January 24, 2022 Issue

Eren Orbey’s “Fault Lines,” in this week’s issue, is an absorbing consideration of a remarkable case of restorative justice. It tells about the successful efforts of a woman to free the man convicted of killing her father. It probes the case from many sides. Orbey talks with the woman, Katie Kitchen. He talks with the offender, Joseff Deon White. He talks with members of Kitchen’s family. He accompanies Kitchen on a visit with White at his home. Orbey’s interest in the case is personal. He discloses that his father was also the victim of murder, and that he, like Kitchen, made efforts to contact the convicted killer. To a degree, Orbey appears to mirror off Kitchen. But he’s also questioning. He writes,

I told Kitchen that, as a child, I had found it comforting to know that my father’s killer hadn’t targeted him in particular—that the murder was, to some extent, a “random act,” as I’d heard her call White’s crime. Like Benninghoven [Kitchen’s sister], though, I chafed at Kitchen’s insistence on ignoring the question of White’s responsibility. In her narrative, the murder was a terrible accident, and White, because of systemic injustices, had been as much a victim as her father. I admired that her mission on White’s behalf was an attempt to live up to her progressive ideals. But I wondered whether she had truly let go of what the mediators had called her “coping story.” Did she accept that White may well have been the one who killed her dad, and that the crime may not have been an accident?

It bothers Orbey that Kitchen seems indifferent to the question of White’s guilt or innocence. But by the end of the piece, he appears to have resolved his frustration:

Indeed, as I reported on Kitchen’s story, I grew less frustrated by the evasive manner in which she and White discussed the murder. It moved me that each seemed attuned to what the other needed from their unusual friendship.

For me, what's tonic about “Fault Lines” is its acceptance of the ambiguity that sometimes exists at the heart of a violent crime. Remember Janet Malcolm's "She couldn't have done it and she must have done it" in her great "Iphigenia in Forest Hills"? Well, it's the same thing here. I applaud Orbey's empathy and fair-mindedness. 

But I have a question: why didn’t White take the stand at his trial? As Orbey points out, “Only White knows for sure whether he had an accomplice and, if he did, what role each of them played in the crime.” He reports that White’s lawyer, Kurt Wentz, “had chosen not to put him on the stand.” Why did he make that decision?