A juror's reflections on the death penalty

Lindy Lou Isonhood grew up in a town where the death penalty was a fact of life, part of the unspoken culture. But after she served as a juror in a capital murder trial -- and voted "yes" to sentencing a guilty man to death -- something inside her changed. In this engaging and personal talk, Isonhood reflects on the question she's been asking herself in the 20 years since the trial: Am I a murderer?

It was a Thursday,

June the 23rd, 1994.

(Sighs)

"Collect your belongings.
You are free to go.

When escorted outside,
go directly to your car.

Do not talk to reporters."

My head is spinning,

my heart is racing,

I can't get a breath.

I just want out of there.

When I get to my car,

I throw everything on the back,

and I just collapse
into the driver's seat.

"I can't do this.

I can't go home to my family

that I haven't seen in a week

and pretend to be happy."

Not even their love and support

could help me at this particular time.

We had just sentenced a man to death.

Now what?

Just go home and wash dishes?

You see, in Mississippi,

the death penalty is like a part
of our unspoken culture.

The basic logic is, if you murder someone,

then you're going to receive
the death penalty.

So when the jury selection
process took place,

they asked me,

"Could you,

if the evidence presented
justified the death penalty,

could you deliver,

rationally and without reservations,

a penalty of death?"

My answer was an astounding "yes,"

and I was selected as Juror Number 2.

The trial started.

From the evidence being presented

and from the pictures of the victim,

my first response was,
"Yes, this man is a monster,

and he deserves the death penalty."

For days, I sat and looked at his hands,

the ones that yielded the knife,

and against his pasty white skin,

his eyes ...

Well, he spent endless days in his cell,

no sunlight,

so his eyes were as black
as his hair and his mustache.

He was very intimidating,

and there was absolutely
no doubt in his guilt.

But regardless of his guilt,

as the days passed,

I began to see this monster

as a human being.

Something inside of me was changing
that I just didn't understand.

I was beginning to question myself

as to whether or not I wanted
to give this man the death penalty.

Jury deliberations began,

and the judge gave us jury instructions

and it was to be used as a tool

in how to reach a verdict.

Well, using this tool
only led to one decision,

and that was the death penalty.

I felt backed into a corner.

My head and my heart
were in conflict with each other,

and the thought of the death penalty

made me sick.

However, following
the judge's instructions,

being a law-abiding person,

I gave up.

I gave up and voted along
with the other 11 jurors.

And there it was:

our broken judicial system at work.

So here I am in my car,

and I'm wondering:

How is my life ever going to be the same?

My life was kids, work,
church, ball games --

just your average, normal, everyday life.

Now everything felt trivial.

I was going down this rabbit hole.

The anger, the anxiety,

the guilt, the depression ...

it just clung to me.

I knew that my life had to resume,

so I sought counseling.

The counselor diagnosed me with PTSD

and told me that the best way
to overcome the PTSD

was to talk about the trauma.

However, if I talked or tried
to talk about the trauma

outside her office,

I was shut down.

No one wanted to hear about it.

He was just a murderer. Get over it.

It was then that I decided
to become a silent survivor.

Twelve years later, 2006,

I learned that Bobby Wilcher
had dropped all of his appeals,

and his execution date was approaching.

That was like a punch in the stomach.

All of those buried feelings
just started coming back.

To try and find peace,
I called Bobby's attorney, and I said,

"Can I see Bobby before he's executed?"

Driving to the penitentiary
on the day of his execution,

in my mind,

Bobby was going to be manic.

But, surprisingly, he was very calm.

And for two hours, he and I sat there
and talked about life,

and I got to ask him to forgive me
for my hand in his death.

His words to me were:

"You don't have to apologize.

You didn't put me here.

I did this myself.

But if it'll make you feel better,

I forgive you."

On my way home,

I stopped by a restaurant
and bought a margarita.

(Laughter)

I don't think I could
get one big enough --

(Laughter)

to try and calm down.

My phone rang.

It was Bobby's attorney.

Within two minutes of his execution,

they had given him a stay.

This stay gave me time

to reach out to Bobby.

And as crazy as it may sound,

we became friends.

Three months later,

he was executed
by the State of Mississippi.

I'm here to tell you my story,

because it was precisely 22 years later

that I even wanted to open up
enough to talk about it,

when a friend encouraged me.

"Hey, perhaps you need to talk
to the other jurors.

You've been through the same experience."

Uncertain of what I was after,

I did need to talk to them.

So I set out on my quest,

and I actually found most of them.

The first juror I met

thought that Bobby got what he deserved.

Another juror --

well, they just kind of regretted
that it took so long

to carry the sentence out.

Then one juror, and I don't know
what was wrong with him,

but he didn't remember
anything about the trial.

(Laughter)

Well,

I'm thinking in my mind,

"Jeez, is this the response
I'm gonna get from everybody else?"

Well, thank God for Allen.

Allen was a gentle soul.

And when I talked to him,
he was genuinely upset

about our decision.

And he told me about the day
that the devastation

really set in on him and hit him.

He was listening to the radio,

and the radio had a list of names
of men to be executed

at Parchman Penitentiary.

He heard Bobby's name,

and he then truly realized
what he had done.

And he said, "You know, I had
a responsibility in that man's death."

Now here it is, 20-something years later,

and Allen is still dealing
with that issue.

And he's never told anyone about it,
not even his wife.

He also told me

that if the State of Mississippi
wanted to keep the death penalty,

then hey, they needed to provide
counseling for the jurors.

Then the next juror I met was Jane.

Jane is now totally
against the death penalty,

And there was Bill.

Bill said he had this
crushing depression for weeks,

and when he went back to work,

his colleagues would say
things to him like,

"Hey, did you fry him?"

To them, it was just a joke.

Then there was Jon.

Jon said his decision weighed on him,

and it burdened him daily.

The final juror that I spoke to was Ken.

Ken was the foreman of the jury.

When we sat down to talk,

it was apparent that he was deeply
saddened by what we were required to do.

He relived the day
that he left the courthouse

and he drove home

and he went to put his key
in his door and unlock it,

and he said he literally broke down.

He said he knew that Bobby was guilty,

but the decision he made,

he did not know
if it was the right decision.

And he said that he played it
over and over in his head.

Did we do the right thing?

Did we do the right thing?

Did we do the right thing?

(Sighs)

All those years,

and I finally realized that I was not
the only disillusioned juror.

And we talked about sharing our experience

with potential jurors

to give them some insight
into what to expect,

and to tell them do not be complacent;

to know what you believe;

to know where you stand and be prepared,

because you don't want
to walk in one morning as a juror

and leave at the end of the trial
feeling like a murderer.

Now, through this storm in my life,
I did find some inspiration,

and it came in the form
of my granddaughters.

My 14-year-old granddaughter, Maddie,

was writing an essay
on the death penalty for school,

and she was asking me questions.

Well, it dawned on me
that this child was being raised

in the same eye-for-an-eye culture

as I was,

or had been.

And so I explained my experience
to her this way:

that I had sentenced someone to death

as I served on a jury.

And I asked her,

"Did that make me a murderer?"

She couldn't answer.

I knew then that this topic
needed to be open for discussion.

And guess what happened?

I got invited to speak, just recently,

in an abolitionist community.

While I was there, I got a T-shirt.

It says, "Stop Executions."

Well, when I get home, my 16-year-old
granddaughter was there, Anna,

and she says, "Can I have that shirt?"

Well, I looked at her dad --

her dad is my son --

and I knew that he is still dealing
with this death penalty issue.

So I turned around
and I looked at her, and I said,

"Are you gonna wear this?"

So she turned and she looked
at her dad, and she said,

"Dad, I know how you feel,

but I don't believe in the death penalty."

My son looked at me,

shook his head, and said,

"Thanks, Mom."

And I knew it wasn't a nice "Thanks, Mom."

(Laughter)

So I learned that life
had taught me some lessons.

It taught me, if I had
not served on that jury,

that I would still be of the same mindset.

It also gave me confidence

to be able to see through
the eyes of my granddaughters,

that this younger generation,
they're capable and they're willing

to tackle these difficult social issues.

And because of my experience,

my granddaughters,

they're now more equipped
to stand on their own

and to think for themselves

than to rely on cultural beliefs.

So:

being from a conservative,
Christian family

from a very conservative state
in the United States,

I am here to tell you

that the death penalty has new opponents.

Thank you.

(Applause)