7 Consecutive Life Sentences + 140 Years

..... and all I feel is empty.

Everything I've thought and felt returned today, with a vengeance.  I was frightened and tearful and weary and anxious and angry and sad.  It was overwhelmingly sad.

A 23 year old kid young man young adult human being will spend the rest of his life in a box.  There will be no trial on the 49 Federal counts brought against the gunman who killed 6 and wounded 13 of us exactly 19 months ago.  The perpetrator admitted his guilt and, in doing so, took responsibility for his actions. 

I thought I'd feel better.

Unlike previous hearings, we were wanded before we entered the courtroom, yet there were far fewer armed Federal marshals lining the walls. There was a lot of furniture moving and equipment readying and then the reporters took their seats and a quiet solemnity fell.  There were no instructions to be silent; it just felt right.  We stood as Judge Burns entered, and then I started to cry.

Dr. Christina Pietz, the treating psychologist at United States Medical Center for Federal Prisoners, was the one and only witness.  Judge Burns attested to having read - more than once - the 2000 pages of documentation which she had submitted to bolster her testimony.  Nothing was being taken for granted; everything was taken seriously. 

Mary Sue Feldmeier, our Assistant United States Attorney, asked the questions.  The answers just made me cry harder.

He'd been depressed since his junior year in high school.  His friends were so worried they instituted a suicide watch. He heard voices, and wondered if his parents heard them, too.  There was no evidence that he was treated for his behavior.

I didn't know that my heart could feel heavier, but her testimony proved me wrong.  He failed to kill Gabby... and he thinks he's a failure, because that was the plan and he fell short.  He feels remorse for those whose lives he took.... especially the child's.

I think about that child every single day.  I miss that child every single day.  How dare he have any thoughts about her at all.... even those thoughts... but why not, because, as Dr. Pietz testified, "he is becoming human." 

What was he, then, when he filled his Glock, model 19, 9mm, semi-automatic weapon with 32 bullets? 

He has "a serious mental illness and situational depression."  An officer sits across from him 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.  His situation isn't going to change.  "I'm  22," he told Dr. Pietz last year, "and this is it."

In some ways, the death penalty might have been more merciful. 

But I wasn't looking for mercy this morning in the Federal Courthouse in downtown Tucson.  Mercy is too nuanced for the judicial system.  Mercy is, I think, what I'm feeling around the edges of my heart lately.  Mercy was in the tone of Judge Burns's inquiries of the defendant; there was something fatherly about the interactions that made me even sadder.

Where was all this concern, all this attention, before the voices and the shooter combined to kill my little friend?  Did the parents not have any friends or relatives who could have... should have... intervened?  Why didn't the seller-of-bullets-at-the-second-Walmart act as responsibly as the fellow  at the first Walmart, when the shooter sought to purchase ammunition that morning?  Stan saw something in his eyes and refused to make the sale.  He's not looking for notoriety; he told me that he was just doing his job. Would that others had done theirs.

The shooter's story is one of disposal, of being unattended, of being dismissed.  He has no viable defense, once he waived an insanity plea.  He is convicted of killing, intimidating, intending to kill and he'll spend the rest of his life folding towels and t-shirts for the prison shower room, or stamping return addresses on out-going mail.... all alone.... in a box... without contact with other prisoners.... for his own safety.

The absurdities are overwhelming, but mostly there's the emptiness.  What I want, I cannot have.  This will have to suffice.