t have to deal with the family for the most part. (CJ05)

These accounts imply that as an organizational shield (i.e., where one worker uses another, often lower-ranked worker to avoid contact with the public), counselors also fulfilled an administrative assistant type of role, accepting and returning phone calls on the detective’s behalf.

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The organizational structure of the criminal justice system places counselors below—but not necessarily under the supervision of—detectives and prosecutors. In The System of Professions, Andrew Abbott (1988) has argued that the division of labor in organizations mirrors the status of the professionals within those organizations. “Professionally impure work may be given to particular members of a profession” (Abbott 1988: 125). In addition, organizations may recruit newer employees, who tend to lack control, to handle less desirable work. Delia Jiminez and Rachel Donado continued: [Victim services] met with us when we met with the assistant DA. I got the sense that their job was to shield us from the attorneys who are already overloaded. . . . But there is something to be said for having the direct contact with the attorney who’s actually doing it, as opposed to the counselor. (V18) The DA’s office did have one [victim services] woman . . . but she was more of a liaison between us and them and I can understand why, because they’re inundated with work . . . the less contact [prosecutors] have with us, the more they can concentrate on their jobs. (V20)

While survivors acknowledged detectives’ and prosecutors’ busy schedules, they also expressed a desire to have direct contact with the detectives and prosecutors working on their loved one’s case. Another survivor, also a mother, reasoned that these homicide cases are too personal to work with anyone other than the prosecutor (V26). The underlying message is that their loved one’s murder case is too important and too personal to work with a nondecisionmaker. Dual responsibilities shaped counselors’ role in the criminal justice system. Crisis interventions represented a cornerstone of counselors’ work, providing emotional support and legal guidance to victims. At the same time, these interventions freed up detectives and prosecutors from contact with victims, which allowed them to conduct the system’s highly valued work on criminal cases (Konradi 1997; Martin and Powell 1994). As a result, victim services remained structurally isolated from and less critical to system functioning than investigative and prosecutorial efforts. As others have noted, the criminal justice system’s “downstream orientation” (i.e., conviction) prioritizes case work above emotion work (Goodrum and Stafford 2003; Konradi 1997), placing counselors’ status and their work with victims at a lower priority than their higher-ranked coworkers and the homicide case. Survivors were keenly aware of—and annoyed by—this messy reality.

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Assisting Detectives and Prosecutors

Although counselors were originally brought into the criminal justice system to serve victims, the project data revealed that they also frequently assisted detectives and prosecutors. Detectives asked counselors to make death notifications to the next of kin, field questions from victims about the investigation, and return personal property after the investigation. A Union County Police Department detective with eight years of experience explained:

You don’t want [families of murder victims] up here bothering you, but . . . [the counselor] Elena will come over here and tell me, “So-and-so called on your case wanting to know what’s going on.” . . . [But] before victim services got assigned to here, it was us. The [victims] caught you on the phone, they’d show up [to our offices] just out of the blue . . . and want to talk. [And] you gotta talk to them. You can’t tell them, “I’m busy.” But now with victim services, we tell [victims that] if you have a question, or if you need something, call [the victim services counselors]. . . . So, I try to push as much onto victim services as I can. (CJ05)

As Wendy Lawrence’s and others’ accounts suggest, however, some survivors resented counselors’ dual responsibilities. Zoe Nunoz’s 25year-old son Kelson was shot at her home in what police described as a revenge-motivated attack. In the early stages of the investigation, police zeroed in on Zoe’s other sons as the primary suspects, and at one point, they asked if she and her children were drug dealers. As she stood outside her home, watching an ambulance take Kelson to the hospital (where he later died), she paged through her address book, returned it to her purse, which was resting on the hood of a police car, and called relatives to share the news of her son’s hospitalization. While she was making phone calls, detectives took her address book. When Zoe got to the hospital, she realized her address book was missing and began screaming. She said:

My address book was missing! The cops took it from my purse! And then they denied it. And then, [victim services counselors brought] it to me after I [was] . . . screaming my head off, having a shit fit [at the hospital]. There were two [victim services] ladies there who knew the cops had it and [they] were standing there in my face lying to me. Finally, [the counselors] brought it to me. [But] I didn’t want nothing to do with them. . . . One of the [counselors] finally admitted it to me, [that it was] “procedure.” I don’t want to hear it! (V12)

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The idea that counselors returned a victim’s address book on behalf of the detectives investigating the case signaled the counselor’s status as lower in rank and as assistants to detectives. Interestingly, counselors did not typically mention these conflicts in their work. They saw themselves as mediating between victims and the law. A counselor explained, “[I am] more mediating between victims and the law [not between victims and the prosecutor], because the prosecutor is—for the most part—going to go for whatever the law will allow [in the case]. Sometimes victims don’t understand that’s the law, or they’re frustrated about the law” (CJ06). Herein lies a major difference in counselors’ and victims’ viewpoints. Unlike victims (and detectives and prosecutors), counselors did not see themselves as coming between victims and other criminal justice workers. They saw themselves as connecting victims to criminal justice workers. A counselor in the prosecutor’s office said, “Sometimes [victims’] expectations can be a little different than ours . . . they’re so closely involved. . . . But my job is to bring that together; [it] is to help [victims] come to a middle ground. . . . I can hear a victim telling me, ‘I want life on this case.’ And the prosecutor’s saying, ‘That’s not possible’” (CJ02). Searching for the middle ground, however, put counselors in a precarious situation. As counselors and liaisons for victims, they are listening, caring, and feeling it. As organizational shields for and assistants to detectives and prosecutors, they are buffering, transporting, and returning calls. Homicide survivors disliked the division in counselors’ loyalties. Several victims learned via awkward encounters or mishandled notifications that counselors knew little about the case and held little authority to get information (particularly in law enforcement agencies). When Bonnie, Melissa Merton’s 23-year-old daughter, did not show up for work, her coworkers became concerned and contacted Melissa (see also Chapter 2). When Melissa could not reach Bonnie on her cell phone or at her apartment, she called the police and then her ex-husband. Police went to Bonnie’s apartment. Melissa said, “Well, then the crime victims’ services girls showed up [to my house] and I said, ‘Why are you here?’ They said, ‘Because you have a missing person,’ which I kind of doubted but I made three more calls to the police department [and waited for three hours].” By late afternoon, Bonnie’s best friend showed up at Melissa’s house crying. She had seen the medical examiner’s van at the apartment and knew Bonnie had been killed. Despite the fact that the police department’s counselors were at her house awaiting a phone call from detectives, Bonnie’s

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best friend learned the news of her death first and notified Melissa. “[So, I found out from my daughter’s best friend, not the victim services counselors]. . . . I think the police department should work more closely with their crime victims’ services people because those [counselor] girls should have found out first” (V22). In general, however, counselors could not provide victims with the information they wanted about the murder and the death, leading some victims to wonder about their purpose in the system. Delia explained:

All they do is give you the social worker who is supposed to calm your fears and your concerns, and she can’t tell you anything either. I mean, she’s very nice and she’s got a tough job, too, because she’s dealing with 20 other families who are going through the same thing, but she’s not our attorney. She doesn’t have the information. She just sat through a lot of murder trials. (V18)

Counselors’ Work Being Flexible, in a Constrained System

Counselors repeatedly mentioned their efforts to remain flexible in their work with victims. A counselor in the police department said:

What I want to do is be flexible enough to meet whatever needs the families [might] have. If it’s crisis counseling [I’ll] provide that, but if it’s information or support or any other thing, [I’ll provide that]. . . . Yesterday, the wife [of a slain police officer] . . . said, “Can you pick up some papers for me at the funeral home?” Well if that’s what she needs at that time, “Yeah, I can.” . . . Whatever they need. (CJ01)

Counselors helped victims with many different practical tasks, including filling out compensation paperwork to obtain reimbursement for funeral or therapy services, hiring housecleaning services when blood stains remained on carpet, and accompanying victims to the murder scene for the first time. The following two survivors recounted:

I didn’t want to come home [to where my son was stabbed to death] until they cleaned [the blood stains from the carpet]. . . . [The victim counselor hired a cleaning service and that] made me feel good. (V08, Karen Noland)

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[The detective] had a victim of crime counselor . . . pick me up at [my hotel after I landed at the Union airport] and then she was with me when I walked through [my murdered brother’s burned] house for the first time. (V21, Natalie Harris)

One counselor helped a family read the note their son left after his murder-suicide. She related, “While trying to help a family read [their son’s] murder-suicide note, media personalities kept coming to the door [and interrupting]. . . . Finally, I called our dispatch and told them to [send an officer to keep] the media off the property” (CJ09). Victims consistently appreciated the practical task-related assistance counselors provided. At a time when victims may have had difficulty concentrating long enough to drive to an address or hire a cleaning service, counselors’ assistance with tangible tasks proved both helpful and comforting. Karen Noland noted, “[Victim services counselors] stuck by you no matter how much you needed any time, day or night” (V08). For counselors, being flexible meant they could handle a wide range of issues and emotions. Unfortunately, not all survivors experienced counselors as flexible. In fact, many described counselors as presumptuous about their needs and insensitive with their advice.

Presumptuous About Victims’ Needs. Several survivors expressed discomfort with counselors’—and the system’s—assumption that they needed a counselor’s emotional support and assistance. The American Psychological Association’s Task Force on Victims of Crime (Kahn 1985) promoted early crisis interventions as critical to the psychological recovery of crime victims, but victims’ accounts capture some discomfort with this type of counseling, particularly early in the loss experience. Andrea Castaneda, the mother of 18-year-old Damon, recalled:

[The detectives] came to my house [in the middle of the night] to tell me [about my son’s murder]. They didn’t just call me. They brought some ladies from victim services with them, [but] . . . it wasn’t a very nice scene, because when I saw them, I was afraid something bad had happened. . . . I knew victim services people don’t come to your house for nothing. (V07)

The counselors’ presence, more so than the police officers’ presence, broke the sacred and tenuous pretense that “everything would be okay” for Andrea and her family. Counselors were at her door, and before they even spoke a word, their presence signaled two things: (1) we have very

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bad news and (2) you’re going to need our help to deal with that news. As Andrea’s account suggests, she did not like seeing counselors at her door. She said she “knew victim services people don’t come to your house for nothing.” As she suspected, counselors did not appear for “nothing”; they came to tell her that they had found a dead body next to a car registered to her, and they thought it might be her son.

Insensitive to Victims’ Needs. Surprisingly, victims’ accounts indicate that counselors either did not know what victims needed in the crisis or served detectives’ interests before victims’ interests, particularly during the law enforcement investigation (where more conflicts tended to arise; see Chapters 3 and 4). For instance, when Dana Gifford arrived to the hotel where her daughter Noreen had been killed, she begged the detective on the scene to let her see her daughter’s body. The detective declined her request and instead asked two counselors to drive her home. Dana said, “Victims’ services [were] there immediately [and they drove me home]. They wanted me to go in the house and wake up [my 10year-old son] Keith . . . and tell him that [his sister] Noreen was dead.” Distraught and confused about what had just happened to her daughter, Dana found the counselors’ suggestion ridiculous. She rejected their advice.

I said, “No. I’m not going to do that.” [They said,] “Well, you have to tell him sometime.” And, then, I started getting irritated with them, and I thought that was the stupidest thing I’d ever heard of. . . . [But] they kept talking about that, and I just finally told them to “Shut up! I was not going to do that.” . . . I wanted to get away from the victims’ services people. (V24)

Dana wanted to “get away from” victim services counselors. A more nuanced review of her story reveals that she had not yet processed the horrific news of her daughter’s murder for herself, much less for her other children. Despite her apparent distress, counselors repeatedly instructed Dana to awaken her young son and notify him about his sister’s death. Research on loss to violent death indicates that the lack of anticipation, challenges with making sense of the loss, and confusing and lengthy legal procedures can complicate grief and increase posttraumatic stress symptoms (Nakajima et al. 2012). Campbell (2006) notes how professionals’ quality of training and years of experience can influence the delivery of victims’ services; it can also affect victims’ satisfaction with the system and their recovery from the crime. Dana

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resented counselors’ suggestion, and to avoid them, she went to her bathroom, got in the bathtub, and refused to get out. Dana’s account proves troubling for several reasons. First, the advice counselors offered her did not match her needs or emotional abilities immediately following her daughter’s murder. Noreen had been in residential treatment for substance abuse, and she and Dana had shared a deep emotional connection after years of family counseling. Second, counselors did not ask Dana about Noreen’s situation, and they did not consider that her sleeping son had developmental delays, which might have hindered his ability to comprehend the fact of his sister’s murder. Thus, although the Union County counselors participating in this study described their efforts to remain flexible in meeting victims’ needs, Dana’s and other victims’ experiences suggest they could not always remain flexible in their delivery. Supportive or Intrusive Interventions

Researchers have begun to question the effectiveness of crisis counseling immediately following a trauma (McNally, Bryant, and Ehlers 2003), and it may be for the reasons Andrea’s and Dana’s experiences suggest. In both cases, their reactions to counselors’ presence seemed to say, “I can’t think about this right now.” Moreover, Dana felt, “You don’t know me. You can’t possibly know what I need or what I should do in this situation.” Of course, crisis counseling assumes that the sooner people can accept and express the pain of their victimization, the sooner they can start to heal. Victim services training programs embrace—and actively promote—this early intervention approach, and so did Union County counselors. Drawing on her own family’s experiences with murder, a counselor with the Union County Sheriff’s Office believed in early intervention. She explained:

My own family has been touched by murder. My grandfather was murdered, and my mother was very, very young when that happened. Her family never got counseling for any of that. . . . [I believe that grief] is like cement. You can wash it away [if you deal with it] in the beginning, [but] if not, later you’re going to be chipping [away] at [the grief] for the rest of your life. (CJ09)

Dealing with the grief early allowed victims to eventually “wash it away.” Indeed, counseling interventions frequently assume that emotional movement—facilitated by discussion—is good, and emotional

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stagnation—promoted by silence—is bad (Armour and Umbreit 2006; Horowitz et al. 1980). However, some crisis interventions may impede the natural recovery process (McNally, Bryant, and Ehlers 2003; Rachman 2001; Rose, Bisson, and Wessely 2001). “Encouraging survivors to discuss their thoughts and feelings right away may [actually] increase the risk they will be overwhelmed by the experience” (McNally, Bryant, and Ehlers 2003: 66, emphasis added). Dana Gifford felt overwhelmed by the news of her daughter’s murder. She said, “I couldn’t think . . . I couldn’t make [my cell phone] work [to call my therapist]. My mind was blanking” (V24). The natural recovery process following trauma can involve periods of avoidance and periods of evaluation (Pennebaker and Harber 1993). Avoidance allows people to dodge reality temporarily, and evaluation allows people to assess reality. Avoidance, however, proves difficult when a counselor is asking questions and offering advice. Victims’ accounts suggest that the vacillation between avoidance and evaluation may buy them some time to process the news of the murder and the criminal justice system’s response to the case; it also may give survivors personal control over how to think and feel about the devastating news, the bereavement process, and the “shattering emotional experience” (Denzin 1990: 104). Eventually, Dana said, “I went upstairs to my bedroom and I got in the bathtub and I wouldn’t get out” (V24). In addition to the natural recovery process issue, several victims described counselors as overbearing and intrusive. In these cases, victims expressed anger over the counselor’s involvement in their grief. Rachel said:

The particular [victim services counselor] lady they assigned to us [from the prosecutor’s office] . . . I’ll almost never forgive her for [this]: During [the murder] trial, when the coroner was giving his report [about my daughter’s injuries], my husband came out of the courtroom broken up bad. (And I mean, throughout his father’s death, he never cried. He is just not emotional.) And this man was broken up and [the counselor followed him out of the courtroom and] went over to him and put her arm around him and that was the absolute last thing he wanted.

She continued:

He wanted to be alone, and I think that she overdid herself, not only with him, but with all of us. . . . [Each day] when we would come in [for the trial], we were hoping she’d call in sick [that day] [laughs]. (V20)

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When counselors provided unwelcome emotional support to victims, they became an annoyance, not a support. Several victims said that counselors “wouldn’t leave me” (V03) and “pressed us too much” (V20). Counselors’ offers of support may have forced victims to acknowledge the truth and pain of their loss sooner than they wanted. Thus, what counselors’ actions take for granted is that victims want assistance; what victims’ statements highlight, however, is that this unsolicited emotional support provokes discomfort and anger. The “sympathy norm” (i.e., cultural expectation for how to respond to another’s misfortune) underlying victims’ frustrations with counselors’ intrusions suggests, “Back off! I didn’t ask you for help!” The unsolicited offers of support become a sympathetic gesture for victims to decline (e.g., “No, thank you. I don’t need your assistance”). In these exchanges, victims feel a burden to acknowledge and then decline the counselor’s offer for emotional support (see Clark 1987), and this burden may be more than victims can handle in the midst of a crisis. For some survivors, counselors’ uninvited emotional support felt like an intrusion into their private pain. The lesson here is that counselors walk a difficult and invisible line between survivors and their grief, and it is not always easy to read where the line exists. Rachel shared, “I’m gonna dwell a little bit on the victim assistance [counselors], because . . . everything seemed to focus on me. It’s like they didn’t mess with my husband, or my son, or my sister. It was all on me, and it became weary. It’s like I didn’t have time to say, ‘My daughter’s dead.’ It was—pat, pat, pat, pat [on the back]” (V20). Counselors’ patronizing focus on Rachel, the mother of the deceased, delayed her from accepting the horrific news and weighed her down with others’ concerns about her recovery. Indeed, other research finds that families of murder victims feel keenly aware of the weight and discomfort their grief brings to others (Goodrum 2008). When these victims became attuned to how their situation and sadness made others feel, they tried to downplay their suffering. In business, leadership consultants say “emotional contagion” helps managers and executives appreciate how optimism can spread from supervisors to employees and employees to customers. Grief can also be contagious. Victims do not want to know or worry that their pain brought others down; in addition, they may not want to share their personal pain with strangers (Goodrum 2008). Finally, Rachel’s and other survivors’ anger toward counselors’ interventions suggest that survivors may not have wanted counselors to benefit from a “helper’s high” at their expense (see Counselor Account 5.1).

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Counselor Account 5.1 Helping Victims Help Themselves and Feeling the Helper’s High Kathy Johnson, Victim Services Counselor with the Sheriff’s Office (CJ09)

When we sat down to talk about her work, Kathy Johnson had served as the director of victim services for the Union County Sheriff’s Office for more than two years, and she helped all sorts of victims recover from all kinds of crimes. She took great pride in her work, but when she thought back to her childhood growing up on a farm in the South, she realized she had been helping victims recover from crime for as long as she could remember. When her mother was five years old, her father was murdered, and Kathy believed that this shattering loss shaped her mother’s, grandmother’s, and her own life in profound ways. The murder case was never solved, and the unanswered questions surrounding his mysterious death seemed to have haunted them. So, Kathy knew from personal experience and professional training that a loss to murder could affect surviving family members for a long time. For more than 50 years, her family had lived with the pain of the loss and the uncertainty of the unsolved case. When she reflected on her work with victims, she hoped to convey a message that her own family never received. Kathy explained, “The message that we [are] constantly giv[ing] the community . . . whether it’s a homicide [or] a sexual assault . . . [is] that it’s okay to ask for help. They don’t have to hide that [victimization] in the closet.” During death notifications in murder cases, Kathy prepared herself for the emotional upheaval the news would cause, she offered a careful and direct delivery of the tragic news, and she anticipated staying with the family for hours while they processed the news. She explained:

The first thing that you have to understand is that this person is about to be told that a relative of theirs . . . that they planned on spending the rest of their lives with is now gone. . . . So, if I’m doing the death notification, I’m going to be very compassionate. I’m going to understand that I may have to deliver that message more than once. . . . [You] don’t [want to] have a time frame in mind that says, “I need to be out of here in an hour.” It takes as long as it takes. Kathy waited for families to process the tragic news and then began helping them enlist a support system. She explained the autopsy prodecures

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118 in the medical examiner’s office and helped families find a funeral home and cleaning services (if the murder occurred in their home). Kathy sometimes supervised the cleaning services at the request of the family. She said, “[In one case,] the day the cleanup company came, I went out [to the house]. I promised the family I would stay at the residence while the cleanup company was cleaning to make sure all their loved one’s things would remain untouched [while they removed the blood stains from the carpet and walls].” Along with her own loss, Kathy continued to feel the pain of other families’ losses. When asked to describe the hardest part of her work with victims, she said, “Seeing their grief [is hard]. Seeing their belief system broken . . . that kind of grief . . . has a depth that’s indescribable.” At the same time, being a witness to families’ recovery process gave her hope and kept her motivated to continue her work. She said, “Seeing [victims] come through to the other side. . . . People are just incredible. . . . It’s incredibly rewarding [to watch].” Kathy admitted that being able to give others hope made her feel good. She explained, “I’ve seen people have the strength to make incredible changes in their [lives], just because somebody planted that feeling of care. . . . I’ve never burned out in my job. I still love my job. . . . I’m really addicted to seeing that light come on in people’s eyes that says, ‘God, that person really, really and truly cares.’” She felt an emotional boost from seeing victims’ appreciation for her care. Social scientists have described the emotional helper’s high some supporters feel from offering assistance:

Some people who think of themselves as good helpers indulge in what might be called the “rescue fantasy.” They imagine that they can save the victim by insisting that he or she do what they think is best. This kind of ego-tripping is very far from true helpfulness. It is as if the helper is saying, “See how wonderful I am because I am helping you?” (Bard and Sangrey 1980: 30)

Kathy felt a particular dedication to homicide survivors because of her grandfather’s murder, but she admitted to feeling addicted to seeing the effect of her work on others. The rescue fantasy gave her an emotional high. Sympathy is a “feeling currency” (Hochschild 2003: 18), which can leave the donor feeling boosted and the recipient feeling indebted (Clark 1987). Some survivors disliked the idea of receiving counselors’ job-required sympathy, and they may have disliked feeling emotionally indebted to strangers (see Clark 1987).

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Managing Emotions

As the primary emotion managers of the criminal justice system, counselors handled the more emotionally volatile encounters with victims (e.g., death notification, court accompaniment), and detectives and prosecutors expected counselors to comfort victims. A homicide detective admitted: Victim services [counselors] . . . can spend a lot of time with the families after the [death] notification’s been made. Sometimes a family member will need to sit there for two hours and cry or scream or do whatever they need to do, and the counselor has the time to sit there and . . . kinda go through the process with them. . . . Unfortunately, time constraints don’t let us stay with the family for four or five hours to try to make sure they get through it. (CJ16)

The management of emotions in the workplace refers to workers’ attempt to influence or change their own or others’ feelings to meet organizational goals (Hochschild 2003); given the devastation and hysteria that accompany a loss to murder, families’ emotions can prove volatile and long-lasting. The downstream orientation of the criminal justice system, which emphasizes investigating and building a strong case, does not embrace time spent with such emotions. Thus, workers developed strategies for interpersonal emotion management to shape the feelings of others (e.g., coworkers, clients) and strategies for self-emotion management to shape their feelings (e.g., get psyched up, be stoic, feel motivated) and behavior. These strategies allowed them to get work done and meet organization goals. Avoidance and stoicism represented strategies for self-emotion management, while information control (i.e., using caution in how much and when to release information), status shields (i.e., using one’s position of authority to create social distance), and organizational shields represented common strategies for criminal justice workers to influence others’ emotions (Goodrum and Stafford 2003). Fostering Emotional Connections

Counselors in the prosecutor’s office used listening as a strategy to foster an emotional connection between victims and prosecutors— coaching victims on what to share with prosecutors (e.g., photos and home movies of the deceased) and familiarizing prosecutors on what victims wanted to see happen in the case (e.g., death penalty, long

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prison sentence, trial) (see Chapter 3). This guidance laid the groundwork for a “successful” victim-prosecutor meeting and an emotional connection between the victim and the prosecutor, a “warm fuzzy” ending to the meeting. A counselor explained: I try to encourage [victims] to make videos [and bring them to their first meeting with the prosecutor]. . . . [One mother brought a home movie of her young daughter who was killed by a drunk driver after departing from her school bus]. . . . [My and the prosecutor’s] reaction after we saw the video was very important to that mother. And when she saw our reaction, she knew, “[They’re going to do] all [they] can [in this case].”

Home movies and family photographs can provide context for the family’s suffering. The counselor continued:

[Victims need to be] given a chance to give their input . . . to the prosecutor. That’s very important, for them to . . . say, “Just look at [this] picture of my son or my daughter or . . . my husband. This is very important to me.” . . . [Sharing a photo or a video makes] the [murder victim] more of a human [to the prosecutor and seeing] how that prosecutor deals with [the photo or video] is going to make the connection. That’s when the trust starts right there. (CJ02)

Sociologists of emotion would note that sharing images of the deceased reveals a previously unaddressed “sympathy norm” for people who have lost a loved one (i.e., “Look at these photos; do you see what I lost?”). Photographs are powerful tangible materials, which survivors cherished and prosecutors could observe, for connecting individual victims to system professionals. Counselors coached victims and prosecutors on how to navigate this terrain (see Counselor Account 5.2). When a mother shared a photo of her only son at his high school graduation and told the story of how they shopped for his blazer and tie, intimacy began to develop. Sharing images of and stories about the deceased allowed families to say:

Look at these photos and videos of my daughter (or son, wife, husband, mother, father). Do you see what I lost?

Show me that you get the depth of the pain from my loss—with your reaction (e.g., facial expression, tears, and words) to these images and stories.

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Now, show me with your plan for and work on this case that you will do everything you can to bring justice for my loved one and a resolution to this case.

Counselors knew how powerful this type of sympathy exchange could be for families and also for prosecutors, and they did what they could to facilitate the exchange by preparing victims and prosecutors in advance.

Counselor Account 5.2 Surviving Sexual Assault and Leading Victim Services Joanne Martin, Director of Victim Services, Prosecutor’s Office (CJ06)

Joanne Martin exudes a calm strength and survivor’s wisdom, which puts prosecutors, other counselors, and victims at ease. In her early 40s, Joanne was the victim of a brutal attack, where she was kidnapped, bludgeoned, raped, and left for dead. When a passerby found her, she was rushed to an emergency room where physicians prepared her family for the worst. Her head injuries appeared unsurvivable, but something deep inside her pulled her through. Beating the odds, Joanne survived the attack, provided a detailed description of her attacker, and eventually identified him in a lineup at the police station. It took her a long time, but eventually she found a way to forgive her attacker. She explained:

I knew, for me, that I couldn’t be the type of mother or wife or eventually grandmother, or the person that I wanted to be if I carried around this rage inside of me. It eats you alive. So, it [was] very important to me to reach that point where it wasn’t words that I had to say to another living human being [e.g., “I forgive you”], [but] it was something that I had to feel inside me. Because it is a sense of peace for me, not for that person that’s in prison.

When asked why she continued serving victims in Union County, Joanne shared:

There’s always another person who’s in pain for you to deal with. And even though it’s stressful, it’s also addictive. . . . There’s not anything that you can do when you become a crime victim; [you can’t] do continued

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anything about what happened to you. But you can do things to help other people.

Like Kathy Johnson (see Counselor Account 5.1), Joanne felt addicted to serving victims. Helping others benefited counselors, particularly those who had experience as crime victims. Joanne continued, “It was a couple of years before I could talk about what happened to me, but once I did, I found it so healing.” Talking about the attack led her to become a vocal advocate for crime victims in Union County, where she eventually became director of victim services for the prosecutor’s office. She supervised six victim services counselors and partnered with the local battered women’s shelter. Over time, Joanne became one of the state’s biggest advocates for victims, guiding the development of new programs and inspiring survivors with her resilience. Prosecutors valued her straightforward delivery and survivor’s perspective, because as Joanne reasoned, “I’m a crime victim. So, [prosecutors] kind of can’t fault me, no matter what I say.”

Conclusion

Counselors handled numerous victim-related tasks in the Union Police Department, Union County Sheriff’s Office, and Union County District Attorney’s Office, including delivering the news of the murder to survivors, overseeing the cleanup of blood stains, returning personal property confiscated during the investigation, explaining the reasons for the court’s hearings and delays, and shielding detectives and prosecutors from victims. Detectives and prosecutors described counselors as godsends and lifesavers, and counselors described their work with homicide survivors as “painful” (CJ06), “addictive” (CJ06, CJ09), and making a “difference” (CJ01). All of the counselors participating in this study felt responsible for getting families through the system. Yet in one of the more surprising findings to come from this research, approximately one-third of the homicide survivors participating in the study disliked counselors’ involvement, characterizing them as a “useless appendage” (V18) and “too much” (V09). This finding captures a conflict in the victim-counselor relationship, which appears to arise because of mis-

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guided assumptions about what victims need (e.g., crisis counseling, services) and because of the limits of what counselors can do (e.g., not case decisionmakers). Survivors objected to counselors’ involvement for several reasons. First, they quickly learned that counselors did not have access to information about the murder investigation and did not have decisionmaking authority in the case. Victims knew that counselors acted as organizational shields, restricting their access to the real decisionmakers in the case (e.g., detectives, prosecutors). Second, victims sought an emotional connection with detectives and prosecutors, not with counselors, highlighting the utility of emotion in some relationships and the futility of emotion in others. Survivors valued an emotional connection with detectives and prosecutors, believing that when the power players felt their pain, they could use that pain to fuel their work on the case. For survivors, when a detective or prosecutor cared about the deceased and the loss, it increased the amount of time and energy invested in the case. When a counselor cared, it did not change the system’s work. As a result, survivors did not necessarily find value in having an emotional connection with counselors, whom they viewed as powerless. Survivors wanted their emotional relationships with criminal justice workers to benefit the case, not themselves—an interesting distinction. An emotional investment in the case—not the crisis—meant a more thorough investigation, a more intense prosecution, and a tougher sentence. Finally, a handful of survivors described counselors as helpful, raising questions about the dramatic differences in viewpoints. A careful review of the “disliked counselors” and “liked counselors” suggests that victims from higher socioeconomic backgrounds and with larger support networks resented counselors’ involvement more than victims from lower socioeconomic backgrounds and with smaller support networks. Clark (1987) talks about the way accepting sympathy can diminish one’s status in relationships (e.g., you poor thing), as well as how giving sympathy can elevate one’s status (e.g., you are so kind). Thus, homicide survivors from higher socioeconomic backgrounds may have disliked being on the receiving end of a stranger’s sympathy because it left them indebted to another in the emotional economy (see Clark 1987). Admittedly, some victims’ advocates might argue that the system should err on the side of offering crisis counseling to all victims until the victim declines, but this argument neglects the fact that even a well-intentioned offer of assistance can burden victims, who must

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acknowledge and then (politely) decline the offer. Simply having to say, “No, thank you,” can feel taxing during a devastating experience. Thus, advocates and counselors should question the assumption that victims want and can benefit from counseling services in the criminal justice system.

Recommendations for Counselors Working with Homicide Survivors

1. Don’t assume that victims want or need your help, even in the midst of a crisis, because appearing • at the death notification tells victims you have bad news to deliver (before they may be ready to accept it), and • on the scene assumes that victims want and need a counselor’s help, and having to acknowledge and decline a counselor’s offer—even if it is well-meaning—is a burden to victims. 2. Be careful not to assist detectives and prosecutors with their work, as it makes victims question the counselor’s role in the system and loyalty to victims. 3. Help victims with practical tasks, such as hiring a cleaning service to remove blood stains, providing paperwork on compensation funds, or contacting a funeral home to pick up the body at the medical examiner’s office.

6 Awaiting and Enduring the Trial

It was important to have a trial because other people in Union County (or anywhere) have to realize what’s going on. . . . I couldn’t live with myself [if the case didn’t go to trial]. . . . I would always be depressed. [But] it went through [a] trial. People listened. Judges listened. Prosecutors listened. —Fannie Quintanilla, mother of 21-year-old homicide victim (V27)

Everybody wants to go to trial. [The family] thinks that a trial is a public airing of what happened, [and it’s] going to fix them, and it doesn’t fix them. . . . I try to explain to them . . . that regardless of how we dispose of this case . . .you’re not going to be fixed. . . . [But] most people don’t believe me. —Prosecutor and Director of Trial Division, Union County District Attorney’s Office (CJ04)

One Sunday afternoon in August, Fannie Quintanilla called her son Terrill to tell him she had just landed at the airport and she would meet him for dinner in Oldtown. She wanted to show Terrill the gifts she had bought him in Las Vegas, and Terrill wanted to hear about her trip. But just 15 minutes after their call, during a barbecue at his friend Mike’s house, Terrill was stabbed to death while trying to intervene in a heated argument between Mike and an uninvited guest. When Terrill collapsed to the floor, his friends called 911 for an ambulance while Mike and a few others chased the suspect outside. Terrill’s friends 125

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caught the suspect, tackled him to the ground, and punched him in the face repeatedly. In a mug shot taken shortly after the stabbing, the suspect’s face appeared bloody and bruised. Given the suspect’s appearance in the mug shot and lingering questions about Terrill’s role in the altercation preceding his death, the prosecutor thought a trial was too risky. He recommended to Fannie that they resolve the case with a plea bargain. Fannie felt devastated. She said, “I cried when they told me they wanted a plea bargain [instead of a trial]. I left. I just got up and left. I told them I couldn’t talk to them because it wasn’t fair” (V27). Fannie believed a plea bargain wasn’t fair to her or her son, and she demanded a trial. After two meetings and some difficult discussions, the prosecutor conceded. Fannie got the trial she wanted, but not the answers or relief she expected. * * *

Only a handful of researchers have examined victims’ experiences with a criminal trial, and even fewer have examined victims’ experiences with a murder trial (for research on victims and trials, see Davis and Smith 1994; Konradi 1996b). As a result, much of what we know about victims’ experiences with trials comes from Hollywood portrayals (e.g., The Accused, Law and Order, Law and Order: Special Victims’ Unit) and televised courtroom proceedings (e.g., Scott Peterson, George Zimmerman, and O. J. Simpson). These portrayals often give the impression that murder trials happen within days of the crime, reveal exactly how and why the murder occurred, and bring closure to the families of the deceased. But they rarely capture the reality of a trial for the family of a murder victim. This chapter describes victims’ expectations for and experiences with the trial in their loved one’s murder case, and prosecutors, counselors, judges, advocates, and defense attorneys weigh in on their perceptions of the trial experience. The findings reveal a gap between what victims expected from the trial and what they actually experienced.

Providing a Critical Source of Information

The murder trial represented the culmination of homicide survivors’ efforts to pursue justice and recognition on behalf of the deceased. Approximately 89 percent of the survivors participating in this study wanted a trial—not a plea bargain—in their loved one’s murder case.1 Survivors believed a trial would bring them information, justice, and a

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sense of relief. In a study of families with cold cases, Stretesky and colleagues (2010) found that homicide survivors wanted information about their loved one’s death and the investigation to help them make sense of their tragic loss. Nora Harden, the mother of a 25-year-old murder victim, explained, “[The trial was important to me because] I can never communicate with my son again. . . . [I wanted] to get down to the bottom of the nitty gritty, as to exactly what took place. . . . I wouldn’t miss a minute of that case” (V26). Survivors believed a trial, not a negotiated plea, would provide them with those details about what happened to their loved one, and knowing those details would make them feel better. In her guide for therapists, Rando (1993) describes homicide survivors’ intense need for information following a sudden and violent loss (see also Goodrum 2007; Goodrum and Stafford 2003). “As an adaptive coping behavior, information seeking is helpful on several accounts, and in appropriate amounts, should be facilitated. It gives the mourner the ability to take some control” (Rando 1993: 606). Although often a positive means of coping, the incessant search for information can prove debilitating (Rando 1993; Rynearson 2001), because repeatedly asking questions about the death rarely produces satisfying answers and the search for information may delay acceptance and grieving (Rando 1993). Of course, case information proves important to all victims, not just those who have lost a loved one to homicide. Carr, Logio, and Maier (2003) found that obtaining information about the case positively affected victims’ satisfaction with the system, and victims wanted case information more than case involvement. In sexual assault cases, “the information [rape survivors] obtained [can] ease [the victim’s] worry, boost her confidence, and help her formulate her testimony” (Konradi 1996b: 38). The question remains, however, as to why survivors believed a trial would yield better information about the murder than would a negotiated plea. The answer relates to the public nature of a trial and the secrecy surrounding the law enforcement investigation. When a murder case is resolved through a negotiated plea, the details of the investigation remain locked away in case files. Witness testimony, autopsy reports, and DNA evidence do not get presented in court, discussed before jurors, or entered as exhibits. As an official legal ceremony, a trial brings people together in a public setting to describe and review evidence, discuss the defendant’s conduct, and consider the victim’s innocence. Survivors wanted to learn everything they could about the murder, and they wanted others to learn that information also. Delia Jiminez explained, “I just remember during the trial you get a lot more information than you’ve gotten after it actually happens” (V18).

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A review of the data from participants whose loved ones died in a murder-suicide offers some insight into the relationship between information and recovery. In murder-suicide cases, the presumed suspect is dead; thus, detectives and prosecutors have no defendant to pursue and no trial or negotiated plea to broker. As a result, the surviving families learn relatively quickly the identity of the suspect, the reason for the murder, and other evidence in the case (e.g., weapon used, autopsy results). Surviving families in other types of murder cases cannot learn those details when the investigation is ongoing. Melissa Merton, who lost her 23-year-old daughter Bonnie to a murder-suicide, longed to know the details of her daughter’s death. She explained:

[You see, my daughter’s ex-boyfriend Sloan] killed himself about two hours after he killed her, and that bothered me a lot. . . . [I wanted to know why he waited two hours]. . . . So, I talked to the medical examiner and [I] found out that he had not done anything to her. . . . I just didn’t want to think that he had done anything to her after he had killed her.

Melissa explained that those unanswered questions bothered her. She said:

The unknown was making me feel bad from the standpoint of: Could it have been worse? Did she suffer? I didn’t want to know she suffered. I didn’t want to know [that, but] even if I found that out, I could’ve been mad and gotten that out of my system. . . . I could take the answers, but I needed the answers so I could go on. (V22)

She believed that the “unknown was making” her feel bad, and she “needed the answers so [she] could go on.” Unlike other homicide survivors (who wait months and years for those kinds of answers), Melissa got the information she wanted within weeks after her daughter’s murder. In a study of cold case homicides, Stretesky and colleagues (2010) found that 36 of the 37 survivors participating in their study felt dissatisfied with detectives’ level of communication with them. Similarly, Gekoski, Adler, and Gray (2013) found that survivors described the police as unhelpful in responding to their phone calls and answering their questions about their loved one’s murder case. When survivors could not obtain basic information about their loved one’s death from law enforcement detectives because of the need to preserve the integrity of the investigation, they assumed they would eventually learn that information during trial.

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Providing Information About Drug Use and Criminal Activity

Survivors also wanted a trial to learn about their deceased loved one’s drug use and criminal activity prior to the murder. Klementine Milton’s son had served in the Vietnam War, spent time in jail, and was a recovering drug addict at the time of his murder. She said she wanted a trial, not so much to get justice for her son but to hear the medical examiner’s testimony about the absence of drugs in his system at the time of his death. Klementine explained, “[The trial was important because] Larry had been in jail and in trouble a lot of times, and I knew [he had stopped taking drugs]. . . . I wanted to go to the trial so bad . . . so I could hear the doctor that did the autopsy on Larry. I wanted to hear one thing: that there weren’t any drugs in his system” (V16). Similarly, Donna Taylor wanted to know whether her younger brother, Frank, had stolen the defendant’s car on the night of his murder. She said, “[The trial] was important to me . . . because I got to know what happened. I thought maybe my brother had broken into their car [and had] actually [stolen] their car” (V02). In these cases, Klementine learned that her son’s system was clean of drugs before his death, and Donna learned that her brother had broken a window in but had not stolen the defendant’s car (see Victim Account 6.1). Learning that their loved one had not engaged in drug use or a car theft brought these survivors clarity and comfort.

The Limits to Seeking Answers Through the Trial Never Enough Information

Deborah Spungen (1998), who lost her daughter to murder, argued that the “post-trial phase” is the most emotionally volatile for survivors, bringing elation, anger, and grief. Orth (2002) found that victims viewed the criminal proceedings in their case to be harmful to their recovery. According to survivors’ accounts, the expectation that a murder trial would bring them (helpful) information about their loved one’s death proved disappointing for three main reasons. First, the trial rarely provided answers to all of their questions about the murder. Zoe Nunoz and Barbara Yanez, both mothers of the deceased, explained:

[Even after the trial] we still don’t know why. There were different rumors [about why my son was murdered]. One was that [he] was

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snitching [to the police]. Another one [was that] my son had tons of girlfriends [and one of their boyfriends or husbands had killed him]. (V12)

Still, right now, for me, I don’t understand why [the defendants] did what they did. I don’t know. It’s hard for me to understand. I want to say, “Yes, I do understand” . . . but there’s nothing I can do [to make sense of it]. (V28)

In her therapeutic guide for counselors helping people following a sudden and violent loss, Rando (1993: 606) explained, “Mourners have been known to devote enormous time, effort, and expense to securing information about the event in order to cope and achieve even minimal closure. . . . Mourners who lack sufficient explanation of the death tend to have more complicated mourning, marked by anxiety and insecurity.” Detectives and prosecutors knew from experience that a “sufficient explanation” for how and why a murder happened often remained elusive, even after a thorough investigation and a trial. Two detectives explained: [Crime shows have] made it seem as though a lot of things are possible with the wave of a wand or just a touch of a computer keyboard. It’s not like that. (CJ03) You can never get enough information about a victim of a homicide. Never. (CJ10)

But survivors had difficulty believing that a trial would leave any stone unturned and any question unanswered. After his wife’s suicide, Edward Rynearson, a psychiatrist and researcher, met with his wife’s psychiatrist to try to understand why she had killed herself. He eventually realized, “In looking for external answers, I was avoiding the fact that her dying was a permanent part of me” (Rynearson 2001: 8). Rando (1993) agrees that part of the bereavement process involves incorporating the death into one’s life, but the literature suggests that this work can only start when the survivor stops asking why. When homicide survivors awaited a trial, they had difficulty not asking why. The expectation was that the trial would give them the answer and then, “When I know why he did it, I’ll be able to make sense of this horror.” But waiting for the answer to “why did this happen?” means that survivors postpone acceptance of “this is my life now” (Rando 1993; Rynearson 2001).

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Victim Account 6.1 Sad Life, Tragic Death, and Questionable Self-Defense Explanation In thinking back on the life of her younger brother, Frank, Donna Taylor wishes they had spent more time together. Their mother lost custody of them when Donna was six and Frank was three, and they were sent to live with different relatives. They did not reconnect for another 15 years, when their mother’s terminal AIDS diagnosis brought them to her bedside. After their mother died, the siblings caught up on their years apart and Donna learned that Frank had been in foster care from age 5 to 18, which broke her heart. Her baby brother had been all alone. Over the next two years, Donna and Frank worked hard to stay in touch, and in October 1997, around the time of Frank’s 20th birthday, they started to spend more time together, becoming very close. Donna wanted Frank to finish his GED, leave gang life, and find God. Frank wanted Donna to leave her abusive boyfriend, quit her minimum-wage job, and set a good example for her four young daughters. They bonded over their many life challenges. Sadly, Frank did not meet those goals. Just two weeks after he had visited Donna and her daughters, Frank was shot and killed in an alley. When Donna got the news of her brother’s murder on a payphone in the courtyard of her subsidized housing complex, she screamed in disbelief. A friend had to pull her away from the phone and walk her back to her apartment. Because she had no way to make the three-hour drive to Union County to identify her brother’s body for the police, someone else made the identification for her. Donna took the news really hard. Frank had stayed with her and her daughters shortly before his death. When he went back to Union County, he had just started to turn his life around. But he struggled with finances and transportation. One night, in an effort to get to his friend Kenny’s house in north Union, he attempted to steal a car outside a bar. Frank had just broken the window on the car, when the owner—a man with a domestic violence history—approached him, chased him down a dark alley, and shot him in the back twice. In looking back, Donna said, “Sometimes I wish he hadn’t have left [my house]. Maybe things would be different if he had just stayed here.” Donna Taylor (V02)

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132 As the time for the trial approached, the case began to receive media attention because the defendant, a prominent local restaurant owner (white) claimed self-defense in the shooting death of Frank (African American). Each day of the trial, the defendant’s predominantly white friends and family packed the small courtroom. They were a jovial group, well-dressed, tan, and somewhat rowdy. To her credit and despite the financial hardship, Donna attended every day of the trial, sitting in the front row of the galley, the only African American person in the entire standing-room-only courtroom. Occasionally, Frank’s friend Kenny and his mother attended the trial to honor Frank and support Donna, but on most days, Donna sat there, next to the victim witness counselor, quietly representing her brother and their shattered sibling bond. She said, “Just sitting there that week having to listen to all [the defendant’s claims of self-defense] . . . At one point, I tried to put myself in the jury’s position [but] I still don’t see with all [that] evidence how [they] could even say ‘not guilty.’ I can’t understand it. Especially to self-defense.” Donna questioned the defendant’s explanation of self-defense, particularly because he chased Frank into an alley and shot him in the back. The evidence revealed that Frank did not have a weapon at the time of the shooting. Donna pondered, “If . . . you’re scared [of my brother], why would you follow [him into an alley] at night? I mean, [use some] common sense. . . . Why even chase this person [who broke into your truck]? What’s the point? . . . I think the part that hurts me so bad is that this man never once looked at me. He never once said, ‘I’m sorry.’ Never.” For Donna, three of the more frustrating aspects of the trial experience involved the unanswered questions remaining after the trial, the disturbing lack of compassion from the defendant and his supporters, and the upsetting details learned from the presentation of the evidence, including the 911 calls, medical examiner’s testimony, and defendant’s self-defense claims. She explained, “I still [hear the 911] tape playing in my mind. . . . I know the [defendant’s and his girlfriend’s] names. I can see their faces. I still see their faces. I can still hear the [defendant’s friends] laughing in the courtroom like it was yesterday. Sometimes [when] I go to sleep, that’s all on my mind. How are these people sleeping?” So, while Donna got a trial in her brother’s case, and more legal and media attention than the state or community had ever paid to her or her brother, it wasn’t enough to deliver justice. Donna did not feel good about the jury’s “not-guilty” verdict or the way the defense attorney portrayed her brother as a scary, young black man with gang tattoos.

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Disturbing Details and Images

The second reason a trial proved to be a disappointing source of information was that many survivors learned upsetting details, including the deceased’s suffering and the defendant’s excuses. The first type of harmful information involved hearing—in graphic detail—about the deceased’s injuries and suffering. Delia Jiminez recalled:

Gosh, [the trial] was all difficult. You would think it would be the photos of the crime scene, but it was really having the medical examiner give his report. . . . He [was] very clinical about the number of stab wounds [in Erica’s body], the force at which you could tell the stabs had entered, and [he went] into detail about . . . all the damage that was done, and that’s hard to hear. (V18) Nora Harden explained:

[Hearing] my son in his 911 tape [during the trial was difficult]. You could hear him in the background and that was very, very hard, because he [was] needing help and he’s barely able to do anything but moan, and everybody in the background is freaking out. A lot of people [on the recording could be heard] saying, “You killed my friend! You killed my friend!” (V26)

Hearing such details provided disturbing visual images and auditory knowledge of the deceased’s last few moments of life. Counselors in the prosecutor’s office said they tried to prepare families for the graphic testimony and evidence presented at trial, and they frequently advised family members to leave during some parts of the trial. A detective reasoned, “I think it’s important to understand what memory they’re going to have of their loved one, and I’m very careful on what that last memory can be. I really don’t want it to be of the crime scene or the autopsy” (CJ03). During the trial, however, counselors and prosecutors could not always anticipate or control the information victims saw or heard, such as the defendant’s self-defense explanation for murder, the victim’s screams on the 911 recording, or the medical examiner’s photographs of the deceased’s body. Psychiatric research indicates that even without a trial, homicide survivors frequently visualize the deceased’s last moments (Rynearson and McCreery 1993). Rynearson and McCreery (1993: 260) report that almost all of the homicide survivors in their study experienced “piercing and recurring reenactment imagery” on a daily or weekly basis. When this information was revealed during the trial, victims’ families had more concrete evidence to inform those imaginings.

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Homicide survivor and author Kathleen O’Hara (2006: 123) shared her experiences with the murder trials in her son Aaron’s case. She warned, “If you are preparing for a trial . . . you will have to endure much more than you ever thought possible. You will hear things you won’t believe and be wounded in ways from which you will not soon recover. You will need to gather your strength and courage.” During the trial, homicide survivors also learned of the defendant’s hard-to-believe excuses for the murder. Brad Carson (see also Victim Account 6.2) said, “The hardest part was [hearing] the defendant [testify on the witness stand]. He claimed self-defense. He hit [my son] Carl in the head eleven times, one of which fractured his skull, and then [he] cut his throat, and [Carl] bled to death” (V09). To have one’s worst nightmare—about a loved one’s unmet medical needs, severe beatings, or knife wounds—confirmed with graphic courtroom testimony proves difficult to reconcile and process. Hearing a defendant testify to an implausible claim of self-defense also was difficult to stomach. Unfortunately, most homicide survivors could not have anticipated that the information they learned at trial would make them feel worse about their loss (see also Victim Account 6.3). Survivors like Norman Howard believed that “If we could have a trial . . . I could move on” (also quoted at the start of Chapter 1). A prosecutor with 16 years of experience on murder cases said, “You know that [survivors] think that something wonderful is going to happen at the end of the case and you know that after the verdict . . . they are going to be really disappointed about how that made them feel. And that’s not going to solve it for them” (CJ07). O’Hara (2006: 122–123) reflected on her experiences following her son’s murder trials; she thought:

Now, I could continue my journey of grief with the trials behind me. . . . But the torturers returned. Because I had heard the hard evidence of the trials and had been forced to spend time in the courtroom with Aaron’s murderers, I was now feeling the reality of what actually happened to him—and it was killing me. It sent me into the deepest part of the ocean, clinging to whatever life preservers I had while they, too, were being ravaged. Hurtful Victim Characterizations and Profane Defendant Behavior

The third reason the trial may have disappointed survivors related to how the murder victim was characterized and how the defendant’s supporters behaved. For example, Cara Eberhart’s older sister, Kelly, was killed by

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her son, who had struggled with mental health issues throughout childhood. During the trial, the defense attorney blamed Kelly’s poor mothering and homosexuality for the defendant’s violence. Cara said:

They more or less drug her name through the mud to make themselves look good and that was really hard because she did not deserve that at all. . . . [During the trial], there [were] really hurtful [things said] about [my sister] . . . [as] a single mother and a lesbian . . . her sexual orientation had nothing to do with what happened. She wasn’t on trial then. He was. She was the victim. So, to me, they threw out her name and her lifestyle [as though] that might have been the reason why he murdered her and it wasn’t. (V32)

Similarly, the defense attorney in Donna Taylor’s brother’s murder case portrayed Frank as a violent gang member and thief. During the trial, the defense attorney repeatedly showed the jurors autopsy photos of Frank’s tattooed torso, and he argued that his white client had acted in self-defense when he shot the 20-year-old African American man in the back. While witness testimony confirmed that Frank was wearing a shirt that covered his torso and the tattoo at the time of the murder, the defense attorney’s repeated reference to the autopsy photo had a chilling effect. Donna said, “I feel like [the prosecutors could] have made their case stronger . . . if [they] could have got a better [sense of my brother’s] character. They really didn’t have any witnesses as to Frank’s character. . . . [Instead,] the defense attorney [was] making him out to [be a] bad guy” (V02). The defense attorneys in these cases “drug [Cara’s sister’s] name through the mud” and made Donna’s brother “out to [be a] bad guy,” capturing a “blame-the-victim” approach. Thus, the trial can degrade the identity of the murder victim, not just the defendant (see Garfinkel 1956). In these cases, the victim and the victim’s family lose the “victim contest” (Holstein and Miller 1990). In his discussion of status degradation ceremonies, Robert Antonio (1972) notes the role of deference and demeanor (i.e., clothing, appearance, mannerisms) in sacred ceremonies (e.g., weddings, funerals, trials). Appropriate displays of deference and demeanor communicate respect; inappropriate displays of deference and demeanor, on the other hand, communicate disrespect, and this can elicit frustration, create anxiety, and disrupt social interactions. When the evidence presented at trial or the jury’s decision diminished some aspect of the victim’s personal character or value, families felt angry and heartbroken (see Victim Account 6.2). Wendy Lawrence,

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the daughter of Ken Napier, felt that the jury downplayed the importance of her father’s murder because of his old age. She explained:

I feel like [the jury gave the defendant only two years] because of [my father’s] age. They felt like he was going to die soon anyway, and she was young and she deserved another chance. And I don’t agree with that at all. . . . It was her choice to do crack, and not only that. She came and borrowed money from me, $40 [and then she] went and bought crack. She came back to my home, told my father she was a friend of mine, got $60 from him, [and then she] went and bought crack. And then, she came back at 2:30 p.m. that afternoon to break in to steal my jewelry . . . and that’s when it happened. [She pushed my father to the floor, stole money from him, and he had a heart attack.] The [jurors] were just so lenient with her. That was her choice [to steal and do drugs] . . . and somebody’s dead because of it.

When the jury’s verdict resulted in a conviction on the lesser charge, Wendy felt devastated. She said the victim witness counselor tried to cushion the blow of the jury’s decision, but the decision stung anyway. She recounted, “[The victim witness counselor] immediately came to me and she said, ‘Don’t think that your father’s life wasn’t important.’ But of course, I still feel that. I don’t care what she said. [But the counselor] made the effort to make me feel like they were idiots, which they were” (V03). In short, the trial proceedings did not always convey the value of the deceased in the way families expected. Holstein and Miller (1990) argue that the social construction of a victim identity requires a dual “dramatization of innocence and evil” identifying the causes of the harm. When defense attorneys portray the deceased as partially responsible for the events leading to the murder, they tarnish the deceased’s reputation and discredit the family’s “ideal victim” claim. Interestingly, even detectives—the workers fighting to bring justice for victims—described some murder victims in unflattering terms. One detective said, “Unfortunately . . . a lot of the murders that we have are drug-related. We’ve actually had several cases where the jury found the murderer not guilty” (CJ16). Building on Garfinkel’s discussion of status degradation ceremonies, Robert Gephart (1978) has argued that the “ideal-type process” for these ceremonies unfolds in four phases: (1) a deviant activity and the perpetrator are identified, (2) the violated rule and values informing the rule are stated, (3) a denouncer appears and publicly proclaims the importance of those values, and (4) the perpetrator is defined as deviant in both the specific case and general interactions. A status restoration ceremony is likely to follow a similar pattern for murder victims in a criminal trial, including

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(1) the perpetrator and murder victim are identified, (2) the circumstances of the murder and the values violated with the murder are stated (e.g., sanctity of human life), (3) officials publicly proclaim the concern with the violated values and the murder, and (4) the victim is defined as innocent in specific case (ideally) and in general (hopefully).

Victim Account 6.2 Hearing an Outlandish Self-Defense Claim Brad Carson and his wife Sandy (also featured in Chapter 3) had just celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary with their friends in South Carolina when they began to grow concerned about their oldest son Carl’s well-being. Four days after filing a missing person’s report (and more than a week after his actual murder), detectives declared Carl’s absence suspicious and began pursuing it as a homicide. Brad said, “When the homicide detective called me that Monday [four days after my missing persons report] and said that, indeed, ‘a crime had been committed and we’re getting in to it,’ I thought, ‘Oh boy, at last, somebody is listening to me.’” Once the detectives began the homicide investigation, the case came together quickly. Police found the defendant in a neighboring state, trying to use Carl’s Social Security number, identity, and car to start a new life. When the police handed the case over to the prosecutor, Brad and Sandy learned that the prosecutor planned to pursue a capital murder charge and the death penalty. Brad explained, “[The prosecutor in the case] was very optimistic about getting a guilty verdict.” The trial proved difficult to watch, however. The gruesome nature of Carl’s death (by blunt force trauma) and the defendant’s lack of remorse and claims of self-defense proved particularly unsettling. For example, the counselor with the prosecutor’s office suggested Brad, Sandy, and their other son Cameron leave the courtroom during the coroner’s testimony. Brad explained: Brad Carson (V09)

There were times during the trial . . . that they were presenting evidence and testimony that they asked us to leave the room because it would have been really difficult to look at the photos [and hear the testimony]. . . . [For instance,] the guy that killed our son [killed him and then] put Carl in [the] trunk [of a car], took him out and buried continued

138 him [in] the desert. He was buried in the desert for two weeks before his body was found.

Brad said, “Listening to this guy say it was self-defense, when he didn’t have a bruise on his body [was hard to hear] and knowing Carl, I couldn’t believe it was self-defense.” The jury found the defendant guilty of capital murder, which carried a life sentence with 40 years minimum before the possibility of parole. In thinking of the outcome, Brad and his family felt “good that [the defendant] is going to spend the bulk of his life in prison. He’ll be about 65 years old when he gets out.” When asked whether he thought the criminal justice system had helped heal the harm of his loss, he explained, “Yes, I suppose, I could say that. . . . I think they had great compassion for us. They offered us counseling, and this kind of thing, which we declined. We felt we were strong enough people that we could lean on each other and get through it, which we have.” After the trial, Brad, his wife, and their younger son stayed around to thank the judge and the jurors. They felt good about the ending of the case, but they felt pain from the defendant’s self-defense claims and the medical examiner’s graphic testimony during the trial.

Victim Account 6.3 Seeing His Jacket and Watching Her Strong Husband Crumble When Lauren Spears, a petite woman with Southern charm and a quick wit, arrived for our interview, she carried a large framed collage of photographs of her 23-year-old son Kevin. In the photographs, Kevin was pictured walking on the beach, smiling back over his shoulder at the camera. His footprints stretch out behind him in the sand. The photos capture a handsome and cheerful young man, the youngest of Lauren’s four children. Kevin’s girlfriend Kara shared the photos with Lauren shortly after his death. Lauren said it felt strange to have photos of her son that she had not seen before, but she was glad to have them, because they captured his warmth and humor. Lauren Spears (Pretest D)

continued

139 The photos took on more meaning when a friend sent her a sympathy card with the poem “Footprints in the Sand.” Lauren found comfort in the connection between the photos and the poem. She included the poem in the framed collage. The poem read, in part, “You promised me Lord, that if I followed you, you would walk with me always” (Mary Stevenson, retrieved from www.footprints-inthe-sand.com). The peace and warmth of the photos and poem provided comfort while Kevin’s death and the trial brought heartache. Lauren recalled that it was a Monday evening when she became concerned about Kevin’s whereabouts. It was his 23rd birthday, and he was supposed to arrive home from his evening college class by 9:30 p.m. Earlier that day, Lauren had stacked his colorfully wrapped presents—a blue shirt, a billfold, and a $20 bill—on the kitchen table. After breakfast, while he got ready for a full day of classes, he asked his mom to transfer his driver’s license, credit cards, and cash from his old billfold into his new one. She did, and she knew that he was leaving the house with $21. She told Kevin she would make his favorite dinner—spaghetti, meatballs, and pound cake—and have it ready for him after his class. But Kevin never returned home after class, and at midnight, she became worried. The next morning, she called the police and her older son, who called local hospitals. Within hours of those phone calls, police found a body in a ditch of water near their house. Seeing the police cars, Lauren’s husband and older son walked down to the ditch to talk with detectives, and they saw Kevin’s lifeless body lying in the water. Dozens of people from the local neighborhood watched detectives rope off the area. Upset by the scene and his son’s condition, Lauren’s husband asked a detective, “Can’t we move him out of the water?” The detective said, “No, sir, this is a crime scene. We need to preserve the evidence.” When Lauren thinks back on the months before the murder trial, she says, she just dreaded it. She said, “I spent that first year [after Kevin’s death] dreading this trial . . . [because the trial] really delays any kind of grief work you’re doing on yourself because all you’re thinking about is . . . dreading this trial. I thought about it every day.” She described the trial as difficult and “like a nightmare.” She didn’t want her other children—24-year-old Kate, 27-year-old Karen, and 28-year-old Mike—to attend. She said, “I didn’t want to sit there and worry about what they were thinking. I just wanted to get it over with.” Mike had planned to attend, but his mother-in-law died shortly before the trial, and Lauren told him to attend the funeral instead. She was relieved to not have to worry about him. She said: continued

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It’s best to be prepared for the worst thing that can ever happen [at the trial]. . . . [Because] the worst thing is a surprise. . . . [And I felt surprised] when they brought in [Kevin’s] leather jacket [as a piece of evidence], which I had given him for Christmas and he adored. To think that that scumbag had been wearing that thing that night [after killing my son], it just . . . I could hardly stand to look at it.

The contrast between her beloved Kevin, whose life was senselessly cut short on his birthday, and the thief and murderer who took his life was almost too much to bear. But the hardest part of the trial was seeing her husband take the stand and describe the night of Kevin’s murder. The defense attorney badgered her husband, a large, strong man with a successful construction business, leading him to cry during his testimony. Lauren said:

They put my husband on the witness stand, and . . . the defense attorney [said], “Well, you didn’t know until six in the morning that your son didn’t come home, [did you]?” [I thought,] “No, he didn’t because I didn’t want to wake him.” [But the defense attorney] tried to insinuate that [my son stayed out late all the time] . . . and my husband was a big strong guy, and he just crumbled. That hurt me. . . . I couldn’t stand it. . . . When they don’t have a defense, they try to bash the victim, and they did . . . but it didn’t work. Lauren acknowledged that most other families of murder victims want everyone there during the trial, but she did not. She wanted a trial, but she didn’t want people hovering over her.

Perpetuating the Myth of the Trial as a Source of Information The Secrecy of the Investigation

Data about the trial unearth a paradox in homicide survivors’ efforts to gain information and make sense of their loss. Information can provide insights that reduce anxiety, relieve distress, and restore control; information can also become a source of tremendous pain, creating disturbing imagery, producing contradictory explanations, and disrupting recovery. The structure of the criminal justice system may unwittingly perpetuate survivors’ perceptions of the trial as a source of helpful

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information for two reasons: (1) the secrecy surrounding the law enforcement investigation and (2) the long wait for a trial. The first reason relates to the intense secrecy surrounding law enforcement’s investigation and a prosecutor’s case preparations. Detectives withhold information from family members about the suspects, motives, and evidence, leaving survivors feeling left out of the process (Goodrum 2007). Detectives knew from experience that survivors can “let out information that we don’t want out [and they can] taint some of the investigation” (CJ16). This secrecy may give victims the false impression that detectives know all of the “nitty gritty” details about what happened to their loved one. Evidence from survivors and criminal justice workers, however, suggests that often no one knows all of the “nitty gritty” details about what happened in the murder (see Gekoski, Adler, and Gray 2013). Sal Halvata, a retired state legislator and the father of a homicide victim, felt frustrated by detectives’ unwillingness to share information about his son Henry’s death in a bar fight. So he hired a private investigator, but when he read the investigator’s report, he realized that law enforcement detectives were not withholding information from him, but instead did not have much information about his son’s death. The truth is that sometimes detectives, despite their best investigative efforts, do not have a lot of information about the murder. The Long Wait for the Trial

The second reason—the long wait for a trial—refers to how a trial for murder cases often comes six months to several years after the actual death; the long wait may heighten survivors’ sense of anticipation and yearning. The delays create suspense, and the suspense creates anxiety about the unknowns. Rachel Donado explained:

[Once the case gets to trial] you’re not thinking of yourself [anymore]. It’s not what I want. It’s more let’s get on with this. You’ve had six months of anticipation. You’ve been told repeatedly that we don’t know when the trial is gonna be, you’re gonna get called [to appear] on a moment’s notice, and they’ll probably change the date on you several times because the docket is too full and it will get pushed off. (V20)

Barbara Yanez complained, “It took them three years to take them to trial. . . . It took them so long, and it’s so hard for a person just to be waiting. . . . There’s nothing we can do” (V28). A counselor with the prosecutor’s office said, “[We try to help] them understand why the

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system moves so slow. In some ways, it’s good that it does, because they’ve had a chance to grieve some before we ever go to court . . . but for them, it’s an endless waiting. . . . They just don’t understand why things take so long” (CJ06). Current victims’ rights legislation in the state of study and elsewhere does not address victims’ right to a speedy trial. More specifically, victims’ rights nos. 1 and 2 guarantee information about criminal justice procedures and court dates (see Chapter 3); victims’ right no. 3 requires that courts provide a separate waiting area for crime victims and right no. 5 guarantees victims the right to give a victim impact statement during the sentencing phase of the trial. None of these rights guarantee a swift and certain resolution to the case, and such a right might interfere with the defendant’s right to a fair trial, not to mention the quality of the investigation.

Bringing Meaning and Purpose to the Death

Sociologist Emile Durkheim (1995) has noted that public rituals, like a religious service or a murder trial, offer a platform for celebrating the distinction between the sacred (i.e., feared, respected realm of life) and the profane (i.e., common, everyday realm of life). This distinction reaffirms our system of beliefs (i.e., we value human life) and offers a moral guide (i.e., thou shalt not kill). Survivors’ stories and Durkheim’s explanation suggest that a trial can immortalize the victim (Collins and Makowsky 1978; Rouse 1996). In other words, publicly defining someone as a victim during a trial facilitates the construction of responses and remedies (Holstein and Miller 1990). “The important point that Durkheim is making here is that the moral order of society—and hence its solidarity [i.e., togetherness]—rests entirely upon its sanctioning [punishment of offenders] in social convention” (Karp 2000: 311). Devoting court time to a murder case says to the community, “This victim was important! The defendant’s behavior was wrong! We will come together to discuss this problem and hold the defendant accountable.” Carly Thompson desperately wanted a trial in her 18-year-old son Allen’s drive-by shooting case. She explained, “Because [without a trial] it’s an undone thing . . . and I feel that if this boy [the defendant] is not punished, then he cannot change, and if he cannot change his ways, then, my son’s death had no purpose” (V19). Carly wanted Allen’s death to have meaning, and a trial would usher in that meaning (for an alternative view, see Victim Account 6.4). Quinney (1972: 315) has said that murder trials embody the most dramatic and solemn of public forums for the “rhetoric of victimization” to

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unfold. This rhetoric can serve as a type of courtroom eulogy, conveying the importance of the victim’s life and expressing outrage over the tragic death (see Holstein and Miller 1990). The rhetoric and the courtroom ritual where it unfolds carry a ceremonial weight not felt in negotiated pleas, which typically happen behind closed doors, involve little conflict or tension, and elicit almost no media interest. Without a publicly held trial, the community may never hear the details of the horrific murder of the deceased and the devastating loss of the family. The trial remains one of the few venues for that rhetoric to be shared, and survivors insisted that the deceased deserved that public sharing of the victimization. Several criminal justice workers recognized survivors’ desire for a trial in the case. A prosecutor with more than 30 years of experience explained:

[Families] feel like because of their relationship to the victim that they feel like they need to . . . [have a trial] for the victim. This is what the victim would want me to do. The victim would want me to fight, and a trial is a fight. That’s what it is. You can call it all the legalese you want to, [but] it’s a fight, and . . . I can’t fight this defendant the way he fought my relative. The only way I can fight him is in the courtroom. (CJ04)

A counselor shared, “[Victims] don’t heal because of the trial. It’s just one little rung in the ladder [they] climb toward healing” (CJ06). During the course of a trial, attorneys and witnesses construct the victim identity through testimony, evidence, and arguments; through deliberations and a verdict, jurors interpret those constructions (Holstein and Miller 1990). As a result, victims and perpetrators are simultaneously established through courtroom proceedings (Holstein and Miller 1990). “The DA portray[s] the defendant as the cause of the trouble and fully culpable for it. [The victim] cannot exist without the [defendant]. The dramatization of innocence and evil [is] simultaneously accomplished [through the murder trial]” (Holstein and Miller 1990: 110). Katrina Danza, the mother of 27-year-old Brian, said one of the defendants and his family behaved inappropriately during one of the murder trials in her son’s case. She said, “The first time they brought [the defendant] out [to the courtroom], he came out with this big smile [on his face] . . . like he was on Candid Camera or something. [He had] no remorse, whatsoever. None. And that’s the way he was during his whole trial.”

She continued:

[The defendant’s family] wouldn’t come out and call us names, but you could hear them. . . . If I passed by to go to the bathroom, they’d say,

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“That damn bitch!”. . . [Then,] when Brian’s girlfriend [gave a victim impact statement] . . . she was looking at [the defendant and said,] “My kids now don’t have a father.” When she got down [from the stand], [the defendant’s] girlfriend stood up and said, “You bitch! What about my baby?” (V14)

The profane behavior of the defendant and his family in the courtroom provided a striking contrast to the sacred innocence of the murder victim, and the contrast—put on display during trial—honored the deceased. Thus, a trial can represent a status degradation ceremony for defendants and a status “elevation ceremony” for victims (Rouse 1996). Elevation ceremonies say, “this individual is no longer as he or she appeared but is from now on regarded as, and in essence of, a higher status” (Rouse 1996: 35, emphasis added). Rynearson (2001) has said the victim’s ghost “haunts” surviving family members because the soul of the deceased cannot rest until his or her honor has been restored; following a murder, the deceased’s honor is diminished not because of the actual death but because of the violence of the death. The public nature of a trial provides a platform for restoring the murder victim’s honor. Several homicide survivors wanted others to know that having a trial was not about revenge (V18). Instead, the trial was about recognition of the deceased.

Not Feeling the Impact of a Victim Statement

Victim impact statements represent one of the more powerful ways survivors can participate in the criminal justice process (Erez 1999, 2000; Erez and Roberts 2007). The statement, which is delivered during the sentencing phase of a trial (after the defendant has been found guilty or has agreed to a negotiated plea), allows victims to explain to the court the effect of the crime on their life. Sixteen of the 32 survivors participating in this study saw their loved one’s case resolved through a trial or a negotiated plea, and 13 of those cases resulted in a guilty verdict and led to a sentencing phase (two trials ended with a not-guilty verdict and one ended with a hung jury). Of the 13 survivors who saw a defendant sentenced, only 1 described delivering a victim impact statement to the court. Zoe Nunoz, the mother of 25-year-old Kelson, said:

They were going to allow me to get up and make a [victim impact] statement, but it was never in enough time. . . . I’d be at work and they’d call and they’d say, “Oh, they plea-bargained [the defendant]. They’re getting ready to sentence him.” I asked, “What do you mean sentence him? You can’t sentence him! You told me I could [give a victim impact statement]!”

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The counselor in the prosecutor’s office explained that if she wanted to give a victim impact statement, she should come to the courthouse immediately. Zoe continued, “They gave me 30 minutes [to get to the courthouse to give my victim impact statement]. . . . The minute I walked in [to the courtroom], I had to get up there [to the podium and] say what I had to say and then was walked out. . . . It just didn’t feel right” (V12). Previous research has produced inconsistent evidence on victims’ experiences with impact statements. Alexander and Lord (1994) found that victims who gave an impact statement reported greater satisfaction with prosecutors than victims who did not, but Davis and Smith (1994) found no increase in victims’ satisfaction with the courts following an impact statement. Zoe’s experience sheds some light on the reasons for the inconsistencies—preparation and solemnity. It may be that survivors who are given advance notice of the opportunity for and timing of the victim impact statement feel more prepared for and assured about its value. Survivors may feel disappointed with the impact of their statement if the courtroom environment does not foster a respectful or solemn platform for their declaration or if they are not given advance warning of the date for their statement.

Victim Account 6.4 Three Survivors Did Not Want a Murder Trial Vicky Kestler (V05), Karen Noland (V08), and Steven Erikson (V30)

It is important to note that not all homicide survivors participating in this study wanted a trial. In fact, three requested a negotiated plea for the defendant—to get the case behind them and move on with their lives. Karen Noland, who witnessed her 17-year-old son Mark’s stabbing death, explained, “You never get over [seeing your son murdered]. . . . I will never get over that look [on his face]. I mean, he [was] on all fours, right there in front of me, he was looking at me saying, ‘Mom, I don’t want to die.’” Karen did not want to relive the horror of Mark’s death in a murder trial. She said, “We got [the case] over with [through a plea bargain], and it was done and I didn’t have to make anybody else relive it. ’Cause I relive it in my mind every day of my life. . . . [My priority was] getting [me and my daughter] Kate back to her life.” Similarly, Steven and Mary Erikson did not continued

146 feel the need for a trial in the murder of their 23-year-old son Ben. Ben was shot and killed by his roommate while messing around with his gun; while detectives initially pursued the case as a homicide, the prosecutor questioned the roommate’s intent and asked Steven and Mary what they wanted. Steven explained:

The [prosecutor] talked to us first about how we thought the case should be pursued. . . . [They asked,] “What do you think we should charge?” And we said, “No, we don’t feel the boy going to jail is going to [help anything]. It won’t bring Ben back and we don’t think it is justified.” We think it’s a terrible, tragic accident. It shouldn’t have happened, but it did and so, that’s what we told them, that “No, we did not want them to pursue a heavier charge.” Steven elaborated:

We just felt grief for our boy that was gone but we didn’t feel it would make the world a better place to lock [Todd] up and throw away the key. His sentence . . . is knowing what he did and having to live with that, and he’ll never get over that. . . . So, when they asked us [what we wanted to happen with the case], we said, “No, we do not feel that putting Todd in jail [will] make this world a better place.” . . . In the end, they gave him (I think) three months [for a sentence], much of which was already served because he was under suicide watch in jail initially.

When the context surrounding the homicide is considered, two factors explain why some survivors wanted a trial and others did not. First, the survivors who did not want a trial already knew what had happened and why, because they had witnessed the murder or learned details about it. Karen witnessed Mark’s murder, and Steven asked the responding police officer to tell him everything he knew about Ben’s death. Steven recalled, “And it was gory in that she said Ben was laying there and his feet were shaking and everything. I mean through a head injury, you can understand.” The second reason survivors did not demand a trial related to their closeness to the deceased. Vicky Kestler did not request a trial in her father’s murder, because she had not been very close to him. In other cases, when the reasons for the homicide, the innocence of the victim, or the culpability of the perpetrator remained uncertain, survivors wanted a trial to make sense of their victimization.

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Conclusion Up until now, victims’ trial experiences have remained largely unexamined. Despite the visibility of victims in the courtroom—sitting in the galley during court hearings and trials and giving impact statements during sentencing—we know little about what these court proceedings mean to victims. The two quotes featured at the start of this chapter— from a bereft mother and a seasoned prosecutor—indicate that a trial represents more than an opportunity for justice. For survivors, a trial (not a negotiated plea) represents an opportunity for a public airing— on how the deceased was murdered, on what the deceased did leading up to the murder, and on why the defendant killed their loved one. Survivor and criminal justice worker participants’ responses suggest that survivors believed a trial would help them recover from the crime. The prosecutor said that families think “that a trial is . . . going to fix them, and it doesn’t fix them.” When she reflected on why a trial, in particular, meant so much to her, Fannie Quintanilla talked about her efforts as a single mom to raise her son, Terrill. “Look, it took all these years for me to raise him and nobody can understand how close we were. They see it, but nobody feels it the way I do. I know if anything happened to me, he wasn’t going to let whoever murdered me just slip through his fingers” (V27). A plea agreement would have meant the case had slipped through her fingers. Survivors assumed the court’s work on the case would bring sense-making information, a solemn legal ritual, and a sense of relief. Families had difficulty imagining that the trial could make them feel worse about their loss. In A Grief Like No Other: Surviving the Violent Death of Someone You Love, Kathleen O’Hara (2006: 123) warned other survivors, “A trial involving a loved one will be one of the most awful experiences you will ever endure. You are made to relive everything, hear details you never knew, and place the entire process in the hands of the justice system.” For many survivors, the information learned at trial brought gruesome details of suffering, graphic images from autopsy results, and aggravating claims of the defendant’s implausible self-defense. Those details intruded on the happier memories of their sweet and mischievous child, loving and kind father, and devoted and adoring sister. O’Hara (2006) described the trials in her son’s murder case as the most “awful experiences” of her life. Bucholz (2002) says all court proceedings in murder cases— not just the trial—prove difficult. Almost 40 years ago, Sales, Baum, and Shore (1984) warned that rape victims needed support during the trial and after to help with the post-trial letdown.

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Learning of a loved one’s traumatic death and hearing the defendant’s mistruths about the circumstances produced additional trauma (Bucholz 2002; O’Hara 2006; Orth 2002; Spungen 1998) and in some cases, a “secondary victimization.” A secondary victimization is a “prolonged and compounded consequence of certain crimes [resulting] from negative, judgmental attitudes directed toward the victim, [which results] in a lack of support, perhaps even condemnation and/or alienation of the victim” (Williams 1984: 67, cited in Campbell and Raja 1999: 262). One judge explained, “The criminal justice system is . . . designed to hold people accountable for their conduct. It is defendantoriented. A lot of people think of it in terms of protection of the rights and . . . well, yes, we do [protect rights], but . . . [the system] has never been [designed] to heal the victim” (CJ08). Survivors’ accounts reveal that the system may unwittingly perpetuate the myth that a trial can and will provide the answers that will facilitate recovery due to two factors: the intense secrecy surrounding the law enforcement investigation and the long wait for a trial in the case. Of course, none of the current victims’ rights in the state of study (or elsewhere) guarantee victims the right to a trial in their loved one’s murder case. The underlying message in these accounts signals the belief that the trial represents a status recognition ceremony (not a status restoration ceremony). The glimmers of hope that I heard in participants’ voices when I asked about a trial in their loved one’s murder case temporarily replaced their heartache and anger. While participants mentioned a desire for “justice,” their stories capture a deeper interest in the public ritual a trial represented. A trial provides victims with an opportunity for an “elevated moral status” (Charmaz 2006: 73). Survivors wanted the Union County criminal justice system to devote court time, a prosecutor, court personnel, and a panel of jurors to the memory of their sister, brother, daughter, son, mother, or father. Survivors wanted a trial.

Note

1. A trial was possible in 27 of the 32 homicide survivors’ loved ones’ cases because the suspect was alive. In five cases, the defendant died with the victim in a murder-suicide, making prosecution impossible. In 3 of the 27 cases where a trial was possible (11 percent), the survivor declined to pursue or request a trial in their loved one’s murder case.

7 Searching for Meaning

[You take care] of your children. . . . [This murder case is] the last thing that I can do [for my son]. —Carly Thompson, mother of 18-year-old homicide victim (V19)

“Forty-six months and three days” before we sat down for an interview, Norman and Maryanne Howard’s beautiful 32-year-old daughter, Amy, an aspiring model, was found stabbed to death in the kitchen of her Los Angeles condo.1 Although detectives had pursued numerous leads and identified several persons of interest—including Amy’s on-again, off-again boyfriend—the case had remained unsolved. The lack of progress in the investigation troubled them, and Norman, a retired army colonel, believed it had complicated his recovery. He explained, “I just want to know who did it and why. . . . If we could have a trial, I think maybe I could move on” (Pretest A). The system’s work (or lack thereof) on the case haunted him, and it held his and Maryanne’s grief hostage, occupying their minds with the whys and hows about the murder, instead of with their sadness over their loss. Their grief had become entangled with the investigation; Norman believed that if he could sort out one part of that entanglement—the murder case—he could begin to recover from the other part—the loss. So the Howards did everything they could to help detectives with the case. In fact, every May on the anniversary of Amy’s death, they 149

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returned to Los Angeles to reignite interest in her case, talk with reporters, and meet with detectives. They felt they owed it to Amy. * * *

We often assume that we know what things will mean to us and others, before we even experience the thing or ask about its meaning, whether it is a new job (e.g., relief, joy), a new child (e.g., happiness, exhaustion), or a marriage (e.g., partnership, romance, commitment). Criminal cases are no different. For years, we thought we knew what a criminal case in general and a murder case in particular meant to crime victims. Popular accounts suggest that a murder case is about justice, revenge, and closure, but we have never really asked victims what it means. This chapter explores the meaning of the murder case to the families of the deceased, as well as families’ expectations for the case, the system, and themselves. The findings indicate that the murder case represented more than we might have imagined. As expected, the case provides an opportunity for justice for the victim and accountability for the offender, but more important, survivors’ accounts indicate that the murder case represented both something “to do” for the deceased and the importance of the deceased’s life. Survivors remained adamantly opposed to the idea that the case could bring them “closure,” and simultaneously sought a resolution. I describe the meaning of a murder case and the apparent contradiction in survivors’ desire for an ending to the case and their concurrent dislike of the term closure.

The Meaning of a Murder Case Something to Do for the Deceased

Survivors said their loved one’s murder case represented something they—not the criminal justice system—could do for the deceased. They talked about the murder case as though it were a project to complete, a duty to fulfill, and an obligation to meet, and some participants likened it to a doctor’s appointment or a job. The case was their responsibility, and many survivors poured their hearts, souls, and money into the case. They called detectives and prosecutors each week to ask for updates on the investigation, provide suggestions on leads, and encourage detectives to consider alternative hypotheses for the murder. Survivors also

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hired private detectives and sought media coverage to foster interest in the case and the deceased (see Victim Account 7.1). Maryanne Howard explained, “Nothing will bring [my daughter] Amy back. So, my job right now is to find her murderer and see that we have justice for her. That’s what I concentrate on” (Pretest B). Amy’s murder case was Maryanne’s job, the last job Maryanne could do for Amy, and for four years, she had expended a large amount of time, money, and energy doing that job. When the murder investigation stalled after a year, Maryanne and her husband Norman hired an “animal communicator” to see if Amy’s dog, Sunshine, who was present at the time of her murder, held any answers to the questions about Amy’s death. Maryanne said: We were so desperate. . . . We took [Sunshine] to an animal communicator at the SPCA. They had a girl there [who said] she communicated with animals. . . . The woman told me that “Sunshine . . . was out doing her rounds [in the yard when Amy was murdered and] that someone had left the gate open, and . . . she felt something was wrong. And [when] she came back [to the house], it was too late.” (Pretest B)

In addition to their work with the animal communicator, Norman called detectives every 7 to 10 days to ask for an update. He sent them newspaper clippings about cold case homicide units formed in other jurisdictions, as if to say, “Can you do this in Amy’s case?” Norman and Maryanne did everything they could, but the case continued to remain unsolved. Carly Thompson viewed her son Allen’s unsolved murder case as something she could do for him. In the three years since his death, Carly had petitioned the local Crime Stoppers show to feature the drive-by shooting that led to her son’s death, and she convinced the producer of America’s Most Wanted to cover her son’s case in an episode. She explained, “[The case is important to me] because it’s an undone thing. . . . I mean, if [Allen] had a dentist appointment or he had some homework to do [I would have handled it]. . . . [It’s this] undone thing. It’s the last thing that I can do for him” (V19). Although investigators had identified and charged a suspect in Allen’s case, they had been unable to locate and arrest him, believing he had gone to Mexico. The case represented an “undone thing” for Carly, and she was determined to finish it. A closer examination of these accounts reveals two noteworthy assumptions. First, survivors felt a strong sense of ownership over their loved one’s murder cases. They genuinely believed they could make a

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difference in the outcome. These accounts suggest that feeling devoted to and emotionally invested in the investigation may have given victims a sense of purpose, and this purpose may have helped them cope with their loss (see Pearlin 1989). The overarching sense is that survivors were too late to save their loved one from a violent death, but they were not too late to solve the murder. Sociologist Carol Heimer (2001) has argued that individuals (e.g., survivors, patients) frequently approach the same object or situation differently than do organization professionals (e.g., detectives, prosecutors, doctors). Using the example of neonatal intensive care units (NICUs), Heimer (2001) notes how parents treat their critically ill newborns as precious little fighters with unique personalities and a loving family, while medical providers treat infants as patients with symptoms, medical records, and treatment protocols. Parents felt deeply connected to and invested in their child’s progress, but medical providers learned to emotionally distance themselves from their fragile patients (Heimer 2001). The varying levels of investment across people and practitioners can create misunderstandings and heartache. Heimer (2001: 73) has argued that to bridge that gap, “[the] two systems of understanding [will need to] confront one another.” Confrontation over a murder case, however, proves challenging. Criminal justice professionals hold brief responsibility for cases (e.g., six months, one year, two years), whereas survivors feel a long-term commitment to their deceased loved one. In the NICU, parents wanted providers to treat their children as special little humans, and they shared their feelings and raised concerns to encourage nurses and physicians to emotionally bond with their children (Heimer 2001). Similarly, families of murder victims wanted detectives and prosecutors to feel emotionally invested in their loved one’s case. Survivors shared family photographs, home movies, and life stories of the deceased with detectives, prosecutors, and counselors. They wanted detectives and particularly prosecutors to feel personally invested in the case’s outcome (Goodrum 2007, 2013; Stretesky et al. 2016). The second assumption underlying these “something to do” accounts was the view that a good mother or father (or spouse or child) does not give up on solving their loved one’s murder case. The commitment to the deceased does not end with their death. As the parent, spouse, or child of the deceased, survivors continued to act on behalf of the murdered loved one—as a voice and an advocate. In many ways, this role allowed them to continue their relationship with the deceased. Norman said, “If we could arrest somebody, then I could say, ‘Amy, I’ve done what I can. We did it!’” (Pretest A). Norman wanted to tell Amy, “We did it,” not that detectives, prosecutors, or the system did it, but that

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“we” and he did it. Embedded in the desire to tell his daughter that he had solved her murder was an opportunity to communicate with her. By calling detectives and asking for updates, survivors continued their role as the deceased’s father, mother, spouse, or child, and they “reported” those updates to the deceased. In “doing things” on the case, survivors continued to fulfill the moral obligation of their role. Sadly, however, survivors’ ability to “do something” on the murder case proved quite limited. As discussed in the chapters on survivors’ encounters with detectives and prosecutors, the criminal justice system severely restricts survivors’ involvement in murder cases. As a result, aside from being a vocal advocate for the deceased, survivors had little control over the investigation and prosecution. Although the interest in and devotion to the case provided survivors with some comfort (e.g., “I’m fighting for you, Amy!”) and perhaps a sense of control, the system held the reins at every stage of the process—leaving them in a frustrating position of powerlessness and putting them on an emotional roller coaster (Englebrecht, Mason, and Adams 2014). The closed nature of the criminal justice system may make survivors even more determined to work on the case and finish the “job.” When Norman was asked how he felt when he learned that Amy’s case had been reassigned to a newly formed cold case unit (after remaining unsolved for four years), he admitted, “I did a dance with joy. I was elated, just elated. We’ve worked so hard [to get to this point].” Again, Norman took responsibility for his family’s work on the case, and he felt excited about the progress, but then he hedged. “And then in the next breath, I said [to myself], ‘Norm, don’t get your hopes up.’ I’ve been let down so much over the past 46 months, and I was grasping at straws. . . . I’d get sky high and then, ‘Spttt! Nothing!’ . . . Nothing would pan out” (Pretest A). The emotional ups and downs that came with the progress and delays in the case were a constant and debilitating reminder that Norman’s desire to do something for Amy remained limited. Families’ hearts soared with each new development and dropped with each unanswered phone call, making the “something to do” something they couldn’t fix. Katherine Talbert’s 42-year-old sister, Kelly, was killed by her husband in a murder-suicide after experiencing years of abuse. Kelly left behind three young children, who witnessed the deaths. Katherine served as the executor of Kelly’s estate; she said:

After all [was] said and done, I couldn’t do anything more for my dead sister; so, the best I could do was take care of the estate and try to get some money out of it for [her three kids]. . . . But because of the [probate] court system, I haven’t been able to do that [for two years]. . . .

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So, there’s a sense of just not completing something. . . . [I feel] a little bit [of a] sense of failure. (V06)

Katherine could not save Kelly, but she could handle her sister’s estate (or so she thought). But after more than two years, the case continued to drag on in probate court because of Kelly’s in-laws’ delays. When other strategies to do something failed, survivors began to imagine what actions they might take to trigger more movement in the case. Andrea Castaneda, the mother of 18-year-old Damon, whose case had remained unsolved for two years, explained, “My number one [priority] is getting the detective off his butt [laughs] to start working on my son’s case more actively. . . . [Maybe I will] call him stupid for not solving the case to make him mad and to get him to act!” (V07). Visiting the detective’s office after he failed to return her many voicemail messages gave Andrea “something to do,” and doing something made her feel better. She said, “When I went [to the detective’s office], it gave me more strength [and] made me feel a little less helpless [about] what I could do. . . . I told the detective, ‘I don’t want to wait. I’m getting very impatient—just waiting!’” (V07). Survivors felt an unwavering commitment to do something (see Heimer 2001). Prior research has indicated that victims want involvement in the system handling the criminal case, but these participants’ experiences indicated that involvement does not fully encapsulate victims’ needs. What victims want is action. They don’t want to wait. They want work. They want to know that detectives and prosecutors care about the case and their loved one. They want detectives and prosecutors to say, “Here’s what we have done in the case. Here’s what we are still trying to accomplish. Here’s what is holding up progress.”

Victim Account 7.1 Waiting for a Resolution and Wishing He Had Done More One Friday evening, Xavier Nettles and his wife, Beverly, were sitting on the couch watching TV when they heard ambulance and police sirens near their home. At the time, they thought, “It sounds like a horrible car accident must have happened.” But less than an hour later, Xavier Nettles (V23)

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155 a friend called to say their 21-year-old son, Kennedy, had been shot in a drive-by shooting and was being taken to the hospital. When Xavier and Beverly arrived at the hospital, medical personnel could not locate Kennedy and had not heard about the drive-by shooting, causing confusion. Xavier explained:

We were trying to find out anything we could about [Kennedy] and . . . one of the nurses came out and said that my son wasn’t there [and] maybe they had taken him someplace else. . . . Finally, one of the nurses and [police] officers came out and informed us that my son had been shot and that he was still at the scene and that he did not make it. From there, my wife and I headed to the scene and when we got there, [his] car was still there, but my son wasn’t there and [one of the officers told us that they] had carried his body to the city morgue. Feeling exhausted from the confusion at the hospital and the devastating news of their son’s death, Xavier took Beverly home so that she could contact their daughter and Beverly’s elderly mother. After dropping off Beverly, Xavier called his friend Edward and asked him to go with him to the medical examiner’s office. Xavier wanted the medical examiner to know that Kennedy had needle marks on his arms and legs due to insulin shots for diabetes, not illicit drug use. He explained:

Unfortunately, young black kids [like my son] are perceived to be into drugs a lot. My son was a diabetic; he took insulin twice a day. So I decided to go over to the morgue [with my friend]. . . . I didn’t see the body, but I talked to the medical examiner and let him know that he probably would see needle marks on his arm or leg because he was a diabetic . . . and [I] asked him to put it in the file.

A few days later, Xavier visited the police impound to view his son’s car, and he saw how detectives had torn apart the car—ripping up the upholstery, removing the seats, and cutting into the door panels and dashboard. Xavier believed they were looking for illegal drugs, and it pained him to think that detectives assumed his African American son was a drug dealer. He said, “I don’t really feel that [the detective in charge] did the best he could’ve in investigating. . . . I think had they worked as hard [in] trying to find and interview people as they

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did [in] tearing the car apart, looking for drugs, they might’ve done a little bit more [to solve the case].” Based on my interviews with detectives interviewed for the project, Xavier may have misinterpreted the meaning of the car’s condition. Detectives probably tore the car apart looking for bullet shell casings. Unfortunately, they never explained the reason for their work on the car to Xavier. They never gave Xavier and Beverly an update on the case. For five years, Xavier and Beverly waited for an update on the investigation and for justice for Kennedy. In looking back, Xavier has two regrets. First, he regretted that he didn’t hire a private detective. He explained, “It’s very tough [to have the case unsolved]. . . . I think about my son every day. . . . One of the things I regret is that I probably should have hired a detective. . . . Maybe nothing would’ve happened, but I would feel a lot better had I done that.” Second, detectives’ characterization of the case as drug-related haunted Xavier. While his stoic demeanor conveyed a quiet confidence, the heartache in his eyes and the quiver in his voice betrayed his misgivings. He frequently wondered what he could have done differently. Xavier said, “There are times when I sit down and I reflect on [my son’s murder] and it would mean a lot to me to know [who did it]. To have it solved, because I personally feel that it was somebody that knew him and not just somebody that drove by and [shot him in] a random drive-by shooting.” Instead, Xavier and Beverly waited for answers and a resolution that seemed increasingly unlikely as the days, weeks, months, and years since Kennedy’s murder passed.

Sometimes, “something to do” meant organizing a large group of family and friends to attend meetings with the prosecutor. Rachel Donado believed the prosecutor in her daughter’s murder case began taking the case more seriously when her son and daughter-in-law started accompanying her to their meetings. She said:

The victims’ assistance [counselors] told us that the most successful cases—[where] the entire criminal justice system stays on top of it—are the ones where the family gets involved. . . . The more people, the more family, the better [response you’ll get] . . . and I believe that’s true because [in my] first [and second] meeting with the DA, my sister [went with me], but in the third meeting [my son] Efram and his wife and baby [went with me], and I could detect a huge change in their attitude. The more people, the more success. (V20)

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Carol Heimer (2001) notes how organizations assign numbers to cases and professionals streamline work to manage heavy caseloads. Families, on the other hand, personally invest themselves in the task and outcomes. For survivors, their commitment to the deceased did not die with the victim. In A Grief Like No Other, Katherine O’Hara (2006: 125) quoted Ken, the brother of a murder victim, who said, “We are always looking for Rowan. I dream of finding her again, and then I wake up and nothing has changed. Sometimes I think she might still be alive. This will never be closed for me; I’ll always be looking.” But “always looking” for a missing person presumed dead and always searching for answers to a murder creates a desperate longing and an emptiness that weighs on survivors. The mission has not been accomplished. The “something to do” had not yet been done. Symbolizing the Value of the Deceased’s Life

The second reason the murder case remained important related to the belief that the system’s work conveyed a message about the deceased’s value. As an institutionalized response to a legal injustice, survivors believed that the swiftness and intensity of the criminal justice system’s response broadcast a message about the victim’s worthiness in society, the survivor’s influence in the community, and society’s concern over the death. Wanda Diaz, whose 20-year-old son Dominique was killed in a drive-by shooting, explained, “[The case is important to me] because my son meant something to me and because it kinda gives you relief [to have the case resolved], even though you don’t want to see the [defendant] die” (V15). Dominique meant something to Wanda, and she wanted him to mean something to detectives, prosecutors, and the system. The system’s work symbolized the community’s sympathy for the tragic loss. Sociologist Candace Clark (1987) has noted that people expect sympathy in times of need. Clark (1987) also notes that some people receive more sympathy than others, due to observers’ perceptions of the victim’s worthiness, culpability, and need. A person’s “sympathy biography” (i.e., track record for giving and receiving sympathy) and demographic characteristics (e.g., age, gender, race/ethnicity) can influence others’ willingness to offer sympathy. Children and innocent victims tend to receive more sympathy than do adults and culpable victims (Clark 1987). Stigmatized deaths, such as murder and suicide, may garner less sympathy because of potential supporters’ discomfort with the manner of death or their lack of experience in supporting those with a sudden or violent loss. Like a sympathetic gesture to a grieving family member (e.g., flowers, card, funeral attendance), the criminal justice system’s response (or

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lack of one) to a murder case says something about the victim’s “sympathy worthiness.” For survivors, many detectives, a long and intensive search effort, a lot of evidence collected, many witnesses interviewed, and the quality and experience of the prosecutor all revealed something about the importance of the case and the victim. In other words, the system’s work could either say, “This victim was important. We’ve put our best people on it. We will work night and day until we solve it.” Or it could say, “This victim was not that important. We can’t put a lot of investigators on the case right now. This murder is not particularly alarming considering the risks the victim took. This case is not our priority.” Karen Noland, the mother of 17-year-old Mark, witnessed her son’s stabbing death and appreciated the intensity of detectives’ work on the case. “Those policemen sealed off this whole neighborhood. They didn’t sleep. They didn’t do anything. They caught him about four o’clock the next morning. They caught him within 24 hours” (V08). Similarly, when detectives reopened his daughter’s unsolved murder case after four years, Norman felt ecstatic; the system was finally paying attention, and it meant the world to him. He said:

After [I had made] three or four phone calls, the [chief of police] accepted Amy’s case [into the cold case unit] and they’re working on it now. There are 11 people, counting Detective Russell, who’ve been detailed full-time for the first 30–45 days. . . . There are people from the Attorney General’s Office for the state, the investigative services, police department, forensics people, DNA people. (Pretest A)

For Norman, the upgrading of the case to the cold case unit, along with the large number of people working on the case, signaled a significant investment. He continued, “So, as far as we’re concerned that’s a big development. There are actually homicide experts working actively every day now on Amy’s case. So, we just, every day, we just stand by and hope” (Pretest A). Reopening a cold case told survivors that their loved one mattered to law enforcement. When survivors saw detectives and prosecutors acting with urgency toward the case, they felt reassured and even validated. Survivors wanted recognition from the system, not in the “I’m famous, pay attention to me” kind of way but in the “Your loved one’s life mattered” and “I’m so sorry for your loss” kind of way. The intensity and swiftness of the system’s work sent a positive message about the deceased’s value, whereas a lackluster interest and delays in the case conveyed a negative message (Englebrecht, Mason, and Adams 2014). Three victim participants explained:

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It’s been almost three years [since my son’s murder with no arrest], and that’s where I think they messed up. Because I’m nobody to them. I don’t have a lot of money. My son wasn’t a football star. He wasn’t. He was just an average student. . . . I think that if he was [a football star or] if it was a more high-profile case, they would have worked more on it. I think they would have done more pushing. . . . I cannot believe a kid [who has killed someone] can disappear like that [for three years]. I mean, how can they completely disappear? (V19, Carly Thompson) It seems like they could have done something more, but it’s just certain people, I guess, it’s just certain people in the world, if you’ve got money and power, it seems like you get the right justice. If you don’t have no money, you get nothing. It’s like you’re in a whole category by yourself, and it don’t seem that way, but it really is like that. (V17, Deidra Fiero)

[My brother had] immigrated [here from Mexico and] didn’t have papers, and this meant that he was a very low [person]. Many people who do have [citizenship] papers [get] a better process than the one that we have. [Do you] understand? [But my brother] didn’t have any papers; he was illegally in the US (V31, Carmela Esparza)

Survivors wanted detectives, prosecutors, judges, and counselors to know that the deceased mattered. They wanted the system (and the community) to know that their son, daughter, or father was special (see Victim Account 7.2). Sadly, the circumstances of the murder (e.g., innocence, culpability) and the victim’s characteristics (e.g., age, gender, socioeconomic status) appeared to influence the system’s investment in the case. A detective explained, “We don’t always have what I would call ‘great’ victims” (CJ16). Moreover, negative perceptions of the deceased’s worthiness frustrated victims. Wendy Lawrence felt the jury diminished her father’s value due to his elderly age (77 years) and death from a heart attack, which was precipitated by the defendant’s home invasion burglary. She recalled, “When they said [the sentence for the defendant would only be two years] I just couldn’t believe [how lenient it was]” (V03). Indeed, just like detectives’ work, the severity of the defendant’s punishment signaled something about the value and importance of the deceased. Lauren Spears, the mother of 23-year-old Kevin, explained:

A good sentence [for the defendant] validates that your child’s life was worth something. . . . If you go to court and the guy gets three years,

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[you feel like] “well, my son’s life wasn’t worth anything. [The jury] thinks it’s only worth him serving three years.” To me, if they make him stay in prison his whole life, my son’s life was worth something in their eyes. And for some reason, that’s important. (Pretest D)

Through the punishment, Lauren wanted the system to tell the community and the world that her son’s life meant something. The scales of justice could balance if the defendant’s sentence represented a lengthy one that matched the importance of the life lost. Durkheim’s theory of punishment notes how a criminal offense disrupts the social and moral order and a public sanctioning of the offense restores the moral order.

Victim Account 7.2 Murder Case as Something to Handle One chilly Friday evening in November, Carly Thompson and her 18year-old son, Allen, had planned to clean out their garage, but when Allen called her at 5 p.m. to confirm their plans, Carly said, “I think it’s too cold to work in the garage tonight. Let’s do it in the morning.” Pleased to be off the hook, Allen said he was going to get dinner with two of his high school friends. Carly said, “Sounds good. Have fun. Be sure to be home by midnight.” But Allen never made it home. Shortly after midnight, Carly got a call from the hospital. The nurse said that Allen had been shot and was currently in surgery in critical condition. She asked Carly to get to the hospital as soon as possible. When Carly arrived, she asked the nurse, “What are the odds, what are the chances [that he will make it]?” The nurse said Allen had “no chance” of making it. Carly thought to herself, “No chance? How is that possible? [Why would he be in surgery if he had no chance?] On TV shows, they will [at least] give you a 50-50 chance,” she continued. “[But] she had nothing for me.” As detectives pieced together the details, Carly learned that Allen had been riding in the back seat of his friend’s car with his friend and his friend’s new girlfriend in the front seats. While they ordered food in the drive-through at a local restaurant, a suspect drove past them and fired shots into the car. The friend, who was the intended target, was shot and sustained minor injuries. Allen was shot Carly Thompson (V19)

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161 in the head. Carly recalled, “I walked out of the emergency room [after] saying good-bye to my son, through the double doors, and the coroner was standing there wanting to know what I wanted to do with Allen’s [organs and] body. . . . [Just] six hours earlier I was talking to him on the phone [about cleaning the garage]. . . . To comprehend all that had happened, it was really hard.” When she thinks back on that night, she wishes that she had brought her older daughter and two younger sons with her to the hospital so they could have said good-bye to Allen, but it all happened too fast. In the next few days, detectives quickly zeroed in on the girlfriend’s ex-boyfriend as the suspect in the case, and they explained to Carly that the shooting appeared to be the product of a love quarrel between Allen’s friend and his new girlfriend’s ex. The suspect was quickly indicted, but he fled town and no arrest had been made in more than three years. Carly did everything she could to get a break in the case; she convinced the local Crime Stoppers show to feature it. She gathered hundreds of signatures on a petition to have his case featured on America’s Most Wanted before the second anniversary of Allen’s death. She said her work on the case was as much for her and Allen as it was for the offender. She said:

I feel that if this boy [who killed my son] is not punished, is not caught, then he cannot change. And if he cannot change his ways— and I’m not judging him, but he did do this awful thing—then my son’s death had no purpose. But if my son’s death can save this guy, maybe bring him to religion or to Christ then his life wasn’t a complete waste. Maybe it could change his life and the people around him. That’s why I think it’s important. It’s not so much a revenge thing, but this kid’s going down the wrong road and he could hurt someone else’s family. That’s why I think it’s important.

The case represented a way to save the offender and honor Allen. Carly wanted the case to be done, the offender to change his ways, and her son’s life to have purpose. Because his life was cut short, Allen could no longer contribute to the community and world. He was young at the time of his death. The murder case, however, offered a path for acknowledging Allen’s life. Carly said one part of her felt rage toward the suspect and another part of her wanted to forgive him. Each day, she fought hard to keep forgiveness in the forefront and anger in the background.

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Like the system’s work, local and national news media coverage of the victim’s death and the investigation could reaffirm the value of the deceased’s life. When neither the local newspaper nor the TV stations covered Wendy Lawrence’s father’s death or his murder trial, she grew increasingly upset. The system and local news outlets had inadvertently confirmed her worst fears—no one cared about her father. With anger in her voice, Wendy shared, “None of that [information about my father’s murder] was in the paper and . . . I guess [that’s] because he was old; it just wasn’t newsworthy. I don’t know, but I thought that was terrible” (V03). It was terrible that her father’s advanced age apparently diminished journalists’ concern about and interest in the case. Survivors’ underlying message was, “Dear [Detective/Prosecutor/Reporter], please show me—through your work on this case—that you understand my loved one’s value. Show me that you appreciate the depth of my loss.” For criminal justice professionals and the system, on the other hand, the case meant something else—accountability. State laws typically define homicide as the intentional, reckless, or negligent cause of the death of an individual, and the criminal case represents the legal pathway for addressing that violation. As a society, there is strong consistency in our objection to criminal homicide as the violation of a basic human code—thou shalt not kill. There are major inconsistencies, however, in how we respond to homicide, and survivors noticed this. They noted the inconsistencies in how murder cases were handled by the system and covered by journalists, and these inconsistencies pained survivors.

Disputed Meanings and Case Comparisons

As noted in the chapter on police encounters, the meaning of things, even something as serious as a murder case, is different for different people and can change over time and place, through conversations, and as the result of life experiences (Blumer 1969; Mead 1934). When we learn how others think and feel about situations, objects, and events (e.g., wedding, funeral, new car, divorce, loss), it can change how we think and feel about those things. This knowledge can inform, enlighten, and sometimes infuriate us. Over the course of their meetings with detectives and prosecutors, conversations with friends and family, and observations of other murder cases, survivors learned how others thought and felt about their loved one’s death. Two noteworthy findings emerged in these encounters. First, friends and some relatives assumed the murder case would bring families “closure,” which sur-

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vivors adamantly opposed. Second, other cases featured in the news provided a comparison for survivors—sometimes making them feel better about their situation and sometimes making them feel worse. There Is No Closure

Many well-intentioned people—including family and friends, detectives, and prosecutors—assumed that an ending to the murder case would bring “closure” (i.e., a cathartic ending to a traumatic experience) to survivors’ loss. Legal scholar Susan Bandes (2009: 2) has written, “closure has been enthusiastically embraced not only as a legitimate [but ill-defined] psychological state but as one that the legal system ought to help victims and survivors attain.” In popular culture and criminal justice settings, the term closure typically refers to either: (1) the cathartic release that accompanies a public disclosure about a loss (e.g., victim impact statement), or (2) the emotions (e.g., relief, peace) that follow an anticipated ending (e.g., verdict, sentence, restorative justice meeting) (Bandes 2009). Admittedly, a cathartic or emotional release sounds like a positive experience; it even sounds like a goal to achieve to boost psychological well-being, but survivors despised the term closure. Norman Howard explained: Every now and then even still [almost four years after Amy’s murder, people will ask me] . . . “Do you have closure?” [They think that] if they find the murderer, [I’ll] have closure then. I say, “No, no. I won’t have closure. I’m never gonna have complete closure, no matter what happens [in the case].” . . . As we’ve discussed at length, if they find the murderer, arrest him and try him, that’s great. I’m gonna feel a lot better for that, but [I’m not going to have] closure. . . . The word closure is way overworked. (Pretest A)

What Norman and other survivors wanted potential supporters to know is that there can never be closure following a loss to homicide. The term closure oversimplifies a devastating loss, and it overemphasizes the role of the criminal justice system in the bereavement process. In the context of a murder case, closure implies that the family’s questions have been asked and answered, the book on the case has been opened and closed, and the pursuit of justice has been completed. The idea that the system could “close” any aspect of their grief, however, reduced the tragedy to a bureaucratic hurdle to overcome—as if the defendant’s sentence could absolve their pain. But the criminal case cannot bring the dead back to life, which is “all I want,” one mother explained.

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Survivors resented those who sought to minimize their grief and suffering with a “you just need closure” response. When potential supporters used the word, they revealed their ignorance about the depth of survivors’ pain. The potential supporters who talked about closure also revealed their impatience and perhaps discomfort with the emotionally devastating nature of this kind of loss. O’Hara (2006: 120) explained, “The word closure is one which I and many other survivors detest. There is no ‘closure.’ This grief like no other will be a life-long journey.” Survivors’ frustration with others’ use of this word reveals a previously unexplored sympathy norm surrounding loss and bereavement. This norm says, “How dare you—who have no idea what a loss to murder feels like—suggest that my pain and suffering will lessen because of the criminal justice system’s work on the case!” When writing about the Oklahoma City bombing victims’ search for justice, Jody Madeira (2012: 38) said, “Closure is a process, not a destination, a recursive series of adjustments that involves both intrapersonal and interpersonal communicative aspects.” Sociologists who study emotion management note that the loss of a loved one in all cases (not just murder) represents a social experience (Goodrum 2008). The social aspect of the grief experience means that friends, relatives, and criminal justice workers evaluate and monitor survivors’ emotional responses to see if they are doing “okay” and whether they should offer assistance. “Although traumatic grief is deeply personal, an individual’s loss is also inevitably social, and survivors often contend with varying expectations from family members, community and society at large” (Aldrich and Kallivayalil 2016: 16). The idea that survivors should eventually reach “closure” or an ending to their bereavement brings a moral obligation to the self and others to return to a higher level of functioning. Indeed, Madeira (2012) describes the “moral imperative” attached to closure. Survivors need to achieve closure for the benefit of others, because “we don’t want to see you suffer any longer.” But the pressure from others to “find closure and move on” can drain survivors (Aldrich and Kallivayalil 2016: 16). It represents another obligation to meet. Even the criminal courts have begun to view closure as an important procedural goal in violent criminal cases (e.g., rape, murder). But “popular usage of the word ‘closure’ prevents us from truly engaging with these difficult stories and empathizing with those who tell them and live them” (Madeira 2012: xix). The idea of closure diminishes the devastating and life-altering nature of the loss. One noteworthy paradox emerged in survivors’ comments about closure. Despite their visceral reactions to the term, they frequently

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offered explanations about the murder case that invoked images of what sounded a lot like closure. Survivors described wanting an ending to the case, and they frequently imagined how that ending would make them feel. Norman explained, “It would . . . make me be able to handle what we’ve gone through a lot better, if I knew her perpetrator was behind bars” (Pretest A). Norman believed he would “be able to handle” his loss better if the perpetrator were in prison. While Norman and other survivors denounced the possibility of closure to their loss, their narratives surrounding the meaning of the case revealed that an unresolved murder case kept them in an uncomfortable state of emotional limbo with countless questions about how and why their loved one was killed. An unresolved case left them with unfinished business to complete on behalf of the deceased. Survivors wanted an end to that emotional limbo; they wanted to finish the “something to do.” How do we reconcile the apparent contradiction between survivors’ dislike for the term closure with their strong desire for an ending to the case? A careful examination of these stories revealed two explanations for the closure paradox. First, an ending to the case was important to families of murder victims because they wanted to show the deceased and others that they had handled it. They saw the case through to the end; they got justice for the deceased. Second, and more important, survivors wanted others to make a distinction between a final ending to the criminal justice system’s case and the never-ending nature of their grief. An ending to the case was desirable, but an ending the grief was unrelated, unrealistic, and unimaginable. Survivors resented others’ expectation that when the case ended, they’d be “okay” and “over it.” Survivors wanted to shout, “I’ll never be over it! Don’t expect me to ever be over it!” As survivors and criminal justice workers’ accounts suggest, the closure paradox may confuse potential supporters. Rachel Donado, mother of 24-year-old Erica, explained:

I’ve never asked myself why it’s important to me [to have the case resolved]. And I don’t know if it was so much important to me as everyone expected that it was important to me. You hear people talk about “closure, closure, and closure,” and to me there is no closure. There’s no closure involved in finding Marcus and convicting him and putting his butt in jail. It won’t bring Erica back, and that’s all I want. So, all of the extras [with the murder case], they don’t mean anything because they won’t bring her back. I’ve tried to understand that closure business, [but] the only purpose [of the murder case] to me is to find the perpetrator and prevent him from doing it again. . . . It’s not closure,

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but relief that Marcus is in fact saved from himself. Closure? Huh! [That’s] my take on closure! (V20)

While survivors longed for an ending to the case and to have the offender behind bars, they knew deep down—even before their loved one’s case went to trial—that they would never be the same person they were before the loss. Several criminal justice workers participating in the study recognized the distinction between an ending to the murder investigation and a continuation of the grief. A homicide detective with eight years of experience explained:

When you have a case that’s unsolved it’s really difficult to look at the family. . . . I think they want some—[well] everybody knows they want some closure to the case. . . . I’m sure it doesn’t solve the problem [for them], and I’m sure the loss is just tremendous for them regardless, but . . . most families want to have some kind of a closure to the case. They want an arrest made and somebody prosecuted and tried and . . . when that doesn’t happen, I think it’s really difficult for [us to deal with those] family members. (CJ03)

Herein lies a critical distinction—between the possibility of closure to the case and the impossibility of closure for the grief. Families desperately wanted closure to the case, but they knew they would never feel closure to their loss. Comparing Murder Cases

The meaning of things can also arise from comparisons, and during interviews, survivors frequently compared their loved one’s murder case to other cases featured in the media. Social psychologists note that people often compare themselves to others as a way of providing a frame of reference for their situation and some context for their emotional response (Festinger 1954). These social comparisons provide us with benchmarks for “normal” emotional reactions and typical case procedures. Festinger (1954) identified three types of social comparison: upward, lateral, and downward. In upward comparisons, we reference other people who are doing better than we are. Wellman (2014: 464) explains: Upward comparisons have been shown to allow individuals to develop hope, inspiration, and useful information [and] coping tactics through understanding individuals who are “better off” (Montada,

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Filipp, and Lerner, 2014), but [they] have the potential to be detrimental to those who focus on the negative perspective that they are not performing as well as others (Buunk, Collins, Raylor, VanYperen, and Dakof 1990).

In lateral comparisons, we reference others who are doing similarly well to us. When we use a downward comparison, we reference those who are not doing as well (Festinger 1954). Thinking about someone who is worse off tends to improve one’s outlook. Families of murder victims frequently used upward and downward comparisons to make sense of their loss and think about the status of the murder case (Wellman 2014).

Upward Comparisons: Giving Hope and Bringing Despair. Upward comparisons to other cases in the media remained prevalent among survivors, fueling their hope and frustration about the system’s work. Nadia Becarria, the sister of 31-year-old Trevor, said she watched CourtTV, Dateline, and other crime shows to learn more about the system (see Victim Account 7.3). “These days, I watch a lot of CourtTV and those detective movies, and I see that there is hope [that my brother’s unsolved case may be solved someday]” (V01). Detectives referenced these comparisons and media portrayals as creating unrealistic expectations for families about the usefulness of DNA evidence, the speed of the criminal justice process, and the feeling a resolution to the case would bring them. A detective with eight years of experience explained:

Sometimes family members have an unrealistic expectation about what we can do and what we should be doing [in a murder case]. I think they watch TV a lot, and I will tell you [that] TV has done . . . a disservice [to us because] . . . it’s made it seem as though a lot of things are possible with [the] wave of a wand or just [the] touch of a computer keyboard. It’s not like that. [Solving a murder case is] really difficult. And I think it’s sometimes difficult [to explain to] family members . . . even though [you] saw it on TV [doesn’t mean we can do it]. (CJ03)

With no witnesses to her brother’s murder and a “cold case” designation from detectives, Nadia sometimes lost hope; her upward comparisons to successfully solved murder cases gave her hope, but they also made her angry. She reluctantly admitted, “It’s not fair [to other families], but I guess I tend to resent whenever I see people who are caught [and my brother’s murder case continues to remain unsolved]” (V01).

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Victim Account 7.3 Watching Crime Shows and Holding Out Hope One Thursday afternoon, Nadia Becarria was at home babysitting her neighbor’s children when her older brother, Marcus, burst into her home saying the family had been trying to reach her all morning. Their younger brother, Trevor, had been shot and killed in the alley behind their mother’s house. When Nadia arrived at the house, everyone had already left for the police station to give statements. Five years later, Nadia expressed remorse for letting her family down that day; she should have been there for them during the crisis. According to police, however, the family’s statements and the investigation brought few answers to the many questions about Trevor’s murder, and the lack of answers and progress discouraged Nadia. She said, “What makes it harder still [for me to recover from the loss] is the fact that they haven’t prosecuted anyone. I’m sure they have suspects and I know that they know who did it, but the fact that they don’t have enough evidence [to charge that person] I think is keeping them from [making the arrest].” Nadia believed a prosecution would help her recover, but she hesitated to openly chastise detectives and prosecutors. Instead, she rationalized that the lack of evidence hindered the progress in the case, and she admired their attention to the details. She explained, “I don’t want them to mess up the investigation or anything. [I saw] what happened with the pizza [place murders, which remained unsolved for more than nine years].” Nadia did not want her brother’s case to share the same fate. These comparisons provided a disturbing forewarning of what could go wrong in a murder case if criminal justice workers rushed the investigation or contaminated evidence. By making reference to these cases, survivors felt reassured that “it could be worse” and “my case is not messed up yet, which gives me hope.” Using the pizza place case as a reference point, Nadia held back on criticizing detectives—as if the criticism might jinx the likelihood of progress in Trevor’s case. She said, “I knew that was gonna happen with the pizza place [murders—that it would remain unsolved]. People were saying too much [in the early stages of the investigation]. Everything was in the news. So, I’d rather people not know as much right now about my brother’s case [so his case does not get messed up and remain unsolved]. . . . I’m being patient.” Nadia Becarria (V01)

continued

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Even five years after Trevor’s murder, Nadia held out hope that the case would be solved. Her upward comparisons kept her feeling some optimism. Despite the fact that she never met with police to talk about the case, she believed detectives “were taking their time” to investigate the case in a thorough manner. She had hope.

Although survivors repeatedly dismissed the possibility that the criminal justice system could heal the harm of their loss, homicide survivors’ tales were imbued with “if only” explanations for why their bereavement process seemed to linger. Survivors noted the criminal justice system’s bias toward more horrific murder cases (a downward comparison) or more famous victims (an upward comparison). Using both downward and upward comparisons, Karinna Sheridon explained why her 33-year-old husband’s murder case remained unsolved. She shared:

I read in the paper . . . [and I see that] if it’s not a famous person or a big political case or something so horrific that it draws everybody’s attention, like the pizza place murders . . . [or] that woman [kidnapped] from a car wash [then detectives don’t care]. . . . Those [victims], they get something a little more serious [from the system], but for someone [like] us poor peons . . . it seems like there’s no justice anymore. The justice system just doesn’t [care]; [it] just isn’t working, and so, [when my husband’s case continued to go unsolved,] I finally decided that I was going to have to trust in God’s justice. . . . There [are] no pardons or paroles from God’s justice. God’s justice is final. (V25)

In a study of cold case homicide survivors, Wellman (2014) found that families reported feeling fearful, frustrated, and disheartened by the unsolved status of their loved one’s case. To try to make sense of her husband’s murder, Karinna made an upward comparison to famous and politically connected murder victims and a downward comparison to the disturbing “pizza place murders” (described in more detail below). Both comparisons frustrated her about the system’s lack of interest in and progress on her husband’s case.

Remarkably, quite a few survivors found ways to step back from their own loss to acknowledge that it could have been worse—by comparing their case to an unsolved or missing persons case. Comparisons to Downward Comparisons: Feeling Grateful That It Wasn’t Worse.

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unsolved murders or missing persons cases provided survivors with examples of how their loved one’s murder case could have been worse. Rachel Donado, mother of 24-year-old Erica, said, “I have such tremendous compassion for people whose child is missing [and presumed dead] and they don’t know where that child is” (V20). Rachel’s downward comparison to missing persons cases allowed her to feel grateful that her daughter’s body had been found and her murderer had been caught. Without any prompting, several study participants made downward comparisons to Union County’s “pizza place murders” (a fictionalized name). These murders were a highly publicized triple homicide of three teenagers, and the case had remained unsolved for almost 10 years at the time of the interviews. Melissa Merton, the mother of 23year-old Bonnie, who was killed in a murder-suicide, made a comparison to the pizza place murders: I feel like we were so much luckier than the pizza place parents. We got an end. I mean, we know who did it [my daughter’s ex-boyfriend]. We know he’s dead . . . we got it closed. The [pizza place case] is still open, and now it looks like they’re not going to charge these boys because of inept police work in the beginning. . . . They haven’t even told the parents [about all of the details of the murders]. [One parent] found out [about her child’s manner of death] at the hearing and that would have been awful [to hear about it that way]. (V22)

Melissa said, “we were so much luckier than the pizza place parents.” This reference to parents who were worse off than her allowed her to feel grateful that her daughter’s case “got an end.” To feel relieved and grateful to have an end to the case—compared with the alternative— represented one of the more surprising findings about survivors’ search for meaning. Janice Edwards’s 17-year-old daughter Erin was one of the victims in the pizza place murders, and she knew the horror of the case firsthand. She explained, “Two of the [victims] were almost certainly raped. . . . [What is most upsetting is that] the killings didn’t start just in a bullet gone astray, or a physical fight gone astray [like in other less upsetting murder cases]. It’s even more horrible than that. It makes no sense. It makes absolutely no sense” (Pretest C). After experiencing a loss that decimated survivors’ hope for the future, their downward comparisons to other, more horrific homicide cases restored some of their lost hope; it brought the opportunity to feel grateful in an otherwise desperately sad situation.

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Surprisingly, the evidence suggests that homicide survivors whose loved ones were killed in a murder-suicide had lower levels of depression than any other homicide survivor group (e.g., unsolved—suspect(s) not identified or charged; solved-unresolved—defendant charged but awaiting arrest or trial; resolved—defendant charged and case ended with negotiated plea, guilty verdict, or not-guilty verdict). Oddly, murder-suicides fostered less depression among survivors. There are two possible reasons these cases produced fewer depressive symptoms. First, murder-suicides often occur following a history of intimate partner violence or stalking, and this history may have given surviving family members some forewarning of trouble. Steve Hernandez worried constantly about his 24-year-old daughter, Nicole, and her two children in the nine months prior to her death because of her ex-husband’s abusive history. In fact, in the month before her death, her ex-husband violated a protective order nine different times and attempted to kill her once. Steve recalled, “From the very beginning [of the abuse I was involved because] I had to take [my daughter] over there [to the police station] to get a protective order. . . . So, the contact before [her death] was constant between me and UPD . . . for four months [because when she left him, she came to live with me]” (V04). In some ways, those instances of abuse provided foreshadowing and warned of the potential danger the offender represented to the murder victim. Because the escalation of concern and threat in intimate partner cases arises over a period of weeks, months, and even years, it may hint of problems to come while still presenting an unfathomable worst-case scenario. The foreshadowing may prove somewhat beneficial to victims’ acknowledgment and acceptance of the news of the death. These survivors had a small warning, similar to how a family history of cancer might provide a patient with a warning about risk. The second reason that murder-suicide survivors may have fared better in their depressive symptoms relates to the shorter length of the criminal justice system’s work on the case. In murder-suicides, the offender is identified almost immediately; as a result, there are no questions about who committed the act, and there is no prolonged search for a suspect. In addition, detectives can share the outcome of the investigation and the reasons for the murder-suicide with survivors, which is not permissible in other homicide cases. The “he was in a jealous rage” explanation can provide an answer for why the deaths happened, which survivors can find meaningful. Third, in a murder-suicide, there are no

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investigation updates to await, no hearings to attend, and no trials to watch. When victims do not have to wait for the system to gather evidence and build a case, they can focus on their grief. They do not get caught in the disappointing game of thinking that the system will provide the answers they need. Vince Norton, whose 74-year-old father killed his mother and then himself after 50 years of marriage, explained, “This was a big shock. . . . [My siblings and I] just [had] lots of questions . . . about why and what, and after a while, you finally get to the answer—there was no answer [laughs]” (V10).

Conclusion

This chapter explored the following research questions: (1) What did the murder case mean to the families of the victims? (2) What do these descriptions reveal about survivors’ expectations for the case, the system, and themselves? Sociologist Herbert Blumer (1969: 2) has said, “Human beings act toward things on the basis of the meaning that the things have for them.” This meaning emerges over time and place and through social encounters, not in social isolation (Blumer 1969). Finding meaning after murder proves difficult for survivors, which makes the investigation and any subsequent prosecution even more significant. For homicide survivors, the murder case represented two main things: something they could do for the deceased and something about the deceased’s value in life. More important, the case did not represent an opportunity for closure. While survivors admitted to longing for a resolution, they adamantly denied that the resolution could bring them closure, feeling anger toward those who suggested it. Riches and Dawson (1998: 144) have said, “Outrage, recurrent intrusive images of the murder and preoccupation with the death may also prevent the growth of longer-term meanings based on the child’s life.” Survivors believed the answers provided by the investigation (which they fought to complete) would help them make sense of their loss and cope with their grief. The hope for a resolution became a strategy for enduring the painful uncertainty of the criminal investigation and the devastating reality of the loss. By concentrating on the case, survivors could avoid thinking about their grief. Case work gave survivors a focus and a fight, and it pushed their grief work to the background. For some survivors, pursuing the murder case may have been better than the alternative, which was surrendering to the deep sadness over the loss.

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Just like the grief response signals to others the meaning of the deceased to the survivor, the system’s investigative response signals to others the meaning of the deceased to the community. When the case did not move swiftly or if it stalled completely, survivors blamed themselves for not doing more—for not making more phone calls, for not hiring a private detective, and for not wielding more political influence. Other researchers have argued that the meaning of the “victim identity” gets created in everyday encounters, media accounts, victim-witness testimony, police investigations, and criminal trials (Dunn 2010; Holstein and Miller 1990; Quinney 1972). In these creations, people try to identify the reasons for the victimization, establish the innocence (or culpability) of the victim, and formulate responses appropriate to the situation (Holstein and Miller 1990). These interactions, and the identity constructions that result, can validate or discredit the victim and others, making the interactions delicate and often difficult. These identity constructions have implications for others’ sympathetic (or unsympathetic) responses, the criminal justice system’s management of the case, and the judge’s or jury’s view of the perpetrator’s and the victim’s innocence or guilt and punishment. Survivors wanted the murder case to reveal that the system noticed them and would tell the world that their loved one mattered.

Note

1. Norman and Maryanne Howard were the first two participants interviewed in the study, and their interviews, along with two others, represented the pretest (or preliminary) interviews for the larger study. Only one of the four pretest participants, Janice Edwards (Pretest C), had a murder case in Union County; the other three had murder cases in another state.

8 Seeking and Surviving Justice

Each year in the United States, approximately 15,000 people are killed by homicide (Smith and Cooper 2013). Countless local and national news stories describe the circumstances leading to these deaths, because “Americans are fascinated by murders and murderers” (Schlosser 1997: 37). But we are less interested in the families left behind. This book tells their stories. Nearly 20 years ago, I started this project wondering whether the criminal justice system could help heal the harm of a loss to homicide, and as the findings shared in these pages reveal, the short answer is no. A more nuanced response notes that the criminal justice system’s investment in the murder case and criminal justice professionals’ investigation and prosecution of the defendant can contribute to survivors’ recovery in ways we might not have imagined. For decades, researchers, advocates, and policymakers have sought to improve the victim-criminal justice system relationship through various concepts, such as procedural justice (perceived fairness of procedures), therapeutic justice (psychological impact of law), and restorative justice (offender-victim mediation to remedy harm). These concepts address different aspects of this complicated relationship and some of victims’ needs (e.g., fairness, healing, and remedies). Although all three address some aspect of victims’ experiences with the system, they do not fully capture victims’ expectations or desires. Norman Howard’s experiences with and feelings about his daughter’s unsolved murder case poignantly capture the role of the system in 175

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the recovery process. Norman explained, “Sometimes I get my anger and thirst for justice for Amy . . . intertwined with my own loss of my daughter.” When he thought about what it meant to him that her murder case had been reassigned to a newly formed cold case unit in the police department after four years of remaining unsolved, he said, “I just hope and pray that this is the answer” (Pretest A). But he paused briefly, as if he knew deep down it was too much to ask. In examining the role of the system in homicide survivors’ recovery, three major themes emerged throughout this book: sources of conflict in victim-system encounters, victims’ expectations for workers and the case, and workers’ sensitivity to survivors’ needs in light of system constraints. First, the tension between homicide survivors and criminal justice workers emerged in unexpected places in the process—at the murder scene when survivors wanted to see and hold the deceased’s body, during the investigation when survivors sought to provide and obtain case information, and in encounters with counselors when survivors disliked their offers of emotional support. Second, homicide survivors expected an emotional and legal ally in the detectives and prosecutors handling their loved one’s case, but not in the counselors. For survivors, an emotional connection with detectives and prosecutors signaled a personal attachment to the case; an emotional connection with counselors, however, represented a “useless” investment. In addition, several survivors believed detectives and prosecutors held racial and socioeconomic biases against African Americans and the poor, which diminished the intensity of their work and produced a lower quality of justice for “second class [or less politically influential] citizens” (V18). The “ally” finding translates to other fields where people feel powerless in an unfamiliar organization (e.g., college campus, hospital) or a politically charged system. Often in life, we need allies to help us navigate an organizational bureaucracy, recover from a major trauma, and champion our personal cause; homicide survivors sought compassionate allies in criminal justice decisionmakers, regardless of their race, ethnicity, or social status. Third, detectives, prosecutors, counselors, and advocates expressed genuine concern for homicide survivors’ long and difficult road to recovery, desire for detailed information about the murder, and demand for a trial in the case. Yet they struggled to find the balance between what victims wanted and what their jobs and the law allowed. Some homicide survivors’ requests interfered with criminal justice system goals (e.g., strong investigation, preservation of crime scene evidence, conviction).

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When we examine all of the different victim-oriented perspectives proposed over the past 40 years—procedural justice (perceived fairness of procedures), therapeutic jurisprudence (psychological impact of law), and restorative justice (victim-offender mediation to remedy harm)— they all share the opportunity to provide victims with information and healing. Since the 1980s, the victims’ rights movement has sought to give victims a voice in the criminal justice system handling their cases. These rights have brought important procedural changes (e.g., notification of court dates, opportunity for a victim impact statement) and cultural shifts (e.g., victim sensitivity, system responsiveness), but they have not brought the expected improvements in victims’ satisfaction or recovery. The experiences of homicide survivors and criminal justice workers in this study shed light on some of the reasons these fixes have not provided the satisfaction or relief expected. We assumed victims wanted to be involved in court proceedings. We assumed they needed crisis counseling and support services at the death notification and in the months after. But these findings suggest that those assumptions were inaccurate. It turns out that what victims really want is compassion. They want detectives and prosecutors to express sympathy by spending time and effort on the case and by recognizing the pain of the loss, a type of therapeutic justice (Winnick 1997). They want detectives and prosecutors to listen to their concerns, talk to them about the evidence, and apprehend the suspect in a timely manner, but they do not want to sit at the prosecutor’s table. They do not (typically) want an execution. They do not necessarily want to give an impact statement. These findings capture a critical distinction between a compassionate connection with decisionmakers and a “voice” in the proceedings. For many years, the literature has emphasized victims’ need for a voice or role in the system. A role is a position (e.g., wife, husband, student, teacher, victim) and a voice represents a platform (i.e., a say or a statement to an audience), but having a role or voice in the criminal justice system holds little significance without the meaningful relationships to support them. What the stories herein reveal is that respectful exchanges and shared emotions (e.g., sympathy) with the decisionmakers infuse more value into the victim–criminal justice relationship than do speaking parts or roles. The survivors participating in this study rarely mentioned victims’ rights or invoked the state’s victims’ bill of rights in their interviews or encounters with the police, prosecutors, or the courts. Victims, however, frequently referenced their expectations for and assumptions about how they should be treated and how their loved ones’ cases should be handled.

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Edwards (2004: 973) has suggested that a victim’s involvement in the criminal justice system represents a form of citizenship; the involvement means “being in control, having a say, being listened to, or being treated with dignity and respect.” Victims wanted compassion—to see that the criminal justice professionals working on the case appreciated their pain, felt devoted to the deceased and the case, and conveyed their anger about the murder to others, including the jury and the community. Overall, victims’ comments reflected a commonsense approach to their rights—as victims and as human beings.

Appendix: Data Collection and Analysis

I could cry all over the place at you [Sarah]. . . . But it wouldn’t do you any good. . . . You need to do an interview. . . . Believe me. . . . I’ve shed so many buckets of tears, but we’ve got [an interview] to do here. I’m trying to convey information, and hopefully you can [finish this project] and educate the world. —Janice Edwards, mother of 17-year-old homicide victim (Pretest C)

Although there is nothing that forbids research on sensitive topics, there are powerful forces against the conduct of such research. —Seiber and Stanley (1988: 49)

I believe it is wrong to listen to a person’s feelings of guilt and selfdepreciation without attempting to alleviate those feelings. . . . I realize that these tactics may have diminished my credibility as a researcher, but I thought that was less important than diminishing my credibility as a person. —Weitz (1999: 54)

Listening to people talk about the loss of their loved one to murder proved both heart-wrenching and heartwarming. At times, it felt cruel to ask survivors to recount how they learned of their loved one’s murder and about their horrific loss. At other times, it felt as though the interview helped participants work through some of their grief. Talking to detectives, prosecutors, and counselors about their 179

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encounters with survivors was less emotionally taxing but still challenging. With all participants, I wanted the interview to be a positive experience. I did not want to make anyone feel worse—about their loss or their work. I learned, however, that there was really no way around it. I burdened participants. For homicide survivors, I burdened them by asking about a traumatic loss. As Janice Edwards explained, “I could cry all over the place at you,” but she and other survivors did not. They held it together to give me the information I needed to understand what they want from the criminal justice system and what the system might do to better help them. For criminal justice workers, I burdened them by asking for their time when they were already stretched thin with heavy caseloads. Prior to the start of this study in 1998, only five other researchers had examined loss to murder, and only a handful had studied the victim– criminal justice system relationship from multiple perspectives and within one system. None of those researchers described their strategies for collecting data in detail. Because few researchers have described the challenges of qualitative research on sensitive topics (e.g., murder, victimization), this appendix explains the data-collection process from the pretest interviews to the data coding and analysis. The goal is to: (1) offer insight into the data-collection process to help other researchers studying victims, sudden loss, or trauma and (2) provide insight into the data that informs the project findings and my conclusions.

Data Collection

Three types of data were collected for the project, including in-depth interviews with 32 homicide survivors; in-depth interviews with 22 criminal justice workers, advocates, and defense attorneys; and more than 144 hours of participant observation of murder cases. All study participants came from Union County, and all observations were conducted in the Union County criminal justice system. The 4 pretest (or preliminary) interviewees are not counted in the 32 homicide survivors included in the larger project because although they informed the development of the interview guide and protocol, they did not all have murder cases in Union County. Because the in-depth interviews with homicide survivors make up the bulk of the project data (and more than 850 pages of single-spaced text) and presented the largest challenge in the data-collection process, much of this appendix describes the recruitment of and interviews with homicide survivors.

Appendix

Trouble in Starting with a Focus Group

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The literature on research methods in new areas of inquiry suggests that focus groups are a good way to begin collecting data, identify the issues of concern, and develop questions for one-on-one interviews (see Morgan 1997). Given the lack of knowledge about this topic in the late 1990s, I decided to start data collection with a focus group of homicide survivors. In summer 1999, I called the president of the Union County chapter of Parents of Murdered Children (POMC), and I asked if I could meet with the group to learn about their experiences with the criminal justice system. The president agreed to ask the group for permission at the next monthly meeting. The group agreed, on one condition. They wanted me to conduct the focus group during their monthly support group meeting, not in a separate meeting. Eager to honor their wishes and start the project, I agreed. In September 1999, I attended the monthly POMC meeting in a small church office. Soon after I arrived, however, I realized the inappropriateness of the plan to conduct a focus group during the meeting. There were six survivors sitting around the oval-shaped table, and one member particularly appeared to desperately need the emotional support of the other attendees. When I saw her enter the room and sit down at the table, I immediately felt bad for intruding on the group’s work. She was a tall, thin woman in her 40s. Her complexion was pale, and she looked extremely frail. She rarely made eye contact with me or the other group members, and she sat with her arms crossed in front of her stomach, with a tissue clenched in her fist. She seemed fragile, and her pain appeared raw. She looked like she had been crying a lot that day. It was clear from her comments and from others’ compassion toward her that she had been coming to the POMC meetings for a while, and the other members knew about her loss. She updated everyone on her story by saying that her 20year-old daughter’s murder case was under way in another state and according to the prosecutor, there were problems with the strength of the case. She found the prosecutor’s description of the weaknesses upsetting. Several things stood out to me about her story: her profound sadness over the loss of her daughter, her intense anger toward the defendant in the case, and her tremendous concern with the criminal justice system’s management of the case. Her grief and anger felt nearly tangible, and my stomach began to hurt when I thought about her anguish. After evaluating her discomfort, I abandoned the focus group plan for the meeting and just listened to each group member tell his or her story. I learned a great deal. Each story was a little bit different, but they

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all had several key elements—the name of the deceased loved one, the group member’s relationship to the deceased, the date of the murder or time since the murder, and the current status of the case (e.g., case unsolved, indictment, case solved, trial under way). A retired army colonel, Norman Howard, started the meeting with an update on his daughter’s murder case. He said:

As you guys know, our 32-year-old daughter, Amy, was murdered 46 months ago in [another state]. For two years, nothing has happened on the case. I call the detective every 10 days to get an update on the case. I am very hopeful now though because the department has started a cold case squad, and it looks like they are going to start working on Amy’s case again. So, we are really happy about that. (Pretest A)

An hour or so later, a group member turned to me and asked about my study. I told them I was planning to conduct interviews with homicide survivors like themselves, and if they were interested in participating, they could put their name and phone number on my sign-up sheet. Four of the six group members signed up, and all four became pretest interviewees (including Norman). Interestingly, three of the four pretest participants were parents of children murdered in their late 20s or early 30s—about my age at the time of the study. In the one-on-one interviews, these participants often made reference to their child’s similarities to me or my situation. The fourth pretest participant was an educator and the mother of a daughter murdered in her late teens. She seemed to take an interest in my work and career. Finding a common connection to study participants provided a helpful point of entry for the four pretest participants and offered helpful insight on how to work with future study participants. Conducting Pretest Interviews

The pretest interviews helped me develop the interview guide and improve the interview protocol. The interview guide changed quite a bit over the course of the four pretest interviews, particularly in regard to the structure, question order, and wording. These four participants, particularly Norman Howard (Pretest A) and Janice Edwards (Pretest C), became key informants. Although only one of the four pretest participants (Janice) had encounters with the Union County criminal justice system, all of them offered critical insight into the meaning of the investigation and their expectations for the system. These pretest par-

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ticipants are not included in the counts related to the findings from the 32 survivor participants, but quotes from the pretest interviews are used periodically to shed light on particular findings. One of the pretest participants was male; all four were white and from middle- or uppermiddle-class backgrounds. Pretests A and B were married and parents of the deceased. Pretests C and D were divorced and widowed (respectively) and the mothers of the deceased. Interview Guide Structure of the Interview. I went to the first two pretest interviews with

an overly structured guide. I abandoned that structure when the first interviewee, Norman Howard (Pretest A), appeared eager to begin by sharing the status of his daughter’s unsolved murder case. His eagerness to tell me about the case was heartwarming, and it felt rude to stick to the questions in my guide. When we sat down at the patio table in his backyard, I started the recorder and let Norman tell his story. The unstructured format allowed Norman and later his wife, Maryanne (Pretest B), to tell me about their loss in their own words. Those words helped me identify important issues, issues that had not been discussed in the literature. As mentioned in Chapter 7, I learned that survivors found some of the terminology, commonly used in popular literature, to be offensive—particularly the word closure. Norman explained, “Maryanne and I hate this word ‘closure.’ . . . I’m never gonna have complete closure, no matter what happens.” Using taboo terminology during an interview can alienate study participants, leading them to believe you do not truly understand their situation or that you have not done your homework. Both beliefs can damage rapport and hinder the quality of the data collected.

Order of the Questions. As with other research, I found that the order of the questions influenced participants’ responses. Although previous research suggested that emotions play an important role in the bereavement experience and social support, the questions about emotions yielded negative reactions in pretest interviews. For example, about halfway through our first of two interview meetings, I told Janice Edwards (Pretest C), “The next section is about your feelings and experiences since your loss; it’s more focusing on emotions.” She sighed and grumbled:

What do you want to know? I adored the girls. You can put me in tears if you want. It’s very simple. I loved them dearly. [Erin’s murder]

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screwed up [her sister] Samantha’s life, and it killed Erin. Erin lost her whole life. What is there to say? Just sheer raw pain at her loss at, I mean, at what she lost. Look what she lost! She lost a whole life! And that’s the central [point]; you don’t get around that fact. And that’s the center of my emotions, is that single fact. There it is. I’ve done an awful lot of crying about it. An awful, awful lot of crying. (Pretest C)

Noticing the anger in Janice’s voice, I suggested skipping the questions on emotions. She said I could proceed, but the shift in topic seemed to annoy and even drain her. This created a problem because the interviews tended to last two to three hours, and draining participants early in the meeting made it more difficult for them to finish the interview. Interrupting the interview meeting to schedule a second meeting at a later date increased the likelihood that the participant would not finish the whole interview. Furthermore, I found that some interviewees put up a shield when I asked about their emotions. This shield took energy to build and maintain, and the mental resistance to the topic made the participant tired. The shield also took time to break down. In addition, asking the more emotional questions too early on did not allow for the establishment of interviewer-interviewee rapport. Putting the more emotional questions at the end of the interview created enough time for the interviewee to become comfortable with the interviewer.

Wording of the Questions. The pretest interviews also helped guide

the wording of the questions. For example, it proved helpful to start the first two interviews with an open-ended statement asking about the participant’s life: “I’d like to start by having you tell me your story.” Maryanne and Norman each took an hour to tell their story (and two to three hours for their respective interviews), which presented a problem, because there were still many other topics to cover (e.g., criminal justice system, social support). The lengthy stories also included information unrelated to the study. For instance, Maryanne told me about her murdered daughter’s divorce, boyfriends, and career aspirations. Although I wanted some of this information to provide context for introducing the interviewee and the deceased in the presentation of the results, I did not need so much of it. Thus, I revised the beginning statement to say, “To start, I’d like to take 10 to 15 minutes for you to tell me how you learned that your loved one had been killed. (Probes: Who told you? How did they tell you? How did you react? Who did you first contact?)” The revised prompt gave interviewees a temporal frame, and it guided them in what kind of information to provide.

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Because experiences with the criminal justice system emerged as central in the pretest interviews and to gain a better understanding about the system’s role in recovery from the victimization, I revised the question from “How do you feel about where the case stands now? (Probe: Does it give you any relief?)” to “People tell me it’s very important to have the case solved. Why is this so important?” This question was also used in interviews with criminal justice professionals. For the criminal justice system and coping with loss, interviewees originally were asked, “What things did the police (DA’s office, judge) do that made it harder for you to cope with your loss?” This question stumped participants. They had great difficulty thinking of things the police had done. Thus, this question was changed to, “What was the most difficult part of the police’s (DA’s office, judge) involvement in the case for you?” I dropped the questions about turning point, notification of others, and control in the criminal justice system. Pretest interviewees said there were no turning points in their grief. They explained that their recovery from the loss was a long, slow process, taking six to seven years, according to Pretest D. Similarly, I was able to address the influence of the criminal justice system on survivors’ sense of personal control with questions about survivors’ experiences with the criminal justice system. The final version of the interview guide for survivors contained closed and open-ended questions, and the interviews were divided into five parts—criminal justice system, social relationships, self, demographic characteristics, and advice. The closed questions asked about the survivor’s gender, age, race, education, marital status, employment status, income, and number of children, as well as the deceased’s age at the time of the murder, race, relationship to interviewee, and the deceased’s relationship to murderer, if known. Honing the Interview Protocol

The pretest interviews helped me hone the interview encounters in three main ways, including my response to participants, my appreciation for reciprocity, and my efforts to prevent burnout.

A Sympathetic Response to Participants. I found it difficult to know

how to respond to homicide survivors’ emotions at first. Janice Edwards (Pretest C) especially shaped my awareness of my response to participants. In the first of our two interview meetings, Janice shared the gruesome details of her daughter’s murder. I was admittedly caught offguard by her description, because I did not have any questions about the

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circumstances of the murder in my interview guide. She said, “The killing [of my daughter and two other kids] didn’t start just in a bullet gone astray, or a physical fight gone astray. . . . Yeah, poor little Becky [one of the other victims]. I mean, [for the offenders] to pick the [youngest] for the worst treatment is just [pounded fist on table], there it is, it’s just ugly. It’s real, real ugly” (Pretest C). I found her reflection that the murderer(s) picked the youngest of the children for the worst treatment upsetting, and my eyes filled with tears. Later in the interview, when I asked Janice about people’s reactions to her emotions from her loss, she said that people either change the subject or cry when they do not want to hear about her loss. Confused, I asked her to explain why crying indicated a lack of interest in hearing about her loss. She explained, “At that point they’re dealing with their own upsetness. They need to get their own upsetness [out because] you can’t be there for somebody else if you are dealing with your own upsetness.” She continued, “Oh yeah, I put you in tears there for a minute. I could put almost anybody in tears, including myself if I don’t watch it” (Pretest C). I took this explanation to mean that it was inappropriate that my eyes had watered when she talked about the murder, and I got the impression that she decided to protect me from other upsetting details about her loss as a result. At the end of our second interview meeting, however, Janice expressed a slightly different position on the value of a listener expressing emotions. I told her that she was part of the pretest group of participants, and I asked if there was anything she would change about the questions or the way I had conducted the interview. Janice replied, “You strike me as you’re being very, very careful to be very professional, and I’m not sure [if that’s necessary]. Is it necessary to be that? Because if your human instinct is to say, ‘I’m so sorry, that must have been terrible,’ it would go down real well. I mean, I think people would like that” (Pretest C). I was shocked that she saw me as being unnecessarily “professional,” and I felt confused by her seemingly contradictory comments about the value of a listener expressing emotions. These words made me highly sensitive to how an interviewer’s facial expressions, watering eyes, or comments may either alienate or reassure a participant. Her feedback forced me to question my personal assumption that crying with someone offered a show of support, as if to say, “I feel your pain. Your loss makes me sad as well.” She also forced me to question how much support is too much and how much is too little. Janice helped me see that not everyone wants to see another person cry over the news of their loss (as I had

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assumed); not everyone wants others to share in their pain. She also made me realize that almost everyone wants to feel that you care. Almost everyone wants to hear that you are sorry. After discussing Janice’s interview with a colleague, I decided to address the issue by building better rapport earlier in my encounters with survivors. To do this, I took a few minutes to visit with the interviewee at the start of the meeting. I started by asking them about their day. In cases where I knew something specific about their personal life from our phone conversation to set up the interview, I asked how that part of their life was going. In scheduling Katherine Talbert’s (V06) interview, I learned that her son played soccer. At the beginning of the interview, I asked how her son’s soccer season was going. In scheduling Pretest D, she told me that she had an appointment to get to after our interview. At the beginning of the interview, I told her that I knew she had an appointment later in the day, and we would be done in time for her to make the appointment. She said it was a card game. We then joked that the other players in her group might pull a “fast one” on her if she arrived late. By conveying warmth and being an attentive listener, I helped facilitate openness (Douglas 1985). At the same time, I often worried that participants would mistake our interview for a therapy session. To signal that the interview was not a therapeutic encounter, I held a three-ring binder in my lap with the interview guide, and I explained my background as a sociologist. I expected that the very emotional nature of a loss to murder might make participants less focused on the purpose of the meeting, and I did not want to prolong the interviews more than necessary—to burden victim participants or burn me out (see Birch and Miller 2000). I focused on recognizing and attending to respondents’ emotions in a professional yet personal way by offering a tissue, the opportunity to stop the interview, and expressions of sympathy. Early in the data-collection process, I tried to comfort one survivor with a gentle touch on her hand, but she flinched and appeared uncomfortable with the gesture. After this experience, I decided not to touch respondents but to simply offer condolences and a tissue, which worked better.

Need for Reciprocity. One of the more unexpected aspects of the interview meetings was some participants’ expectation that I answer their questions about me at the end of the interview. Of course, outside of research settings, “confiding is normally a reciprocal process” (Brannen 1988: 562, emphasis added). In consideration of participants’ interest in me, I closed the interviews by inviting respondents to ask

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me questions. Some declined this offer, but others wanted to know how their experiences compared to those of others (e.g., Do you think I have dealt with it well compared to others?) or how their interviews fit into the larger project (e.g., How many interviews have you done? What will you do with this information?). Some interviewees asked about my personal background. Steven Erikson (V30) said, “I would like to know something about you [Sarah]. Since you’ve been asking all of the questions.” I said, “Of course. Ask away.” As we sat at the kitchen table in his suburban home, Steven asked about my research project, career goals, and marital status. I answered all of his questions and tried to give him a sense of who I was and what I hoped to do with the study. In-depth interviews on sensitive topics can feel like awkward exchanges where participants have overshared personal information. Participants’ efforts to turn the tables at the end of the interview and to ask me questions can be linked to social exchange theory. Homans (1961: 13) states that “social behavior [is] an exchange of activity . . . between at least two persons,” and his social exchange theory delineates principles for social behavior including emotional feelings (Wallace and Wolf 2005). At the same time, reciprocity in research does not necessarily refer to an equal exchange (Rubin and Rubin 1995). At times, after these interviews, I felt exhausted by the weight of the participant’s sadness and my own guilt for having reignited that sadness (see also Birch and Miller 2000). As Kleinman and Copp (1993: 8) say, sometimes it felt like study participants were “living inside [my] head.” The ending of an interview meeting did not mean the end of my thoughts about the participant. Over time, I grew accustomed—but not immune—to these feelings of sadness and dissonance. A few times I found myself wanting to call the detective in a participant’s loved one’s unsolved murder case to ask if they had considered the deceased’s friend or ex-boyfriend as a suspect. For these reasons, I agree with Hubbard, Backett-Milburn, and Kemmer (2001) that researchers should recognize the emotional impact of researching difficult topics to preserve well-being and prevent burnout. I found that after the fifth or sixth interview, I developed a personal detachment that allowed me to continue with data collection and preserve my mental health while remaining compassionate about participants’ needs. Interestingly, although talking about my work with colleagues helped, I found that not all colleagues could handle hearing about the interviews. Murder is not an appropriate office (and certainly not dinner party) conversation. Others’ discomfort with my research topic gave me some added insight into the reactions my participants faced in their personal lives.

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Recruiting Bereaved Participants

189

The pretest interviews helped frame the structure and content of the interview guide; they also helped inform the recruitment process. In short, it was very difficult to recruit homicide survivors to participate in this study. The social forces that discourage participation include potential supporters’ discomfort with the topic, potential supporters’ insensitive comments about moving on, and victims’ concerns that they will upset people. The emotional forces include the difficulty of talking about the painful loss, the realization that not many people can handle hearing about the loss, and the experience of feeling silenced by others’ comments or visible discomfort. Homicide survivors are silenced—by the way others respond to the news of their loss, by others’ insensitive comments about their loss, and by their own awareness of the discomfort their loss and subsequent grief causes others. Bereaved people often do not get to talk to others about their loss or their grief. This is particularly true with a loss to murder. The depth of the pain, the violence of the loss, and the anger toward the perpetrator make potential supporters uncomfortable with a survivor’s loss. Although the list of reasons survivors might want to talk to a sociologist about their loss proves long, the list of reasons survivors do not want to talk about the loss is equally long—the loss is too painful to discuss with others or with a stranger, the loss is too raw, they must focus on the criminal justice system’s work, or they are waiting for the trial. Survivors quickly learn not to talk about their loss to others, who often cannot handle it, grow tired of it, or feel uncomfortable with it. When a sociologist asks a survivor to break the silence, it takes quite a while for them to come around. I used three methods to recruit homicide survivors. First, I obtained the names of next of kin and their addresses from death certificate records for homicide victims 1 in Union County from 1996 to 1998 on file with the State’s Department of Health. I used this information to write to the next of kin to request their participation in the study (for research using a similar strategy, see Reed 1993; Sherkat and Reed 1992). There were 131 murders in Union County from 1996 to 1998. I wrote to the next of kin listed on the death certificate records for 111 of those murders. I excluded 20 records for one of three reasons: (1) the next of kin was convicted of the murder, (2) no next of kin was listed (e.g., deceased was a homeless person), or (3) a funeral home address was the only address listed for the next of kin. Of the 111 letters mailed, 27 percent (n = 30) came back as undeliverable. I sent

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two follow-up letters to the remaining 81 next of kin, and with each letter, I worked to craft a more sensitive approach to improve the response rate and begin to establish rapport in recognition of the stigmatized and emotional nature of murder. Of the 81 people I followed up with, 24 agreed to participate in the study, yielding a response rate of 30 percent. In addition, one of those respondents had a sister (the aunt of the deceased) who also agreed to participate in the study. Thus, I recruited 25 bereaved using this method.2 The second recruiting method involved using newspaper information. I obtained name, age, race, and date of death information for all 1994 to 1995 Union County murder victims from a reporter with the daily paper for Union County. I purposely selected the years 1994 and 1995 (not 1996, 1997, and 1998, as in the State Department of Health sample) so that there would be no duplicate survivors across the two sampling periods. I used the newspaper information to conduct an electronic search for the murder victim’s name in the paper’s archives. For each hit, I read the article to (1) check that it mentioned the actual victim and (2) search for any mention of the victim’s next of kin. Once finding a name for the next of kin, I searched the local phone directory for the person’s number and address. I then called the next of kin using a scripted call form to request their participation in the study. This yielded the recruitment of six survivors. However, only three of them actually appeared for an interview. When I attempted to reschedule the no-show interviews, they either did not return my calls or did not appear for the second meeting. I took the nonreturned phone calls and no-shows as an indication that the survivor would not participate in the study, and I stopped trying to contact them after three attempts. When not able to reach the newspaper next of kin after repeated calls, I wrote a letter asking them to participate in the study. I wrote to 18 people, and 1 participant was recruited using this method. A total of four bereaved participants were recruited using the newspaper information. In the third recruitment method, I asked a counselor with the Union County District Attorney’s Office to recommend potential participants for the study. This counselor identified three survivors who she thought might want to participate, and she asked their permission for her to share their contact information with me. All three of these survivors agreed, and when I called them, they agreed to meet with me for an interview. I recruited three survivors using this method. Thus, a total of 32 homicide survivors whose loved ones were murdered between 1994 and 1999 in Union County were recruited for the study.

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Conducting In-Depth Interviews with Survivors

191

The length of the interviews ranged from 1 to more than 4 hours, and the average interview length was 2.5 hours. When the interview continued for more than two hours, the survivor and I scheduled a second meeting. I conducted 81 percent (n = 26) of the interviews in person and 19 percent (n = 6) over the phone. The phone interviews were conducted with survivors who lived out of state. The in-person interviews took place at either the survivor’s home, a local restaurant, or my office. There was one non-English-speaking survivor. This participant was a Spanish speaker, and I conducted my interview with her through an interpreter, who also transcribed the interview. Two survivors withdrew from the study. In the first case, at the start of the interview, I reminded the participant (per our phone conversation) that the interview would take approximately two to three hours depending on how much she had to say. She said that she didn’t realize it would take that long, and she needed to leave in an hour. I said that would be fine, and perhaps we could schedule another time to complete the interview, which she agreed to. At the end of this meeting, we discussed a day and time to finish the interview. We planned to meet again in a week. She did not show up for the second meeting. I called her to see if she wanted to reschedule our meeting, and she agreed. However, she did not show up again. I called her a third time to reschedule. She apologized for not showing up for the last two meetings, and agreed to another meeting time but did not show up. I decided not to ask her to reschedule for a fourth time because I suspected her behavior was an indication that she did not wish to complete the interview. Perhaps she was simply uncomfortable declining my requests to reschedule. In the second case, the subject and I were unable to complete the interview in 2.5 hours, and we discussed scheduling a second meeting. She asked that I call her in two weeks, after she returned from her brother’s wedding. After two weeks, I called her, and she said that she did not wish to talk about her loss again until after the trial in her son’s murder case. She wanted to focus her energy on the trial, and she suggested that I call her back in three months. She explained that she was fine during the interview, but she had a difficult time in the days after it. In consideration of her difficulties with the first interview, I did not contact her again. Throughout the study, I sent $20 donations to a nonprofit organization in memory of the interviewee’s deceased loved one as a small

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thank-you for the subject’s participation. I always sent a copy of the donation letter to the participant. In both of the above cases, I sent the subject a copy of the donation letter; in the second case, I wrote a note expressing my apologies that the interview was difficult. Homicide Survivor Sample to Population Comparison

Table A.1 reports the sociodemographic characteristics of the homicide survivor respondents. Seventy-eight percent of the Union County homicide survivors participating in the study were women. Fifty-three percent were white, 31 percent Latino, and 16 percent black. The mean age of homicide survivors was 49 years. Six percent had not completed high school, 32 percent had completed high school, 39 percent had completed some college, 13 percent had completed college, and 10 percent had completed graduate school. The median household income was $40,000 to $59,999 (figures not shown). Sixty-three percent were the parent of the murder victim, 19 percent were the sibling, 9 percent were the adult child, 6 percent were the spouse, and 3 percent were another relative (e.g., aunt) of the murder victim. Although it is not ideal to use a population-to-sample comparison of homicide victims to infer a population-to-sample comparison of homicide survivors, the comparison sheds light on the possibility that the loved ones of some homicide victims were more likely than those of other homicide victims to participate in the study (see Table A.2).

Table A.1 Sociodemographic Characteristics of Homicide Survivors in the Sample (n = 32)

Mean Age Gender 49

Race

Marital Status

Level of Education

Relationship to Victima

22% male 53% white 44% married 6% less than H.S. 9% child 32% H.S. 6% spouse 78% female 16% black 41% divorcedb 31% Latino 9% widowed 39% some college 63% parent 6% never married 13% college 19% sibling 3% other 10% grad schoolc

Source: In-depth interviews with homicide survivor participants. Notes: a. Relationship to victim refers to the survivor’s relationship to the homicide victim as listed on the death certificate. For example, if the mother is listed as the next-of-kin contact on the murder victim’s death certificate, her relationship would be listed in this table as “parent.” b. Divorced and separated are combined under the label “divorced.” c. Grad school refers to people who either attended or completed graduate school.

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Table A.2 Sociodemographic Characteristics of Homicide Victims in the Union County Population and Study Sample Homicide Victims in the

Union County Populationa

N

226

Mean Age (Years) 30

77% male 23% female

Study Sample

32

30

75% male 25% female

Gender

Race

33% 24% 43% 1%

white black Latino other

50% white 13% black 37% Latino

Note: a. [Omitted State Name] Department of Health death certificate records for 1996 to 1998 Union County homicide victims.

The population and sample of murder victims look very similar in age and gender but less similar in race. The population of murder victims was 33 percent white, 24 percent black, and 43 percent Latino, while the sample was 50 percent white, 13 percent black, and 37 percent Latino. The larger percentage of white murder victims in the sample may reflect the possibility that white survivors are more trusting of a researcher’s request for an interview and more willing to agree to participate than are African American or Latino survivors. Nineteen percent of the loved ones’ murder cases remained unsolved at the time of the interview. Nine percent were solved-unresolved; in some solved-unresolved cases, a grand jury had brought an indictment against a suspect, but the suspect had not yet been located. In others, the trial was set after the interview. Fifty-six percent were solved-resolved (i.e., a suspect was indicted, charged, and either tried or plea-bargained; resolved does not necessarily mean the suspect was found guilty), and 16 percent were murder-suicides. Conducting In-Depth Interviews with Criminal Justice Professionals

The interviews with Union County law enforcement professionals (detectives and counselors), criminal court professionals (prosecutors, judges, and counselors), crime victim advocates, and defense attorneys took approximately one hour each. Interviewees were selected using

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judgment sampling and two criteria: (1) they worked in the Union County criminal justice system or for the local crime victims’ advocacy organization and (2) they had two or more years of experience working on murder cases or with homicide survivors. All of the criminal justice personnel, victim advocates, and defense attorneys contacted for an interview agreed to participate, and these interviews continued until the saturation point (i.e., when additional respondents provided little new information). These interviewees included five detectives, four prosecutors, three criminal court judges, four victim services counselors, three victims’ rights advocates (i.e., working or volunteering for a nonprofit organization), and three defense attorneys. These participants were asked four closed questions about their jobs, including their years in the job and the number of murder cases they had handled in the past year and in their careers. They were asked open-ended questions about their work with homicide survivors. Criminal Justice System Worker and Crime Victim Advocate Sample Profile. Sixty-four percent of the criminal justice system worker and

crime victim advocate participants were male, and 26 percent were female (for a breakdown by job title, see Table A.3; for individual participant information, see Table 2.3). Seventy-two percent of these participants were white, 14 percent were Latino, 9 percent were Native American, and 5 percent were black. These workers and advocates had an average of eleven years of experience. The number of murder cases they dealt with ranged from 4 to 289 cases with the average being 107. The crime victim advocates had a range of experience with the criminal justice system: one was a retired detective (with 37 years of experience in law enforcement), one a former victim, and one a victims’ rights lobbyist. Because I only interviewed Union County law enforcement workers and advocates, the findings may or may not represent what all criminal justice workers and advocates would say about encounters with homicide survivors. The victim-friendly culture of Union County may make these respondents more empathetic than workers and advocates from other regions. Participant Observation of Murder Cases in the Criminal Justice System

Another part of the study was a participant observation of criminal justice professionals’ interactions with survivors. The participant observation data provide insight to other researchers’ descriptions of

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Table A.3 Sociodemographic Characteristics of Criminal Justice Workers and Advocates in Sample

Detectives (n = 5)

Mean Age 46

Mean Mean Years of Number Experience of Cases 7

68

Counselors (n = 4)

44

6

78

40

14

87

Judges (n = 3)

53

29

132

63

11

n.a.a

Defense Attys. 48 (n = 3)

19

115

Prosecutors (n = 4)

Advocates (n = 3)

Gender

75% male 25% female 100% female 75% male 25% female

100% male

33% male 67% female

100% male

Race/ Ethnicity

50% white 50% Latino

25% white 75% Native American

100% white

67% white 33% black

67% white 33% Native American

100% white

Note: a. Two crime victims’ advocates indicated that they had worked on so many homicide cases in their careers that they could not offer an accurate count.

the criminal justice system’s aggravation of this type of bereavement (Amick-McMullan, Kilpatrick, and Resnick 1991; Burgess 1975) and reveal the means by which criminal justice professionals try to balance the needs of the survivors with the limitations of victims’ rights legislation. The observations began with death notification and ended with offender sentencing. I used nondisruptive participant observation to explore the criminal justice system’s management of survivors. My observations focused on the characteristics, organization, and interaction of people in the field. I noted each person’s race and gender because previous studies have shown that these characteristics affect bereavement outcomes. I watched for two kinds of interaction: participation forms and power dynamics. I observed the forms the interactions took, such as professional discussion, legal direction, comforting assistance, or advice. I considered the possible power dynamics in the interactions. I took brief field notes about the environment, people, relationships, physical behavior, verbal behavior, and histories while in the field and recorded more detailed notes within 24 hours of the observations. I attempted to observe as many aspects of these cases as possible.

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I was not able to follow one murder case through the whole Union County criminal justice system from death notification to defendant sentencing for two reasons: access and time frame. Instead, I observed six different murder cases at five different stages (death notification, investigation, evidentiary pretrial hearing, trial, sentencing). I had difficulty gaining access to certain proceedings because some professionals were not comfortable with me observing their interactions with survivors or other crime victims. The police department was particularly difficult to observe because of the confidential nature of murder investigations, counselors’ concerns about victims’ interests, and professionals’ discomfort with the idea of being “observed.” I gained entry into the police department through the back door by becoming a volunteer victim services crisis counselor. Over the course of 3 months, I underwent 72 hours of volunteer crisis counselor training with the Union Police Department; for 12 more months, I volunteered for 12 eight-hour shifts. In these shifts, I rode with a police department counselor in an unmarked patrol car, and we received requests via the radio dispatcher and vehicle computer to meet officers at the scene of a crime or incident to provide counseling to victims. These calls were to assist a range of crime victims, not just those who had lost a loved one to murder. In over 140 hours of volunteer work, I received one call to do a death notification in a murder case, but the staff counselor and I were not able to make the notification because of detectives’ delays in locating the next of kin. The Union County District Attorney’s Office was much more amenable to my observations. I observed the evidentiary pretrial hearings and trial in five murder cases, and I sat in on three bereaved– prosecutor meetings. I conducted more than 53 hours of participant observation of murder cases in the DA’s office. The time frame problem relates to the length of time it takes a murder case to work through the criminal justice system, usually one to three years. To complete my research, therefore, I observed several different cases at several different stages of the process. In three of the six cases observed, the murder victim’s loved one participated in the study (V02, V21, and V26). I observed the work of four criminal court worker participants and one law enforcement counselor prior to sitting down with them for an interview. The Union Police Department’s victim services counselor training proved most helpful in understanding counselors’ work with victims. The training also revealed the challenges that some counselors face when working with the police department. One training instructor advised volunteer counselors to be cau-

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tious in responding to detectives’ questions about a victim they perceived to be a potential suspect. She warned, “When a detective asks you if you think the husband is responding ‘normally’ to the news of his wife’s murder, you should say, ‘Every reaction is a normal reaction to murder.’ [Remember that] as a counselor, you want to keep yourself out of the investigation. Also, just be careful not to judge the victim’s role in the murder by their emotional response to the news.” People respond to death in many different ways.

Data Analysis

All interview transcripts were read three times, and the transcripts were manually coded using the principles of grounded theory (Charmaz 2006). With each topic (death notification, police encounters, prosecutor encounters, trial), participants’ responses were carefully reviewed and coded by topic. Each topic was organized in a Word document that included tables organized by codes or themes. Each table had two columns, with one noting the participant’s interview number (V numbers reflect homicide survivor participants, and CJ numbers reflect criminal justice worker participants) and any overlapping codes or themes. The second column contained the quote related to the code or theme. When a respondent’s statement illustrated a specific theme, the data and the respondent’s identification number were copied into a file organized by themes. The stalls and false starts were deleted to improve the flow of the quoted text (Wolcott 1994). As is common practice in research on victims and the criminal justice system, pseudonyms replace real names, dates, places, and murder case descriptors to protect respondent confidentiality (see Konradi 1996a, 1996b, 1997, 1999; Frohmann 1998). The statements most clearly illustrating the recurrent themes in the data are reported in the findings.

Notes

1. The Department of Health’s record that the death is a homicide does not necessarily mean that the Union County criminal justice system pursued the case as a homicide. In two survivors’ cases, the medical examiner ruled the case a homicide but detectives and prosecutors did not pursue the case as a homicide and instead viewed it as an accident. The remaining 30 survivors’ cases were pursued as a homicides in the criminal justice system. 2. For four months prior to the start of this project, the state’s Department of Health delayed making a decision on my request for death certificate records to

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recruit next of kin as study participants. During this time, I began to have concerns about the possibility that the Department of Health would deny my request for records and delay the time line for completing the study. While I waited to receive the records, I used two more methods to find potential participants: newspaper reports and criminal justice professionals’ referrals.

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Index

Abbot, Andrew, 108 American Psychological Association, Task Force on Victims of Crime and Violence, 104, 112 Anger, sharing: in individualorganization relationship, 95; victim-prosecutor emotional connection and, 92–95 Antonio, Robert, 135

Backett-Milburn, Kathryn, 188 Bandes, Susan, 100, 163 Bard, M., 50 Bereaved, 2, 13n1 Bereavement process: incorporation of death into one’s life, 130; social aspect of, 164 Bereavement process, of survivors, 8; closure and, 164–166; victims, deceased’s body and, 55 Blumer, Herbert, 4, 172 Bonilla-Silva, Eduardo, 91 Bucholz, Judie A., 147

Campbell, Rebecca, 113 Carr, Patrick J., 127 Children, dead: Parents of Murdered Children, 181; victims and, 55–56 Circumstantial sympathy, 90–91

Clark, Candace, 123, 157 Closure, for victims in murder cases: bereavement process and, 164–166; detective account of, 166; no closure for, 163–166; unresolved cases and, 165; victim accounts of, 163, 165– 166; victim supporters and, 164, 165; victims’ need for case ending and, 165–166 Color-blind racism, 91 Control, victims’ sense of: spontaneous action as death notification response and emotional, 45; victim recovery from loss to homicide and, 55, 70; victims’ conflicts over investigation information flow and, 70 Copp, Martha A., 188 Counselor accounts: of death notifications, 39; of Martin, 121–122; of surviving sexual assault and leading victim services, 121–122 Counselor accounts, of victim-counselor relationship, 141–142; early interventions in, 114; of flexibility in helping victims, 111, 112; of helping victims help themselves, 117–118; of Johnson, 117–118; on meeting victims’ needs, 103, 121–122; prosecutor in, 110; of sharing sadness, 91

207

208

Index

Counselors: Union County District Attorney’s Office, 190; victims’ murder trial experiences and, 133; volunteer crisis counselor training, 196–197. See also Victim services counselors Counselor’s work, in victim-counselor relationship: being flexible in constrained system, 111––112; fostering emotional connections, 119– 121; inability to read victims’ needs and, 113–114; management of emotions, 119; meeting victims’ needs, 103, 112–116, 119–124; misguided assumptions about victims’ needs and, 112–113, 123, 124; overview, 122–123; recommendations for, 124; supportive or intrusive interventions, 114–116 Co-victims, 13n1 Crime victim advocates: victim services counselors and, 104; victims and, 1 Crime victim advocates, in study: characteristics of, 9–10; nonprofit, 2; sample profile of, 194, 195tab; sociodemographic characteristics of, 195tab; victims’ conflicts over information flow with, 65, 71, 74; victims wanting manner of death information and, 71 Criminal cases, emotional needs of victims and, 58 Criminal justice process, 1 Criminal justice professionals, in study, 2; characteristics, 9–10; in-depth interviews with, 193–194; participant observation of, 194–196 Criminal justice system: changes in victim-prosecutor emotional connection in, 102; investment in murder cases by, 158–159, 162, 175– 176; judge’s account of, 148. See also Victim-criminal justice system relationship Criminal justice workers, in study: characteristics, 23tab; emotional labor of, 29–30; sample profile, 194, 195tab; sociodemographic characteristics, 195tab Crisis counselor training, volunteer, 196– 197

Data collection for study, 13n3; criminal justice worker and crime victim advocate sample profile, 194, 195tab; data analysis, 197; overview, 8–9, 179–180, 196–197; participant observation of criminal justice professionals, 194–196; percent of murder cases solved, 193; recruitment of bereaved participants, 189–190; survivor sample to population comparison, 192–193, 192tab, 193tab; trouble in starting survivor focus group, 181–182; volunteer crisis counselor training and, 196– 197. See also Interviews, with study participants Data collection for study, sociodemographic characteristics: of criminal justice workers and advocates, 195tab; of murder victims, 193tab; of survivors, 192, 192tab Davis, Robert C., 145 Dawson, Pam, 172 Death, victims wanting to know manner of, 70–75 Death notifications, to survivors: by coming upon or witnessing homicide scene, 20tab, 34–37, 103–104; as devastating, 16; dissatisfaction with, 37–38; by friends or relatives, 20tab, 27, 32–33, 40–41; by hospital staff or coroner, 20tab, 37–38; how survivors learned the news, 17, 20–38; impact of manner of, 45–46; improvements to, 38; overview, 11, 16–17, 45–46; by phone, 20–21, 47n1; recommendations for murder case, 46–47; survivor responses to, 41–45; timing of, 20tab, 24–31; victim acceptance of, 24, 38–41; by victim services counselors, 26, 31, 39, 46, 112–114, 117–119, 124; victims’ rights law and, 16–17. See also Victim accounts, of death notifications Deceased’s body: as evidence to detectives, 56–59. See also Victims, deceased’s body and Defendants, in murder trials: secondary victimization of victims by mistruths of, 148; severity of punishment of,

Index 159–160, 161; status degradation ceremony for, 144; victim accounts of hard-to-believe self-defense of, 134, 137–138; victim accounts of inappropriate behavior of, 143–144 Denzin, Norman, 16 Detective accounts: of closure for victims, 166; of death notifications, 25–26, 28–30, 119; of never enough information about murders, 130; of victim-counselor relationship, 107, 109, 119; of victims as murder suspects, 64–65; of victims’ television murder case comparisons, 167; of victims wanting to be informants, 69 Detective accounts, of conflicts with victims: over deceased’s body, 49, 57, 58; over information flow, 71, 72–74, 76; over murder investigations, 49; over victims wanting knowledge of manner of death, 71; over why survivors don’t contact them, 72–73 Detectives: categorization of survivors by, 30–31, 46, 68; consideration of victims as murder suspects, 30–31, 46, 59–65; counselors’ role of assisting, 109–111; counselors’ role of shielding, 106–108; death notifications and, 25–26, 28–31, 46, 119; deceased’s body as evidence to, 56–59; healing, recovery of survivors and, 73; victim services counselors and, 31, 46, 63, 71; victim-counselor relationship and, 104, 106–110; victims’ emotional connection with, 123, 176; victims’ murder trial experiences and, 133, 136. See also Law enforcement; Victims’ conflicts, with detectives Disbelief and denial, as death notification response, 41, 43–44 Downward comparisons, 167; murder case victims and, 169–170 Durkheim, Emile, 142, 160

Edwards, Brian, 72–73 Edwards, Ian, 178 Emotion work, 47n3 Emotional connection: in victim-counselor relationship, 123. See also Victimprosecutor emotional connection

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Emotional control: in spontaneous action as death notification response, 45; victims’ sense of, 45, 55, 70 Emotional labor, 29–30 Emotional needs, of victims: criminal cases and, 58; victim-counselor relationship and, 103, 112–116, 119–124 Emotional tools: sympathy as, 100; victim-prosecutor emotional connection and, 100–101 Emotional upset, at death notification response: contained, 42–45; expressed, 41–42 Emotions: impact of researching difficult topics, 188; in interviews with survivors, 183–184, 186–187, 188 Erez, Edna, 68, 85, 89, 99 Ethnicity, study participants’ perceptions of bias by, 10 Ewick, Patricia, 82

Festinger, L., 166 Focus groups, 181–182 Friends or relatives: death notifications by, 20tab, 27, 32–33, 40–41; victim accounts of death notifications by, 32, 33, 40

Garfinkel, Harold, 136 Gephart, Robert, 136 A Grief Like No Other (O’Hara), 147, 157

Healing of survivors: criminal justice system and, 10–11, 13; detectives and, 73 Heimer, Carol, 82, 152, 157 Hirsch, Susan, 83 Holstein, James A., 136 Homans, George C., 188 Homicidally bereaved, 13n1 Homicide, 13n1; annual US number of, 175; survivors coming upon or witnessing scene of, 20tab, 34–37, 103–104. See also Murder Homicide survivor-criminal justice system relationship. See Survivorcriminal justice system relationship Homicide survivors, 13n1; law-society relationship and, 3; other victims compared to, 3; percentage of population of, 7; talking to others,

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Index

189; willingness to talk, 189. See also Victims; specific survivor topics Hospital staff or coroner: death notifications by, 20tab, 37–38; victim accounts of death notifications by, 37–38 Hubbard, Gill, 188

Individual-organization relationship, 5; sharing anger in, 95; victimprosecutor relationship and, 82–83 Informants, victims wanting to be: conflicts over investigation and, 66– 70; victim accounts of, 66–69; victims’ rights and, 70 Interview guide, for study’s survivors, 182, 189; order of questions, 183– 184; structure, 183, 185; wording of questions, 184–185 Interviews, honing protocol for survivor: need for reciprocity, 187–188; sympathetic response to participants, 185–187 Interviews, with study participants: as burdensome, 180; in-depth with criminal justice professionals, 193– 194; overview, 179–180; pretest, 182–187, 189 Interviews, with study survivors: about criminal justice system, 185; with Edwards, Janice, 183–184; emotions in, 183–184, 186–187, 188; with Erikson, 188; with Howards, 182, 183, 185–187; in-depth, 191–192; overview, 179–180; victim accounts of, 179 Investigative syllogisms, 20, 23–24

Judge’s account, of criminal justice system, 148 Juries, victim accounts of disappointment with, 136

Kemmer, Debbie, 188 Kleinman, Sheryl, 42, 43, 69, 188 Konradi, Amanda, 100

Laster, Kathy, 89, 99 Lateral comparisons, 167 Law enforcement: as stage of criminal justice system, 78–79; victim services counselors and, 26, 31; victims’

conflicts over information flow with workers in, 65; victims’ rights law and, 78–79. See also Detectives; Police Law enforcement, death notifications by, 20tab, 47n2; detectives and, 25–26, 28–31, 46, 119; as emotionally draining for police and detectives, 28– 30; formulas for, 26; investigative syllogisms in, 20, 23–24; murder investigations and, 25–26; next of kin identification and location, 31; nonverbal and verbal forecasting cues in, 17, 20; overview, 17, 20–31; by phone, 20–21, 47n1; timing of, 24–31; victim acceptance of, 24, 40; victim accounts, 16, 21–22, 24, 27–28, 42 Lawler, Edward, 95 Law-society relationship, homicide survivors and, 3 Legal scholars, on victim-criminal justice system relationship, 100

Madeira, Jody, 164 Manner of death, victims wanting to know about: conflicts with investigation over, 70–75; crime victim advocates and, 71; victim accounts of, 71 Martin, Patricia Yancey, 58 Massey, Douglas, 33, 97 Maynard, Douglas W., 17, 41 McCreery, Joseph M., 133 Media: valuation of deceased’s life and, 162; victim’s comparisons to other cases in, 167–169 Miller, Gale, 136 Mills, Trudy, 42, 43 Mirowsky, John, 75 Murder, 13n1; victim accounts of witnessing, 35–36. See also Homicide Murder case comparisons, of victims: detective account of television, 167; feeling grateful it wasn’t worse and downward comparisons, 169–170; giving hope, bringing despair and upward comparisons, 167–169; media coverage of other cases and, 167–169; overview, 166–167; television cases in, 167, 168; victim accounts of, 167–170 Murder case meanings, to victims: case comparisons in, 166–170; as

Index disputed, 162–166; media coverage and valuation of deceased’s life, 162; no closure in, 163–166; overview, 13, 150, 172–173; as something to do for deceased, 150–157; as symbolizing value of deceased’s life, 157–162 Murder cases: criminal justice system’s investment in, 158–159, 162, 175– 176; recommendations for death notifications in, 46–47; survivor responses to death notifications in, 41 Murder investigation information: in murder-suicide cases, 128; proposals to share more with victims, 177; prosecutors sharing with victims, 83; victims’ intense need for, 127; victims’ rights regarding, 70, 77, 177; victims wanting to know why it happened, 75. See also Murder trial, information revealed to victim in; Victims’ conflicts, over investigation information flow Murder investigations: death notifications by law enforcement and, 25–26; recovery of survivors and status of, 149–150, 171–172; victim services counselors and, 63; victims’ conflicts with police in, 11–12, 50, 51, 59–64, 77–79 Murder trial, information revealed to victim in: regarding drug use and criminal activity, 129; investigation secrecy and expectation of, 140–141; long wait for trial and expectation of, 141–142; myth of trial as source of, 140–142, 148; as never enough, 129– 130, 132; providing justice and relief, 126–128; victim accounts of critical, 129; victims’ expectations for, 126– 129, 140–142 Murder trials: number of study subjects experiencing, 148n1; victimprosecutor emotional connection and plea bargains vs., 97–99 Murder-suicide cases: less victim depression in, 171; murder investigation information in, 128; recovery of survivors in, 128; as shorter and less involved, 171–172

211

Next of kin: identification and location of, 31; study recruitment of, 189–190, 198n2

O’Hara, Kathleen, 134, 147, 157 Organizations: individual-organization relationship, 5, 82–83, 95; labor divisions in, 108; need for allies to navigate, 176 Orth, Uli, 129

Parents of Murdered Children (POMC), 181 Participants in study: criminal justice professionals’ and crime victim advocates’ characteristics, 9–10; sociodemographic characteristics of criminal justice workers and advocates, 195tab. See also Interviews, with study participants; specific topics Participants in study, survivor, 173n1; anonymity of, 13n2; background characteristics, 18tab–19tab; demographic characteristics, 9–10; perceptions of racial and ethnic of bias by, 10; recruitment of bereaved, 189–190; sample to population comparison, 192–193, 192tab, 193tab; sociodemographic characteristics, 192, 192tab; withdrawals of, 191 Payne v. Tennessee, 100 Pizza place murders, 169–170 Plea bargains: victim-prosecutor emotional connection and trials vs., 97–99; victims’ preference for, 145– 146; victims’ preference for murder trials over, 97–99, 126–127 Police: sensitivity in encounters with victim after crimes, 50; victims’ rights in investigations by, 50–51. See also Detectives; Law enforcement; Victims’ conflicts with police POMC. See Parents of Murdered Children Powell, R. Marlene, 58 President’s 1982 Task force on Victims of Crime (1998), 50 Prosecutor accounts, of emotional connection with victims, 81, 86, 88, 96, 97; through caring and sympathy

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for victims, 89; with circumstantial sympathy, 90; through sharing anger, 94–95; trials, plea bargains and, 98, 99 Prosecutor accounts, of victims, 85 Prosecutor accounts, of victims’ trial experiences: on how trial won’t fix victims, 125, 134; on victims’ need for trial, 143 Prosecutors: counselors’ role of assisting, 109–111; counselors’ role of shielding, 106–108; victim-counselor relationship and, 104, 106–110, 120–121 Prosecutors, victims and: overview, 12; victims’ selection criteria for, 84–86 Public defenders, categorization schemes of, 30–31

Quinney, Richard, 142

Race: color-blind racism, 91; study participants’ perceptions of bias by, 10 Rando, Therese A., 127, 130 Recovery of survivors: counselors’ interventions and, 114–115; criminal justice system’s murder case investment and, 175–176; detectives and, 73; murder-suicide cases and, 128; sense of control and, 55, 70; status of murder investigations and, 149–150, 171–172 Research: alleviation of subjects’ difficult feelings, 179; emotional impact to researchers, 188; on sensitive subjects, 179 Research, on survivor-criminal justice system relationship: bereavement process in, 8; murder rate and, 7–8; overview, 2–3, 10–13; populations studied, 2; questions, 5; reasons for, 3; survivors’ perceptions of racial and ethnic bias in, 10; themes, 3–4; theoretical framework, 4; Union County in, 2, 9, 180; victims’ experiences in, 7; victims’ rights laws and, 5–6, 13n2. See also Data collection, for study; Participants in study Research, on victim-criminal justice system relationship, 2, 175; victims’ experiences in, 6–7 Riches, Gordon, 172

Roberts, Julian, 85 Rock, Paul, 59, 64 Rogers, Linda, 68 Rosenbaum, Dennis P., 50 Ross, Catherine E., 75 Rynearson, Edward K., 133, 144

Sangrey, D., 50 Scene of homicide: survivors coming upon or witnessing, 20tab, 34–37, 103–104; victim accounts of, 34 Secondary victimization: of murder trial victims by defendants’ mistruths, 148; of victims by criminal justice system, 70, 73 Seiber, J., 179 Shock, as death notification response, 42–43 Silbey, Susan S., 82 Skolnick, Jerome H., 31, 74l Smith, Barbara E., 145 Social comparisons, 166; murder case victims and, 167–170 Social exchange theory, 188 Spontaneous action, as death notification response, 44; emotional control in, 45 Spungen, Deborah, 45, 129 Stanley, B., 179 Status degradation ceremonies, 135, 136, 144 Status elevation ceremony, 144, 148 Stenross, Barbara, 69 Stretesky, Paul B., 128 Survivor responses, to death notifications: contained emotional upset, 42–45; disbelief and denial, 41, 43–44; expressed emotional upset, 41–42; in murder cases, 41; overview, 41; shock, 42–43; spontaneous action, 44–45 Survivor-criminal justice system relationship, 2; chronology of, 11–13; need for allies in, 4; victims’ rights and, 4, 177–178. See also Research, on survivor-criminal justice system relationship Survivors’ satisfaction, with criminal justice system: dissatisfaction with death notifications, 37–38; timing of death notifications and, 25; victim impact statements and, 7; victim-

Index prosecutor emotional connection and, 96–97; victims’ rights and, 1, 5 Syllogisms, investigative, 20, 23–24 Symbolic interactionism, 4 Sympathy: circumstantial, 90–91; as emotional tool, 100; system’s perception of victims’ worthiness for, 157–158; victim-counselor relationship and, 120–121, 123; victim-prosecutor emotional connection through, 89–92, 100, 120– 121; victims sharing photographs, home movies and, 120 Sympathy biography, 157

Therapeutic justice, 177 Thoits, Peggy A., 29 Thye, Shane R., 95 Timing, of death notifications, 20tab; law enforcement and, 24–31; survivors’ satisfaction with criminal justice system and, 25

Union County: Department of Health death certificate records, 189, 197n1, 198n2; number of murders (1996-1998), 189 Union County criminal justice system: District Attorney’s Office, 190, 196; research on survivor-criminal justice system relationship in, 2, 9, 180; victim services counselors in, 122; victim-prosecutor relationship in, 83, 89, 91, 95, 99 Upward comparisons, 166; murder case victims and, 167–169

Victim accounts, of being murder suspects, 59; of Nunoz, 63–64; of Sheldon, 60–62 Victim accounts, of conflicts over investigation information flow: of Carson, 66–67; over knowledge of manner of death, 71; over status of investigation, 75–77; over wanting to be informant, 66–69 Victim accounts, of conflicts with police over deceased’s body, 49–50, 52, 55– 56, 58; of Gifford, 53–55 Victim accounts, of conflicts with police over murder investigations, 49, 128; when suspected of murder, 59–64

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Victim accounts, of criminal justice system: frustration in, 101–102 Victim accounts, of death notifications: acceptance of death in, 39; of Casteneda, 15–16; by coming upon scene of homicide, 34; by counselors, 112–114; of Danza, 35–36; disbelief in, 44; expressed emotional upset in, 42; by friends or relatives, 32, 33, 40; by hospital staff or coroner, 37–38; of Howards, 21–22; by law enforcement, 16, 21–22, 24, 27–28, 42; shock in, 43; spontaneous action reaction in, 44–45; by witnessing murder, 35–36 Victim accounts, of defendants: of hardto-believe self-defense, 134, 137–138; of inappropriate behavior, 143–144; of severity of punishment, 159–160, 161 Victim accounts, of emotional connection with prosecutors, 89, 96, 97–98; of Harden, 81–82, 86, 87–88; of Jiminez and Donado, 13n3, 93–94; of no sympathy needed, 92; sharing anger in, 93–94 Victim accounts, of investigation information: of conflicts over flow of information, 66–69, 71, 75–77; revealed in murder trial, 129–130, 132; of wanting answers in murdersuicide case, 128 Victim accounts, of murder cases, 149; of Becarria, 168–169; of Carson, 66–67, 137–138; case comparisons in, 167– 170; closure in, 163, 165–166; of disappointment in systems’ low investment and delays in cases, 158– 159; of Donado, 13n3, 93–94, 141, 156, 165, 170; of Edwards, Janice, 183–184; of gratitude for system’s large investment in cases, 158; of Harden, 81–82, 86, 87–88, 133; of Howards, 21–22, 151, 152–153, 163, 176, 182; of Jiminez, 13n3, 93–94, 133; of Nunoz, 63–64, 144; of severity of defendants’ punishment, 159–160, 161 Victim accounts, of murder trial experiences: of bringing meaning to death, 142; of defendants’ hard-tobelieve self-defense, 134, 137–138; of defendants’ inappropriate behavior,

214

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143–144; of disappointment with jury’s verdict, 136; of disturbing details and images, 133, 137–138; of dreading the trial, 139–140; of hurtful victim characterizations, 135; of importance of trial, 125, 129, 147; of long wait for trial, 141; of need for trial, 126; of Spears, 138–140; status elevation ceremony and, 148; of Taylor, 131–132; of victim impact statements, 144–145; of wanting plea bargain instead, 145–146 Victim accounts, of murder trial information: as critical, 129; of not providing enough, 129–130, 132 Victim accounts, of prosecutors: circumstantial sympathy and, 91; emotional connection in, 13n3, 81–82, 86–88, 92–94, 96–98; family members in, 156; of good prosecutors, 102; of wanting prosecutors with skill and commitment, 85; of wanting to select prosecutors, 84 Victim accounts, of study interviews, 179 Victim accounts, of victim-counselor relationship: detectives in, 109; disappointment and anger in, 106–111; discomfort and annoyance in, 115, 116; of feeling criminalized, 103, 104; of flexibility of counselor’s help, 111– 112; overview, 122–123; prosecutors in, 108; victim’s needs in, 112–116 Victim accounts, of working on murder cases: with family members, 156; of Howards, 151, 152–153; limitations in, 153–154; of Nettles, 154–156; of Thompson, 160–161; of waiting and wishing they had done more, 154–156 Victim impact statements, 7, 144–145 Victim services counselors: crime victim advocates and, 104; death notifications by, 26, 31, 39, 46, 112–114, 117–119, 124; detectives and, 31, 46, 63, 71; helper’s high of, 118; law enforcement and, 26, 31; murder investigations and, 63; as system insiders and investigation outsiders, 107; in Union County criminal justice system, 122; victims’ conflicts with police over deceased’s body and, 57. See also Counselors; Victim-counselor relationship

Victim services counselors, role of: assisting detectives and prosecutors, 109–111; reducing red tape and caring, 105–106; shielding detectives and prosecutors, 106–108; victimcounselor relationship and, 106–111 Victim-counselor relationship: counselor accounts of, 91, 103, 110–114, 117– 118, 121–122, 141–142; counselor’s divided loyalties, dual responsibilities and, 104, 106–111; counselors’ role and, 106–111; detective accounts of, 107, 109, 119; detectives and, 104, 106–110; emotional connection in, 123; overview, 104–105, 122–123, 176; prosecutors and, 104, 106–110, 120–121; sympathy and, 120–121, 123; victim accounts of, 103, 104, 106–116, 122–123 Victim-criminal justice system relationship: attempts to improve, 175; healing of survivors and, 10–11, 13; legal scholars on, 100; system’s murder case investment and victim recovery, 175–176; system’s response and victim’s sympathy worthiness, 157– 158; therapeutic justice or compassion needed in, 177, 178; victim frustration with, 101–102; victims’ role in, 1, 177; voice of, 1, 7, 177. See also Survivorcriminal justice system relationship Victim-prosecutor emotional connection: changes in criminal justice system and, 102; departures from, 90–92; overview, 102, 176; prosecutor accounts of, 81; research findings about, 84; satisfaction with criminal justice system and, 96–97; sharing anger in, 92–95; sharing sadness in, 88–89, 91; sympathy in, 89–92, 100, 120–121; victim accounts of, 81–82, 86, 87–88; victims wanting, 86, 123; victims wanting caring in, 82, 86 Victim-prosecutor emotional connection, management of: through emotional tools, 100–101; prosecutors toeing emotional line in, 98–99; pulling prosecutors’ heart strings in, 97–98; trials vs. plea bargains and, 97–99 Victim-prosecutor relationship: individual-organization relationship

Index and, 82–83; overview, 82–84, 102; research questions and findings about, 84; sharing investigation information in, 83; in Union County criminal justice system, 83, 89, 91, 95, 99; victim accounts of, 84, 85–86; victims’ expectations of, 84 Victims: crime victim advocates and, 1; homicide survivors compared to other, 3. See also Homicide survivors Victims, deceased’s body and: bereavement process and, 55; changes to law enforcement procedure for, 78; conflicts with police over, 11–12, 49– 59, 78; dead children, 55–56; need to say good-bye, 55; need to see, care for, touch and speak to, 52, 55–59; need to verify deceased’s identity, 55; victims’ rights law on, 59 Victims as murder suspects: in conflicts with police, 59–64; detective accounts of, 64–65; detectives’ consideration of, 30–31, 46, 59–65 Victims’ bill of rights, 1; non–police-related rights, 51; police-related rights, 51 Victims’ conflicts, over investigation information flow: case roles and, 65; changes required to address, 78–79; crime victim advocates and, 65, 71, 74; with detectives, 65–77, 83, 128, 141; with law enforcement workers, 65; over wanting to be informant in case, 66–70; over wanting to be informed about investigation’s status, 75–77; over wanting to be informed about manner of death, 70–75; overview, 65–66, 78, 176; victims’ rights and, 70, 77; victims’ sense of control and, 70; when abnormal crimes mislabeled noncrimes, 68 Victims’ conflicts, with criminal justice system, 153; overview, 4, 176; police discretion and, 74; secondary victimization in, 70, 73; solutions to, 4 Victims’ conflicts, with detectives, 154; detective accounts of, 49, 57, 58, 71– 74, 76; over deceased’s body, 49, 56–59; over investigation information flow with, 65–77, 83, 128, 141 Victims’ conflicts with police: in murder investigations, 11–12, 50, 51, 59–64,

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77–79; when suspected of murder, 59–64. See also Victims’ conflicts, with detectives Victims’ conflicts with police, over deceased’s body: changes victims want regarding, 78; detectives and, 49, 56–59; as evidence, 52, 56–59; overview, 11–12, 50–52; victim accounts of, 49–50, 52–56, 58; victim services counselors and, 57 Victims’ disappointments, with murder trials: disturbing details and images, 133–134; hurtful victim characterizations, 134–136; limits to seeking answers, 129–130, 133–137; as never enough information, 129–130 Victims’ encounters with police, after crimes: officer sensitivity in, 50; recommendations for, 50 Victims’ expectations, for murder trial: information in, 126–129, 140–142; investigation secrecy and, 140–141; long wait for trial and, 141–142; overview, 12–13, 126; plea bargains and, 97–99, 126–127; providing drug use and criminal activity information, 129; providing information, justice and relief, 126–128 Victims’ murder trial experiences: as bringing meaning and purpose to death, 142–144; construction of victim identity, 143; counselors and, 133; defendants’ mistruths and secondary victimization in, 148; detectives and, 133, 136; disappointments, 129–130, 133–137; expectations, 12–13, 97–99, 126–129, 140–142; of giving victim impact statements in, 144–145; information revealed in, 126–130, 132, 140–142, 148; overview, 12–13, 126, 147–148; post-trial phase, 129; research on, 126; as status elevation ceremony, 144, 148; status restoration ceremony for, 126–127; victim accounts of, 125, 129, 131–148; of wanting plea bargain and not trial, 145–146 Victims’ rights: investigation information and, 70, 77, 177; in police investigations, 50–51; survivorcriminal justice system relationship

216

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and, 4, 177–178; survivors’ satisfaction with criminal justice system and, 1, 5; victims’ bill of rights, 1, 51–52; victims wanting to be informants and, 70 Victims’ rights law: death notifications and, 16–17; law enforcement stage of criminal justice system and, 78–79; prosecutor selection by victim and, 84; in research on survivor-criminal justice system relationship, 5–6, 13n2; on right to see deceased’s body, 59; on right to speedy trial, 142; victims’ conflicts with police in murder investigations and, 78–79

Victims’ rights movement, 177 Victims’ trial experiences: Hollywood portrayals of, 126; overview, 126; research on, 126. See also Victims’ murder trial experiences Victims working on murder cases: as giving meaning to victims, 150–157; good parents don’t give up as reason for, 152–153; limitations of, 153–154; sense of ownership in, 151–152

Weitz, R., 179 Wellman, Ashley, 166, 169 Wemmers, Jo-Anne, 6, 7

About the Book

In After Homicide, Sarah Goodrum examines the experiences of the families of murder victims as they encounter detectives, prosecutors, counselors, and others in the criminal justice system. Goodrum traces each step of a murder investigation and trial, drawing on personal accounts and other primary sources. Based on extensive field research, her book is a uniquely comprehensive look at how the families of homicide victims are helped, and sometimes hindered, by the justice system.

Sarah Goodrum is professor of criminology and criminal justice at the University of Northern Colorado.

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