This week and next week I’m going to talk about something very difficult and something that I hope none of you have to experience in your lifetime.
Two weeks ago, my wife and I flew to Seattle along with her mother and younger brother. Unfortunately, this wasn’t a trip for leisure. We were there to attend the trial for the killer of my wife’s twin brother, Tim.
Let me back up a little bit and give you some history. After he graduated high school in 2003, Tim enrolled in the U.S. Army and got stationed to Fort Campbell in Kentucky. He became a mechanic, fixing trucks and other heavy duty vehicles. He was sent to Iraq in 2005 and stayed there for one year, not really seeing battle; mainly fixing vehicles damaged by roadside bombs. Shortly after coming back to the States, he transferred to Fort Lewis located in Tacoma, Washington.
In the early morning of June 15, 2007, Tim was on the base trying to meditate between his friend and another soldier who wanted a fight, trying to prevent a fight from occurring. In the middle of this, another soldier, a friend of the soldier who was trying to pick a fight, stepped out from behind and stabbed Tim in the neck. Tim was taken to the hospital where all life-saving efforts failed. The soldier turned himself in and was jailed until the trial would begin.
Eight months later, the trial began under military jurisdiction. Since my wife and her family were to be character witnesses for sentencing, they were unable to attend the trial. I, on the other hand, did not have any restrictions upon me so I was able to go every day and observe what happened. Due to the severity of the crime, the prosecutors asked that the soldier be tried for premeditated murder which carried a sentence of life in prison.
I was nervous in attending the trial because this was the stuff of real life. It wasn’t the movies or something on the news, safely accessed through impersonal distance provided by the television and the internet. This was real and in front of me and had direct implications for people I knew. How would I react once I saw the soldier in the courtroom? I have never known or met someone who took another’s life in an act of violence outside of war.
When I sat down in the courtroom gallery for the first time and I saw him sitting with his defense lawyers, my chest tightened. This was the guy! But then I noticed he was wearing glasses. During the week, he would sometimes quietly wipe his glasses clean with his shirt. This was a terribly ordinary thing to do, something that everyone who wears glasses does. It was a human act. I began to realize that, despite what people said he had done on that early morning of June 15, he was human and a sinner, just like me.
This made me uncomfortable because it was the truth. The only way both he and I, along with everyone else, would ever hope to get salvation, eternal life in heaven, is through God’s grace and mercy. What a thought to have, what an uncomfortable truth to realize!
-Matt
crimemercymurdersinnerTimtrial
A Quality of Mercy, Part I
February 21, 2008
Calvary
Comments Off on A Quality of Mercy, Part I
Matt
This week and next week I’m going to talk about something very difficult and something that I hope none of you have to experience in your lifetime.
Two weeks ago, my wife and I flew to Seattle along with her mother and younger brother. Unfortunately, this wasn’t a trip for leisure. We were there to attend the trial for the killer of my wife’s twin brother, Tim.
Let me back up a little bit and give you some history. After he graduated high school in 2003, Tim enrolled in the U.S. Army and got stationed to Fort Campbell in Kentucky. He became a mechanic, fixing trucks and other heavy duty vehicles. He was sent to Iraq in 2005 and stayed there for one year, not really seeing battle; mainly fixing vehicles damaged by roadside bombs. Shortly after coming back to the States, he transferred to Fort Lewis located in Tacoma, Washington.
In the early morning of June 15, 2007, Tim was on the base trying to meditate between his friend and another soldier who wanted a fight, trying to prevent a fight from occurring. In the middle of this, another soldier, a friend of the soldier who was trying to pick a fight, stepped out from behind and stabbed Tim in the neck. Tim was taken to the hospital where all life-saving efforts failed. The soldier turned himself in and was jailed until the trial would begin.
Eight months later, the trial began under military jurisdiction. Since my wife and her family were to be character witnesses for sentencing, they were unable to attend the trial. I, on the other hand, did not have any restrictions upon me so I was able to go every day and observe what happened. Due to the severity of the crime, the prosecutors asked that the soldier be tried for premeditated murder which carried a sentence of life in prison.
I was nervous in attending the trial because this was the stuff of real life. It wasn’t the movies or something on the news, safely accessed through impersonal distance provided by the television and the internet. This was real and in front of me and had direct implications for people I knew. How would I react once I saw the soldier in the courtroom? I have never known or met someone who took another’s life in an act of violence outside of war.
When I sat down in the courtroom gallery for the first time and I saw him sitting with his defense lawyers, my chest tightened. This was the guy! But then I noticed he was wearing glasses. During the week, he would sometimes quietly wipe his glasses clean with his shirt. This was a terribly ordinary thing to do, something that everyone who wears glasses does. It was a human act. I began to realize that, despite what people said he had done on that early morning of June 15, he was human and a sinner, just like me.
This made me uncomfortable because it was the truth. The only way both he and I, along with everyone else, would ever hope to get salvation, eternal life in heaven, is through God’s grace and mercy. What a thought to have, what an uncomfortable truth to realize!
-Matt
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