Twelve people,
ordinary citizens, accepted the ultimate challenge of a civilized
society. They sat through five months of grueling testimony in
the Scott Peterson trial in order to defend truth.
There is
something immediate and real about sitting in the jury box,
examining bits of concrete, clothing, and recorded phone
conversations, searching for truth. When the prosecution
passed the peasant maternity blouse thought to have been worn by
Laci shortly before her murder, one juror burst into tears.
Literally touching the truth can be painful.
The Peterson
verdict makes me think back to another trial I witnessed firsthand
in 2001, where Dr. John Biskind was accused of letting his patient
die. Like Laci, his patient LouAnne was pregnant.
In order to prove
their case against Dr. Biskind, prosecutors needed to prove the age
of LouAnne’s baby. Twelve jurors focused on a description of
the proper use of ultrasound to measure the widest part of the
baby’s temple, slightly above the eyes. The expert witness
assured them further measurements of the baby’s waist and femur
could be used to confirm an estimated age.
The jury listened
intently. The truth seemed to be that LouAnne’s baby had been
25 to 26 weeks old, at the age of viability, when, under ordinary
circumstances the baby could have survived outside the mother’s
womb. But these were not ordinary circumstances.
Scott Peterson
and Dr. Biskind were both convicted by juries. Both prosecutors won
their cases. Two trials, two mothers, two babies, and four
deaths. But oh, the difference in truth.
You see, as
tragic as his death was, at least Connor had a name. He is
remembered in the hearts of people who wanted him, and he is honored
by a nation who grieved when his little body was found on the
shore of
San Francisco
Bay. Laci’s baby was a victim. And Scott will pay the
price for his murder.
LouAnne’s baby
was measured and counted and aged. But he…or she…was never
named. Prosecutors in the Biskind trial were under a strict
order from the judge not to make the trial about the baby.
Just figure out how old “it” was…and then move on.
Later in the
trial, when prosecutors described the death of “it”, they explained
how the broken leg bone of the baby could have ripped a hole in
LouAnne’s uterus as the doctor pulled it out. And the metal
tool that broke the leg bone…and crushed the skull of “it”…that
sharp metal tool might have cut into LouAnne and caused the uterine
wound that made her bleed to death.
The Peterson
trial was about two people, Laci and Connor, who each died a brutal
death.
The Biskind trial
was about one person, LouAnne…and “It”. LouAnne died a painful
and undeserved death, and Dr. Biskind was convicted of this crime.
“It” never died, because “It” was supposed to die.
When “It” was
measured at the trial…her little head, her tummy, her legs and
arms…she was a fully-formed picture on an ultrasound with a beating
heart. But when time came to describe her death in the trial,
she became a fetus…a linguistic charade that snuffed out her
humanity, a life summed up by a medical examiner in three words of
dispassionate science…a “Product of Conception”…or more simply
said…“It.”
Is this the truth
that we require of juries? Is the truth a matter of declaring
what you want, even if the evidence proves otherwise? If you
name him Conner, then he was killed. If she was only an “It,”
then she never was…and she never died.
This week, just
as Americans work to make peace with the conclusion of the Peterson
trial, the brutal truth we work so hard to avoid has been savagely
resurrected on the front page of national newspapers.
Another mother,
Bobby Jo Stinnett, was murdered. Her fetus? Her product
of conception? Her “It”? It lived.
Bobby Jo died.
But because someone wanted her fetus enough to kill her for it, to
take it by force from the womb, a grateful father has been reunited
with his baby…Victoria Jo Stinnett.
In Kansas,
another jury will eventually convene in another trial, with another
long trail of evidence leading to the conviction of a murderer.
And as the jury weighs the evidence of this unspeakable crime, our
nation will once again be faced with a serious truth that refuses to
die.
The definition of
life is not fluid…changeable from one trial to the next…based on
whether we wanted to receive the life…or not. Life, like
truth, exists of its own volition…separate from our juries and
verdicts…life is. And truth is.
No amount of
evidence and testimony will ever be enough to reach truth if we
close our eyes and hearts. The greatest challenge for a jury
in a civilized society is not to determine truth, but to open its
eyes to the truth in plain sight…and accept it.
