PrawfsBlawg: A Hit Man's Story: legal v. journalistic truth

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Sunday, October 14, 2012

A Hit Man's Story: legal v. journalistic truth

I highly recommend an article in the Oct. 15, 2012, edition of The New Yorker, by Nadya Labi, headlined The Hitman?s Tale: From Honors Student to Hired Killer (subscription required).? Labi tells the story of Vincent Smothers, who is serving life for eight murders in Detroit that he carried out as a hired hit man.? I plan to write separately on some legal issues raised in the article.? For now, I want to offer the observation that this sort of high quality journalism has a greater capacity to present us with the truth of an offender such as Smothers than the legal process does, which strikes me as both inevitable and unfortunate.

????Most of Smothers' victims were drug dealers; a rival dealer paid Smothers to kill them.? His last victim, however, was a police officer's wife; the officer hired Smothers to kill her.? Smothers' guilt is not in doubt for any of the murders, even by Smothers himself, and his sentence is not open to challenge.? Yet in Labi's nuanced profile, Smothers comes across, at least to me, as somewhat sympathetic, and certainly human in the sense of possessing a recognizable moral capacity for reflection and regret.? He describes feeling great remorse now for his killings, and for having instantly regretted murdering the officer's wife because he recognized her as an umabiguously innocent victim.? (He rationalized killing his drug-dealer victims with the view that everyone who enters the drug trade knows that it ends one of two ways?with one's murder or imprisonment.)? He concludes that for his crimes there is simply "no atonement."? (Which, in turn, led him to attempt suicide.)

????What strikes me about all this is that this portrait of Smothers is credible precisely because it is journalism rather than a part of legal process.? The criminal justice system would have a very hard time giving us a comparably subtle and credible portrait of a serial killer's conscience, even though that conscience is (or can be) legally relevant to sentencing.? ?The very fact that Smothers is speaking to a journalist, and speaking post-conviction, makes his claims, and the broader portrait, credible.? Smothers' same narrative offered during trial or sentencing, on the other hand, would be equally credible to few people if anyone?even though it would be equally true. ?In that sense, the legal process just doesn't have to some the truth about some legally relevant things as other ways (or venues) in which we reach conclusions about truth.? Add to that the additional barrier of (or for) judges and prosecutors.? They hold the most power over a defendant's legal fate yet are the least inclined, by their professional/political roles, to accept a subtle, morally complex story such as Labi presents about Smothers.? Much more likely to prevail is a more typical, incomplete (if not inaccurate) legal narrative of "a cold blooded killer" or the like.? Even if it doesn't change the legal outcome--even if life without parole is appropriate for an eight-time murderer with a conscience--there's something lost in the reductive accounts that legal systems (and other, lesser forms of journalism) provide.

Posted by Darryl Brown on October 14, 2012 at 01:07 PM | Permalink

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Comments

1. You wrote: Most of Smothers' victims were drug dealers; a rival dealer paid Smothers to kill them.

Really? Although I recognize that this was the message the article tried to convey, I didn't pick that up. Aside from Cobb, the article focuses on the Runyon Street killing. Four people died. Even assuming that the target was a drug dealer - hardly supported the article - that adds at least 3 more innocents to his total. Just to start.

2. You wrote: Yet in Labi's nuanced profile, Smothers comes across, at least to me, as somewhat sympathetic, and certainly human in the sense of possessing a recognizable moral capacity for reflection and regret.

Which part? His reaction after his first murder-for-hire: "[e]motionally, it didn't affect me." At his sentencing "[h]e declined to address his victims," i.e., apologize. In his chance to actually take action (as opposed to talking) showing remorse - testify regarding the murders he willingly disclosed to the New Yorker and free Sanford - "he pleaded the Fifth."

3. You wrote: He describes feeling great remorse now for his killings, and for having instantly regretted murdering the officer's wife because he recognized her as an umabiguously innocent victim.

If he was so remorseful, why didn't this come out before he was arrested? And if he feels so bad, why not testify on Sanford's behalf.

This is not the Wire, and Smothers is not Omar. He's a smart person who killed real people for $5,000 a shot. He is not sympathetic; he's a sociopath.

Posted by: Charles | Oct 14, 2012 10:17:49 PM

There are a lot of differences between stories as told in journalism (especially long-form journalism) and stories as told in litigation. One significant difference derives from the general prohibition on character evidence. Much of what this article is presenting (or trying to present), while presenting a "complete picture," is the type of character/propensity evidence that we don't like.

Posted by: Howard Wasserman | Oct 14, 2012 10:50:57 PM

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