Revisiting Freedom

            I attend a second hearing of Williams months after the first. I enter the court much in the same fashion as before, yet now knowing to a degree what to expect. Everything happens in exactly the same way. The casual conversations before the hearing begins, the gavel pounding, all rising, then sitting back down. It all happens like clockwork. I watch Williams enter the court from a side door once again, still in shackles and still in that tan prison jumpsuit with the stenciled letters. He sits.

                 Last time I saw this man it was winter. I was getting ready for Christmas. Fall quarter had just ended. Now it’s spring. I’m getting ready for spring quarter and winter quarter just ended. That’s ten weeks of classes, countless exams, papers, parties, dinners out, movies, waking up early for work, trying to figure out what to eat for lunch, and going to the library. For me, a good amount of time has passed and yet in this courtroom, free of windows or any views into the outside world, everything feels entirely the same. The courtroom staff sits in the same places as before, the attorneys in their dark suits are indistinguishable between episodes and Williams himself looks the same, hair still short, glasses still sitting on his face, the same placid expression. Everyone, despite the months passing, is still here for the same purpose, to decide the fate of one man.

                 Today on the stand are two expert witnesses, each flown to across the country and then some simply to talk about Dependent Personality Disorder and whether or not Williams has it. If it is ruled that he does, Williams would have technically been “dependent” on his wife, who has already plead guilty to the murder. She would have been the ringleader and Williams, just a player in her game, according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual-5 (DSM-5). The five is in regard to the book being in its fifth iteration, of which one expert witness contributed authorship to.

                 So these two talking heads sit next on the stand behind a plethora of stuffed three-ring binders of which prosecuting attorneys call to their attention certain sections repeatedly. They critique their credentials, their methodology of psychoanalysis, the disorder itself and how Williams scored on several tests. It’s a big back and forth of JDs trying to figure out what PhDs do in the name of justice. The attorneys are really doing their job and pressing these witnesses on every detail of their work, down to how the psychoanalysis tests were carried out to a lack of a certain optional summarizing report that was not written on account of laziness. This expert witness had no excuse for that one.

                 Meanwhile, Williams sits silently readjusting his glasses, listening the whole time about how he may or may not have a specific mental disorder. He even listens to how his IQ test showed low results. Who was Martin Luther King Jr? he was asked on the test. ‘A man who wanted to change things,’ he responded. This docked him a point. How is that supposed to make him feel? Then again he is a likely murderer. I don’t feel that bad.

                 The bigger picture, however, is that this little hearing that I am attending is a tiny piece of a massive puzzle. A massive puzzle that Williams and all the staff in this courtroom are overseeing and putting together collectively, albeit arguments arise over which pieces go where. In addition, this is a puzzle that began in 2005, when the murder itself took place. It is now 2014, nine years later, and Williams is beginning his trial. That’s nine years of waiting in a cell to hear other people decide your fate. Nine years of waking up every morning to a gray ceiling and wondering what’s happened. Nine years of your life being gone. Ten years ago, Williams was in the military, probably feeling lucky to be stationed in Hawaii. He had a wife and a daughter. It felt to me like the three months that elapsed between hearings was long. That must have been the blink of an eye for Williams.

         Zoom out once again and it become clear that Williams could face a life in prison without the possibility for parole. That would make these last nine years for Williams feel like the last few months for me. On the other hand, he could be sentenced to death. While this may sound like a quick exit, it could take up to twenty years for his execution to actually be carried out. That’s twice as long as since the crime happened until now. In either case, Williams will likely be sitting in a cell for the rest of his life waiting to die, a prospect that drives any person, free or otherwise, a little crazy.

         That craziness has a name now, Death Row Phenomenon. It’s the idea that inmates go a little insane just from the prospect of certain death while they wait on death row, powerless. Maybe guilt catches up and overpowers the condemned. Maybe it’s the inherent desire to remain alive that prompts the insanity. Either way it’s completely understandable something that I’d rather not think about.

         Once again the courtroom goes on recess for lunch. Williams is lead back into a holding cell and I meet my father once again to eat. We open the door to his office, walk down a hallway, through a couple more doors for security and the sun hits our faces, traffic blares by. The sun and traffic that Williams may seldom if ever feel and experience for the rest of his life. We, however, are simply free.

Works Cited

Johnson, Kevin. "Prisoners' Time Spent on Death Row Doubles –

USATODAY.com." Prisoners' Time Spent on Death Row Doubles - USATODAY.com. USA Today, 23 Aug. 2008. Web. 14 May 2014. <http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-07-23-Death-row-time_N.htm>.

Smith, Amy. "Not Waiving but Drowning: The Anatomy of Death Row Syndrome and

                 Volunteering for Execution." BU Pub. Int. LJ 17 (2007): 237.