January 2007, Clarion, Pennsylvania

By D. Curtis Aldrich

Last winter, during a particularly nasty cold snap, I spent the better part of a week at the county courthouse. A young man had shot another man in the head, killing him, and the district attorney sought to ensure that the kid got his comeuppance.

It being the job of a newspaper reporter to entertain people with the proceedings of such real-life courtroom drama, I set off, pen and paper in hand, to jot down the details of the trial, during which a handful of strangers would determine the course of the rest of this kid’s life.

The kid wore a nice black suit, nicer than any I’ve owned. His hair was blonde and cropped short. He looked very young, and his skin was pale from being confined inside for so long.

It took me three days to get a clear picture of him. He very much didn’t want his picture taken. My ears froze as I waited in the snow for the sheriff’s deputies to bring the kid in and out of the courthouse each day.

The word “kid” is a relative term, I suppose. At age 18, you’re no longer a kid, according to the law, and - significantly - if you’ve already reached this arbitrary milestone at the time you kill somebody, the powers that be are much more likely to kill you back.

Jesse (that is the kid’s name) was not too far beyond the cusp of government-determined manhood on the night of his crime. But he was beyond the cusp.

Because the murder occurred in 2005 and not earlier, the district attorney had initially been of the opinion that Jesse was old enough to know better and that he was therefore in need of a good slaying of his own.

Fortunately for Jesse, now 21, the more powerful powers that be - the Judge - decided that this particular murder was not quite murderous enough to warrant a second murder, though the retribution would have been government-sanctioned and therefore (we are led to believe) much more moral than the initial murder.

But we are a civilized nation, after all, and we have, to some degree, moved beyond such medieval practices - well, not Texas, but we can’t reasonably expect all of our states to keep up with such enlightened governments as those of Mexico and Venezuela.

Going into the trial, Jesse knew that the worst that they could do to him would be to lock him in a little room until he eventually died on his own. After hearing three days of testimony and lawyers’ speeches, the jury decided that someone should probably get that little room ready.

So it looks like it’s off to the big house for Young Jesse, who will be Old Jesse the next time we see him. In 40 years, maybe; the sentence has yet to be determined. This punishment - for third-degree murder - may appear, at first glance, to be rather mild when compared to the potential dirt nap by needle that a first-degree conviction could earn you in Pennsylvania. But on closer inspection, a quick and relatively painless government murder might not be such a bad alternative.

There is a tacit rule of etiquette that says we are not to discuss some of the more unpleasant experiences a young fresh-faced man may encounter during an extended stay in state prison, so I will not discuss them. But you know what they are.

Still, some would argue that life is worth living under any circumstances. And look on the bright side, some might say: you can really get a lot of reading done in four decades, and when they finally let you out, you can walk into McDonald’s and get the senior-citizen discount, though I think that a felony on your record might disqualify you from that benefit.

Of course, I’m making light of a serious situation. A man was killed, another man will most likely be brutalized in prison, families are understandably upset, and now the rest of us will go about our lives. The attorneys will get their pay checks. The jurors will return to their jobs and their homes and their families. The prothonotary and bailiff will continue to share quiet jokes in the middle of the next murder trial.

The reporters will attend that trial too. Again, they’ll take absent-minded notes, shift noisily on the unforgiving wooden benches, and chat casually about their pets and banana bread recipes during a 15-minute recess. Then they’ll return to their offices and hurriedly type up the facts of the case so that they can get home before their favorite television show comes on.

The readers will pick up their paper the next morning to glance quickly over the story of one man who killed another man in the next town over. Their eyes will rest momentarily on the picture of the killer. They’ll think to themselves for a brief second about how young he looks. They will not think of how afraid the kid is. They’ll finish their coffee, hurry the kids off to school, feed the cat, and go to work.

That night, readers will come home, feed their kids, let the cat out, and turn on the television. They’ll watch a fictional courtroom drama, becoming emotionally involved in the story of the fictional characters. They might even find that they have tears in their eyes. The show will end. The readers will go to sleep.

The next morning, when the readers step outside to get the morning paper, they will breathe deeply and smile, because the chill is gone from the air, and they know spring is coming.