4.2.12 WC: 191694 Dealing with the family of homicide victims—then experiencing it Whenever I defend an accused killer, I’m asked how it feels to be up against the family of the victim. It’s a hard question, even when asked in the abstract. In one case I was confronted directly by the mother of the victim, who thrust a photograph of her murdered son in my face. My client was a woman who had admittedly shot and killed her husband. She claimed that she had killed him in self defense after he tried to kill her. The problem was that the evidence showed that after she emptied her gun into his head, she reloaded and emptied it again into his body. She was found guilty of premeditated murder and asked me to try to get the conviction reversed or reduced to manslaughter. I argued the appeal in the Maryland Court of Appeals. I was satisfied that I had done the best I could with a difficult fact pattern. As I was leaving the courtroom feeling pretty good about myself, an elderly woman approached me. “You did a fine job, sir,” she began. I thanked her and started to walk away. “The man she murdered was my son,” she politely continued, “and I want you to know that my son never tried to kill her.” She looked me straight in the eye and persisted: “He would never do such a thing. He was a fine young man. She was just trying to get rid of him. I want you to know the truth regardless of how the court decides the case.” She showed me his picture: “Look at him. Look at his eyes and tell me whether you think he could try to kill her.” I looked at the picture and simply said “I’m sorry for your loss.” The woman began to cry as she walked away. I couldn’t sleep for several days as the picture of the sobbing mother holding her dead son’s photograph kept popping into my head. Maybe he hadn’t tried to kill her. Maybe my client made up the story to justify a cold-blooded murder. Maybe not. Nice looking people often do unnice things. You can’t tell a killer by his eyes—or by his mother. I coul