“I don’t think she’s ever met anybody like us,” Andy said.
Sujatha’s first call was to Conor’s defense attorney, Greg Cummings. After she talked to him, she immediately called us. “Okay, I have some news, but it’s sort of delicate.” Every time she called about something she thought would be upsetting, she spoke with great sensitivity. “In order for me to have access to all the evidence and all the materials, I’m technically going to have to be part of the defense team. I wouldn’t be a traditional member of the defense team,” she said. “I’d really occupy a space somewhere in the middle—including both Conor’s interests and Ann’s—so I can help everyone. They’ll bring me on as an expert in restorative justice, but if that bothers you guys at all, then I won’t do it.”
“No, that’s great news, right?” I asked.
“I just wanted you to know it doesn’t mean I’m Conor’s defense lawyer. I’m not going to defend him in any way. I’m only doing this so I can have access to information and preserve the confidentiality of the process.”
“That’s fine,” Andy said. “We get that.” And it was true. We completely trusted Sujatha, this person whom we’d never met, this attorney from the other side of the country who reluctantly got involved in our case against her better judgment.
What could go wrong?
“Do you want to publicize it in the newspaper?” my handbell director asked me a few days before the memorial concert. It was a disconcerting question. On November 14 Good Shepherd planned to hold “Joy of My Heart: A Musical Memorial” at the church. This concert had begun as a way to publicly perform the handbell song written to honor Ann, but it had grown when the Men’s Choir and the Youth Chorale also decided to honor her. Three of the children in the choir even planned on playing instruments—a cello and two violins.
Because the Tallahassee Democrat has a religious section on Saturdays, my director wondered if we should allow them to do a story on it to raise community awareness. I wasn’t so sure. We’d avoided all media up until this point because I always figured they would misquote us—an inevitability I just didn’t need. I wasn’t sure if more publicity for the concert was worth the probable interview request. And so, in the end, we publicized the concert and gave the reporter a copy of our talk to use for quotations.
When the night finally arrived, the sanctuary began to fill. Once again I was deeply touched by my church family’s commitment to remembering Ann and loving us so well. In the foyer Michael and Julie McBride had set up a little table that had a stack of petitions that simply stated: “I agree with the Grosmaires in their pursuit of restorative justice in the case against Conor McBride.”
As concertgoers came into the church, the McBrides asked them to sign this petition, which we planned to give to Jack Campbell eventually. So far they had experienced great success in getting the communities of faith to support the petition efforts. When Michael asked the pastor of First Baptist if his church would announce and support the petition, his immediate response was, “Absolutely.” The people at Good Shepherd gathered around the table and formed a line to wait on the opportunity to sign the piece of paper.
This touched the McBrides, who were having trouble finding peace. Michael said he couldn’t help but think distressing thoughts. He’d ask himself, Where did I fail as a father? Why did I lose my faith? What could I have done to prevent this? Why did I not see it coming? Why did I own a gun? Though the community gathered around him and Andy met with him regularly, Michael began to realize he needed something more.
After taking the petition to various churches—and parking lots—Julie took one to work. There, her coworkers happily signed—including the daughter of State Attorney Willie Meggs, who would later have to authorize Conor’s sentence. Even though restorative justice might be unusual for our area of the country, we could at least show him that the community supported it.
It was poignant to be able to perform the handbell song dedicated to Ann, and when the children sang a song it split me wide open. It was called “Take These Wings,” and was about someone finding a dying bird on the ground. The bird gently encourages the person who found her to learn to fly, see, and sing—to really enjoy life while we have it. I’m not sure why it touched me so deeply, but something about the innocence of the children singing it combined with Ann’s love of birds struck me in just the right way.
At the end of the concert, we were given some time to thank everyone. “I can’t tell you how much it means to us to see so many of you coming out to honor our daughter,” I said, before Andy told the story of Ann asking him from her hospital bed to forgive Conor.
“I didn’t think it was possible,” he said. “But we have forgiven Conor, and we would love to pursue restorative justice for him.”
“Some of you may have noticed the petitions in the foyer,” I said. “Please take a moment and sign them on your way out.” Afterward, I noticed the line of people waiting to sign the petition snaked through the foyer.
In the spring of 2011, we went to Allison DeFoor’s downtown office for a meeting with Allison, Julie and Michael McBride, and Greg Cummings. Andy (who was in Fort Lauderdale) and Sujatha (who was in Oakland) participated in a conference call. It was close to a year after Ann had died.
“So, how are we going to do this?” Allison began. “How are we going to have a restorative justice process in a state that doesn’t have a restorative justice process, in a county that doesn’t have a state attorney set up to deal with this? How are we going to present this to the state attorney’s office in a way that will make them buy into it even though they’ve never done it before?”
The three lawyers—Allison, Greg, and Sujatha—didn’t speak for a few moments as they pondered what seemed to be an impossible situation. We needed a place where all of us could be together in the same place, but where the conversation would be considered “privileged.”
“I’ve never practiced law in Florida,” Sujatha began. “So why don’t you guys begin by telling me about the Florida process? I’m just not that familiar with it.”
Greg and Allison discussed the normal steps of the criminal justice system. Suddenly Allison smacked the table and exclaimed, “The pre-plea conference!”
“Right,” Greg said. “That should work.”
“Explain to me exactly how it works,” Sujatha said.
“It’s different in every state,” said Allison, “but in the state of Florida, the state attorney and the defense attorney get together for a meeting called the pre-plea conference. Anybody can attend, but usually just the two attorneys meet to go through all the files. Conor could technically go, and everything he says would be confidential.”
“Right,” Greg added. “It’s privileged, which means if Conor were to say, ‘I robbed a bank that day too,’ they couldn’t charge him with robbing a bank. He could be free to say whatever he wanted without it affecting his case.”
“And we would be there too?” Andy asked. Even though his voice came through the speaker sounding tinny, I could tell it was full of hope.
“Yes,” Allison said. “Anybody can be at a pre-plea conference. That’s the beauty of it.”
Allison was—as Deacon Marcus had promised—a unique, unforgettable man. Andy and I have compared him to a grenade rolling into a room. Here’s the idea—boom—here’s the solution.
“I have to admit,” Sujatha said, “it sounds like it would really work.” Traditionally, no one but the defense attorney and the prosecutor would attend this meeting . . . not even the defendant. Since nothing from the meeting is admissible at trial, it was the perfect solution. We decided that Conor, the McBrides, the two attorneys, Andy, and I would attend the meeting. We talked about having a community representative. We made a note to contact the local domestic violence support group to see if it were possible to have someone from that community represented. Given our short time frame, Sujatha had concerns about how it would work to include them. In established restorative justice practices, the com
munity representatives are trained and understand and support restorative justice. It might be difficult, if not impossible, to find someone willing to participate on such short notice.
“The next step,” Sujatha said, “is for the Grosmaires to write Jack Campbell a letter asking him for this restorative justice process.”
“We started a petition, actually,” I said. “We have more than a thousand signatures from people in the community who were willing to say, ‘I agree with the Grosmaires in their pursuit of restorative justice in the case against Conor McBride.’ ”
“Where’d you get them?”
“At a concert, around the community, in our neighborhood,” Andy said. “We’ve been collecting them for months.” In fact, the McBrides had done an amazing job reaching the community with our message of restorative justice. Once, when they were doing a petition drive in a parking lot, we met some Quakers who were very supportive of our effort.
“Definitely include those,” Sujatha said.
“Any advice on what to say to Jack?” I asked. I realized that he was the last barrier in getting Conor’s case processed this way.
“Mention that the conversation needs to be privileged, so he’ll understand why we want to talk at the pre-plea conference,” Greg said.
“But you don’t want it to sound too lawyerly,” Allison said. “He’ll see through it and know we’re helping you write it.”
We talked for a while, framing out the contents of the letter. After we settled on language, Sujatha paused.
“Now it’s up to you,” she said. “You have to convince Jack Campbell to give this a chance.”
CHAPTER 14
My hands paused over the keyboard as I thought about what combinations of words might inspire Jack Campbell to seriously consider our request. As the Leon County assistant state attorney, he was no stranger to North Florida’s high-profile murder cases. But he’d never handled a murder case this way.
“Neither has Sujatha,” Andy reminded me. “Just write it. Worst he can say is no.”
“No one has said no to us up to this point. If we ask reasonably, he’ll have to say yes,” I said.
As I sat there looking at the screen, the sheer improbability of what I was asking threatened me. Is there a way to reasonably ask a state attorney to use restorative justice for a capital crime? Jack Campbell had made it clear that he would take care of everything for us. He was used to driving the bus and having the victims come along for the ride. I tried to push the negative thoughts from my head. It was getting late, and I wanted to get this done before I went to sleep.
“As you know, we are interested in pursuing a course that includes restorative justice,” I wrote, before continuing to explain our situation. When I got to the end, I signed it, “Sincerely, Andy and Kate Grosmaire.”
The next day, Andy drove it—as well as all our petitions—to his office.
“This is for Jack Campbell,” Andy said as he handed the thick packet of papers to the receptionist, who politely accepted the package and went back to her work.
Days turned into weeks. After a month with no response, Andy suggested we e-mail him.
“I don’t want to annoy the man who holds Conor’s future in his hands,” I said.
Finally, the amount of time with no response became so unreasonable that a gentle e-mail nudge seemed appropriate. Once again we carefully composed a note to him, which we sent through Conor’s attorney, Greg.
“You’re not going to believe this,” Greg said. “Jack never got your letter and never saw the petitions.”
“What happened to them?” Andy asked. “Why do you think I drove them down to his office and hand-delivered them?”
“They misplaced them,” Greg said, trying to smooth over the loss. Julie and Andy had gone to so much trouble to collect them all. Was it for nothing?
Well, we knew it was definitely not for nothing. The McBrides had been deeply affected by the signature gathering for the petition. They hadn’t been churchgoers throughout their marriage. In fact, Michael had proclaimed that “there is no God” after his brother had unexpectedly passed away from a brain aneurism when Conor was a boy. As the McBrides collected signatures for the petitions, however, they saw firsthand the strength and love of a Christian community. Together, they began to search for a message of faith by attending the Good Shepherd six o’clock mass. Michael still maintained that he was not looking for religion, but he began to believe the statement of faith proclaimed each week had been written just for him.
“It’ll be okay,” I told Andy, placing my hand on his shoulder. “So now that we know Jack has our request, what do we do?”
“Wait for his response,” Greg said.
There’s a reason wait is a four-letter word.
To my surprise, however, I got a very brief, perfunctory e-mail from Jack later that very day.
“Contact your restorative justice expert,” he wrote, “and proceed with your restorative justice circle.”
CHAPTER 15
We were so excited. Jack Campbell had given Sujatha permission to contact the Leon County jail and do whatever it took to make the circle happen; to be made easier (we hoped) since the man who ran the jail, Sheriff Larry Campbell, was Jack’s father.
The circle would take place at the prison itself. It was much easier to keep Conor where he was and bring the rest of us in than it was to arrange to transport him. A deputy sheriff would be right outside the room where we’d meet. All the details were falling into place.
Now that the “restorative justice circle” had been scheduled, Sujatha had to make her way from Oakland all the way to Tallahassee.
As she began making her travel arrangements, we insisted she stay with us during her visit. Although we had only spoken over the phone, we felt so close to her. She had been a true advocate for our cause. It never occurred to me that it might be seen as inappropriate, or that people would have seen this as a professional relationship with boundaries and rules that needed to be respected. Sujatha was reminded by a colleague that restorative justice is about breaking boundaries, and our case certainly fit that description. Sujatha accepted our invitation.
It was Father’s Day, and I was upstairs rushing to put the finishing touches on the guest room. I often say, “I am no Martha,” referring to the sister in the gospel who always made sure the meals were prepared and dishes cleaned. But I’m no Martha Stewart either. The “guest room” was nothing more than Allyson’s old room, which hadn’t changed much since she left for college. No coverlet and bevy of matching pillows with Anne Geddes baby portraits on the walls. A simple quilt, and one pillow. I did find a small basket that I filled with little niceties. Downstairs, I heard Andy opening the door and having a conversation. I went to the top of the stairs, where I saw Sujatha for the first time. She was short with caramel skin, dark hair streaked with silver, and dark eyes that gleamed even after her cross-country flight. Under the sparkle of her nose stud was a broad smile.
“Is it still okay that I stay here?” she asked, walking up the stairs to greet me.
Seeing her filled me with an immense sense of relief. She seemed to emanate wisdom, knowledge, and compassion. When she reached the top of the stairs, I couldn’t help but embrace her. As I was in her arms, I was almost overcome by her strong, calming, maternal presence that made it seem that everything was going to work out.
As Sujatha settled in her room to take a nap after her flight, I brought up dinner plans. “Are you a vegetarian? Do you eat eggs, milk?” In all our phone conversations, the focus had been on us, our needs, and the case. Sujatha talked about her life in the context of the work that she did, but bits and pieces of her personal life peeked through. We knew she was born in America to Indian parents.
“Well, yes,” she said, “but just make whatever you like. I’ll find something to eat.”
Thankfully, I had anticipated the possibility that she was a vegetarian and had planned dinner accordingly.
At dinner we ta
lked about everything. She asked about Conor and what our relationship had been like in the past.
“We always liked Conor,” Andy said. “In fact, he gave us quite a scare a few weeks before prom.” He proceeded to tell Sujatha about the car accident he’d had about a mile from our house.
“We always said it was a miracle that God saved his life,” I said. “But it’s hard now . . . now that we know that he’d go on to take Ann’s life. Sometimes I wonder why God didn’t just let Conor die that night. Then I’d still have my daughter.”
Sujatha listened compassionately, and Andy talked about how God had a plan for Conor’s life, referring to Romans 8:28: “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”
I concluded that “why?” is not the worst question you can ask, but it very well might be the least productive. Sometimes there’s never a good answer.
We also delved more into Sujatha’s background. “Are you Buddhist?”
“Yes,” she answered, opening up to us. “I grew up Hindu, but with no Hindu temple in our small Pennsylvania town, I actually attended Catholic mass many Sundays with a friend of mine.”
We all smiled at the “coincidence.”
In our increasingly segregated society—where you rarely meet people with whom you disagree—it’s not common to have so many people of different faiths pulling on the same oars.
I’m not one of those people who thinks that beliefs and theology don’t matter, but our efforts in the restorative justice arena remind me of American Congregationalist theologian Lyman Abbott’s words from 1893: “All truth is ours, gather it where you will . . . Yea, whosoever honestly, earnestly studies the book of nature or book of history or the book of the human heart, and endeavors to find God’s truth, is speaking some word that the world needs to hear; and every word of truth is a word of God. And it belongs to us.”
Forgiving My Daughter's Killer Page 14