Robert Tanenbaum: Outrage

“I’m sure you are aware of the debate that surrounds the death penalty. Alleged experts face off in debate challenging each other with respect to whether or not the death penalty serves as a legitimate punishment model. For example, is it a deterrent, or not? Is it a form of cruel and unusual punishment, a violation of the eighth amendment? And philosophically, should the state be in the execution business?”

Karp shrugged. “But I leave that for the academics, editorial writers, and policymakers to debate,” he said. “I am not asking you to sentence the defendant, Ahmed Kadyrov, to death to keep him from killing again or as a deterrent to others. I am asking you in the name of the people because it is the only answer that justice will allow.”

Pointing to the photographs that the jury foreman now had back in his hands, Karp continued. “Forgive me for asking this of you one last time, but I want you to put yourself in Olivia Yancy’s place on that terrible day. You’re facedown on your marriage bed. Your wrists are bound behind your back, your ankles bound together. Your clothes have been cut from your body, and then your mother, sixty-year-old Beth Jenkins, walks in. You can only watch helplessly, in terror and in horror, while she is stabbed repeatedly as she fights for her life. As she collapses to the ground, the killer turns toward you, and when you cry out, he tells you to stop or he’s going to cut your fucking head off.”

Karp turned back toward Kadyrov. “And you know in that moment what your fate is going to be. It doesn’t matter if you stop crying and ignore the terror; there’s not going to be any mercy. He’s told you what he’s going to do. So you can only watch, the fear growing, as that man, his knife dripping with the innocent blood of Beth Jenkins, walks toward you. He is a beast. In his eyes, no compassion, only rage and lust and… perhaps more terrifying than all the rest, enjoyment. You know you are going to die. He knows you are going to die. And you both know that it will not be a quick death.”

A woman in the jury cried out, but Karp ignored her. “The defendant is enjoying this so much that he is sexually aroused. Blood and fear and death are his real drug of choice. And when he has acted out his lust, he sits astride you and you feel him grab your hair and yank your head back.”

Karp paused and looked at the floor for a moment before going on. “You know what’s coming even before you feel the first bite of the knife at your throat,” he said. “What goes through your mind? Do you think of your husband and how he will come home to find the women he loved most in the world slaughtered? Do you think of the children you will now never bear? Is there time to regret the joy of the long life you had a right to expect but that is being stolen from you?”

Feeling the emotion rise in him, Karp let it form his words. “Then the agony as the blade cuts deep into your neck and the unspeakable horror when you can’t breathe and you begin to drown in your own blood. And how long do you remain conscious? Long enough that you are aware that this beast, this inhuman creature, is so thoroughly pleased that he degrades you again? That he satisfies his lust in your dying body?”

Karp let the anger ebb as the jurors and many in the gallery reached for tissues to dab at eyes and stifle cries. “I just said that I was asking you to vote for the death penalty,” he said quietly. “But in a way, that is not true. Would it offend your common sense if I suggested to you that it was the defendant who made this choice for you? That when he committed these unspeakable acts, he knew that there could be only one response from civilized society?”

Walking over to the prosecution table, Karp picked up two photographs that had been introduced during Moishe Sobelman’s testimony. One showed the death camp; the other showed what appeared to be seemingly quiet and peaceful farmland.

“Why did the Nazis at Sobibor bulldoze that death camp and try to hide what they had done?” he asked. “It was because they knew that what they had done there went beyond the bounds of all civilized society. That if good people in the world learned of the atrocities they’d committed, there could be only one answer, and that would be to wipe them from the face of the earth as thoroughly as they eliminated all traces of Sobibor. All traces, except the memories of the very few who escaped and survived to bear witness to their atrocities, who held the murderers accountable.”

Karp put the photographs back down and pointed at Kadyrov. “That man seated there, the one who wept on the witness stand and blamed his actions on others, also knew that the decisions he made on that horrible July afternoon-the depravity of the pain and suffering and terror he inflicted, and the joy he took in that-would leave civilized society only one answer, too.”

Karp continued to point until, as though against his will, Kadyrov raised his head, terror on his face. “Yet he continued to think that perhaps he could manipulate the system and convince you, the jurors, that it really wasn’t his fault, to make good, honest people question whether sentencing him to death was the right thing to do,” he said. “And, in doing so, hoped to make a mockery of the system and of you, because he knows, as well as you and I know, that there is only one way to respond to evil of this magnitude, and that is to eradicate it.”

Slowly, Karp lowered his hand and shook his head. “Ladies and gentlemen, I am asking you to invoke the death penalty because it is the only answer to his evil. The defendant knows it. He chose it as surely as he chose to follow Olivia Yancy into her apartment that day. He asked for this, not me.” For several moments, Karp stood facing the jury, looking from one face to the next.

As Karp returned to his seat, Kadyrov sat unmoving, staring straight ahead. But what he saw wasn’t the courtroom but a brightly lit sterile room that smelled of ammonia, deadly chemicals, and fear. A room where they would strap him down and he would die. And when he woke again, it would be dark and cold and forever.