Barking to the Choir: The Power of Radical Kinship

by Gregory Boyle

Wasn’t the defendant free to choose whether or not to kill? Aren’t we all free to choose our actions and then be responsible for those choices? I suppose, I begin. But I always remind the prosecution that not all choices are created equal. My decision not to join a gang as a teenager in Los Angeles can’t be compared to the decision a kid growing up in public housing projects in LA faces; that choice was basically made for me. It was geography that mattered, not morality. The serendipitous lottery of zip codes. Finally, we get to the question of “good” and “bad,” “innocent” and “evil,” which almost always gets presented in a litany of the heinous. “What would you say, Father Boyle,” the prosecutor begins, “about a man who . . .” And then he will present an unspeakable act in gruesome detail. Sometimes enlarged photos are exhibited. “Well, gosh,” I say, “imagine how bleak and dark one’s despair would have to be to do such a thing.” The attorney continues, somewhat exasperated, with an even more grisly set of details. “Imagine,” I repeat, “how damaged and traumatized you’d have to be to do something so awful.” Blood pressure rising, the attorney unleashes the last horrific shot across the bow. He serves up the final, jaw-dropping, unimaginable set of events. “I can’t even fathom how mentally ill a person would have to be to do such a thing,” I respond. This statement always causes the kerfuffle of all kerfuffles. The attorney, apoplectic at this point, will always ask if I am...