Fraters Libertas

Alfonso Rodriguez, Death, and The Out

The Dru Sjodin case, and the continuing attempt to extract critical information from the suspect, Alfonso Rodriguez has reminded me of a book I read a few years ago, called “Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets.” It was written by David Simon and was the book on which the excellent television series “Homicide” was based. Simon provides a riveting account of the year he spent with the Baltimore Police homicide division. The narrative follows several cases and the various personalities involved, but most interesting are the insights provided into the criminal mind, the investigation process, and interrogation procedures. Here are some excerpts (paragraphs taken out of context from each other):

Ralph Waldo Emerson rightly noted that for those responsible, the act of murder “is no such ruinous thought as poets and romancers will have it; it does not unsettle him, or frighten him from his ordinary notice of trifles.” And while West Baltimore is a universe or two from Emerson’s nineteenth-century Massachusetts hamlet, the observation is still useful. Murder often doesn’t unsettle a man. In Baltimore, it usually doesn’t even ruin his day.

As a result, the majority of those who acknowledge their complicity in a killing must be baited by detectives with something more tempting than penitence. They must be made to believe that their crime is not really murder, that their excuse is both accepted and unique, that they will, with the help of the detective, be judged less evil than they truly are.

Homicide detectives in Baltimore like to imagine a small, open window at the top of a very long wall in the large interrogation room. More to the point, they like to imagine their suspects imagining a small, open window at the top of the long wall. The open window is the escape hatch, the Out. It is the perfect representation of what every suspect believes when he opens his mouth during an interrogation. Every last one envisions himself parrying questions with the right combination of an alibi and excuse; every last one sees himself coming up with the right words, then crawling out the window to go home and sleep in his own bed. More often than not, a guilty man is looking for the Out from his first moments in the interrogation room; in that sense, the window is as much the suspect’s fantasy as the detective’s mirage.

Simon’s scenario is one of a suspect who has waived his Miranda rights - which, amazingly, is something most skillful detectives can accomplish with a suspect who’s a non-professional criminal. Although Rodriguez has already lawyered up and has been through the system many times, I think his metaphor of “the Out” remains applicable. But only with a death penalty.

The detectives (or now, prosecutors) can empathize with him. Tell him it wasn’t his fault the state of Minnesota let him free to rape again, and this time to kill. They can tell him they know he’s not a bad person, he just has a sickness that needs treatment. But, the public is in a frenzy, demanding his death. And the only way they can save him, to get him the nurturing and help he truly deserves (sniff), is by getting his cooperation in finding Dru. And if he doesn’t, there’s no way for them to help him avoid the icy fingers of death closing around his throat.

But right now, without the death penalty there is no “Out” to offer. His recommended sentence will be life without parole, no how much he coooperates. Which is why we may never get to introduce Rodriguez to the experience Simon describes, when the suspect finally caves:

The emotive crest of a guilty man’s performance comes in those cold moments before he opens his mouth and reaches for the Out. Just before a man gives up life and liberty in an interrogation room, his body acknowledges the defeat: His eyes are glazed, his jaw is slack, his body lists against the nearest wall or table edge. Some put their heads against the tabletop to steady themselves. Some become physically sick, holding their stomachs as if the problem were digestive; a few actually vomit.

At the critical moment, the detectives tell their suspects that they really are sick - sick of lying, sick of hiding. They tell them it’s time to turn over a new leaf, that they’ll only begin to feel better when they start to tell the truth. Amazingly enough, many of them actually believe it. As they reach for the ledge of that high window, they believe every last word of it. The Out leads in.