Samuel Taylor Coleridge, in his work entitled Lectures, discussed William Shakespeare's consummate villain, Iago. He analyzed how the inner nature of a person could be so evil as to defy any rational explanation. The literary critic Alvin Kernan, in an introduction to Othello, concluded, "It (the evil) must be taken like lust or pride as simply a given part of human nature, an anti-life spirit which seeks the destruction of everything outside the self" (Kernan, p. 75). Coleridge described this intense core as "motiveless malignity." How else does one explain the vile actions of one who inflicts unendurable suffering and destroys love and friendship and four lives? The villain, Iago himself, dismisses any explanation (Othello, Act I, Scene iii):

               "Virtue? a fig! Tis in ourselves that we are thus or thus.
               If the balance of our lives had not one scale of reason to poise
               another of sensuality, the blood and baseness of our natures
               would conduct us to the most preposterous conclusions."

As society struggles with solutions to the ever-increasing violence perpetrated on itself, both literally and figuratively, the nagging question reverberates. Is there a seed of evil which exists at the very core of the human being, a wickedness devoid of any traces of conscience, shame, and humanity? If so, why does it manifest in some, not others, and what is society's role in the grand scheme?

Those questions echoed repeatedly in the courtroom in Hillsboro, Missouri, on June 13-17, 1994. A sequestered jury heard the case of the State of Missouri vs. Simmons.

The defendant, 18 years old, was accused of abducting a woman from her home, binding and gagging her, strapping a towel over her head as a hood, and then taking her in her van to a railroad trestle and throwing her into the river to drown. The prosecutor sought the death penalty.

For four full days, the jury heard testimony from witnesses in the death of the 46-year-old woman. The husband, a truck driver, testified that he last talked to his wife on the telephone on September 8, 1993, while he was driving his truck out of town. When he returned home the next day and entered the trailer home, he first noticed some damage inside. He then heard the pet poodle whimpering, and he found the dog wrapped in duct tape on the bed in the master bedroom.

In the course of the trial, the medical examiner testified that the woman's face had been bound with duct tape with only an area of her nose visible. He found 29 bruises on her body and four fractured ribs. The cause of death was determined as drowning.

Another witness testified that he overheard the defendant and an accomplice talk about burglarizing a house and killing a family. Though the credibility of the witness had been questioned, the substance of his testimony was accepted.

The jury deliberated for five hours before returning a guilty verdict. It took another seven hours of deliberation the following day to recommend the death penalty.

Throughout the week, of course, the images of violence were pervasive and, understandably, took a toll on the jury. Tom Munsterman, Director of the Center for Jury Studies of the National Center for State Courts, notes that there is increasing evidence of juror stress in cases of violence, partly due to evidence being more graphic. "The evidence today is much more graphic. We have color photos and videotapes. We've gone beyond the chalk outline on the pavement," he said (St. Louis Post-Dispatch, p. 1D). In 1989, Dr. Stanley Kaplan, Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, conducted a study of 40 jurors from four trials. The cases were a murder of a young woman, a double murder, a sexual molestation, and a sale of pornographic videotapes. Twenty-seven of the forty were found to have suffered symptoms. These ranged from sleeplessness and anxiety to anorexia and depression (St. Louis Post Dispatch, p. 1D). The stress of serving on a jury can last for weeks and even months.

In the Simmons case, the violent images were both subtle and blatant, verbal and physical. There were pieces of duct tape, both small bits and large remnants, ceremoniously pulled from evidence envelopes at precise moments for maximum impact. These were the same pieces which had been torn away from the body. There were pieces of rope and a leather purse strap which all had been used to bind the wrists and ankles and brought together in a "hog-tied" configuration. There were the oversized leather boots (her husband's) which she had been forced to put on, now water-marked and stained.

As the husband took the stand to testify in the small courtroom, apparent, though obviously inadvertently, were the words he had written in ink on the flesh of his palm, reminders of what he might talk about when questioned. Prominent was the printed word FEAR. Though visible only to the juror closest to the stand, it conjured up a strange, violent, sinister image. It was the image of the predator in the novel Night of the Hunter who has the words LOVE and HATE imprinted on his fingers and who dramatically demonstrates the conflict with intertwining hands.

Intermingled through the testimony was the violence of word and gesture. Prosecuting attorneys pulled evidentiary items from envelopes in grand, sweeping, and abrupt motions. When demonstrating how the hands and wrists had been tied and configured, the prosecutor did so with snapping, jerky gestures, all the while grimacing as he contorted his body into what was assumed to be the position of the victim's. The words often were loud, building to a crescendo, fingers pointing directly and accusatorially at the perpetrator.

The trial proper ended with a grand irony of verbal violence. "The killing has got to stop," said the prosecutor in the closing arguments of the trial's penalty phase. "The fear has got to end. The violence has got to stop." And just before sentencing deliberation began, he urged, "Give him death!"

But, ultimately, it was the pictures--vivid, precise, with the graphic detail of reality. After all the verbal descriptions of violence, there in glossy color, eight-by-ten view was the violence. There were abrasions where the skin had been pulled away when the tape was removed. There were all the bruises. There was a distinct imprint of a foot which had been pressed hard against the upper thigh, hard enough to break the blood vessels and create the outline of a shoe. And there in the back of the van was the woman's bra, tossed aside when, still alive, bound and trussed, she was thrown in, a towel taped hood-like over her head. Beyond the physical violence, there in the back of the van was the violence of indignity--a disrespect for all that's human.

The pictures, only glimpses before as they were handed from attorney to individual witness, now appeared in full view. It was the designed culmination of the trial. One by agonizing one, the pictures were passed from juror to juror. And the courtroom was silent. Not even sobs were audible anymore. All eyes stared. The jurors stared at the pictures; the people in the courtroom stared at the jurors. Only the murderer remained apart, eyes downcast. Agonizing minutes passed by.

The verdict deliberation was slow, tedious. A foreman was elected. Each juror reviewed evidence. What was believed? As importantly, what was not believed? Where were there inconsistencies, and did the inconsistencies negate the full testimony of a witness? Bailiffs were asked to bring evidentiary items into the jury room for closer examination (boots, tape, robe, strap, pictures, etc.). A written request was made to the judge for clarification of the phrase "perpetrated the crime." He declined to comment. After five hours of discussion and review, the jury was polled. A unanimous verdict of guilty of first-degree murder was returned.

One phase remained: sentencing. The instructions from the judge were clear. Once a verdict was reached, there were only two options: life in prison without eligibility for parole or death. If death, the jury must agree unanimously on at least one of the following aggravating factors:

1. Whether the murder was committed while the defendant was in the act of wanting to gain something of value.

2. Whether the murder was committed while the defendant was engaged in the perpetration of the felony of burglary.

3. Whether the murder was committed for the purpose of avoiding, interfering with, or preventing the lawful arrest of the defendant.

4. Whether the murder involved depravity of mind and, as a result, the murder was outrageously and wantonly vile, horrible, and inhuman--that the defendant killed the woman after she was bound, thereby the defendant exhibited such depravity of mind.

There may be "mitigating factors" which supersede consideration of the death sentence. These also were presented to the jury for consideration:

1. Whether the defendant has no significant history of prior criminal activity.

2. The defendant's age at the time of the offense.

3. The kind acts the defendant conducted for his family and friends.

The defense brought witnesses to the stand to testify on behalf of the defendant. His mother testified. It was the only moment throughout the trial when the defendant showed overt emotion. Quietly, tears came to his eyes and formed rivulets on his cheek. The mother, controlled, without tears, testified as to how she had tried to do her best in raising her son. His father, now divorced, came to the stand. A neighbor testified that the defendant would come over and help her around the house.

One of the most intolerable acts of "violence" in the eyes of the jurors was the instance of lawyers on both sides using children as a means toward their end. Called to the stand by the defense in this final sentencing phase were the defendant's two young brothers, eight and twelve years old. The questioning by the defense was concise and brief.

"Your brother Christopher plays with you and is nice to you; isn't he?"

"Yes."

"You visit your brother while he's in jail; don't you? And you'll continue to visit him if he's in jail?"

"Yes."

The prosecution had no questions for the younger of the two. After the defense had gone through the same questions with and elicited similar responses from the older brother, the prosecutor then questioned:

"You love your brother Christopher; don't you?"

"Yes."

"You want to grow up to be just like him?"

"Yes."

"No further questions!"

The seven hours the jury spent deliberating the sentencing were agonizing, sometimes divisive and confrontational. Central to the debate was the question as to whether the murder was of such callous disregard for human life that the death penalty was warranted. In essence, at what point along the continuum of violence does one say the wantonness and depravity can be mediated only by death?

The decision crystallized only after one juror, mentally wrestling with the decision, uttered, "For me, the question is whether I can look the defendant's mother in the eye and say to her directly, I'm truly sorry, but your son deserves to die.' I can do that now."

The judge, upon recommendation of the jury, formally adjudicated the sentence of death approximately two months after the trial proper.

Questions of violence remain. What of the murder of one human being by another? When reading newspaper accounts or viewing television reports, there is some distance. In the courtroom in a murder trial, there is no detachment. The spectators, the jury, everyone becomes part of the process of violence.

What of the verbal violence of the courtroom? Stephen Gillers, Law Professor at New York University, remarked, "The role of the prosecution is to do justice. The role of the defense is to win" (USA Today, p. 3A). Are there boundaries in the search for justice--or in winning?

What of the violence of the death penalty as a solution for coping with violence? The death penalty serves as a rational response to an irrational act (irreconcilable depravity of mind). It becomes an ordered methodology to address social disorder, sometimes precipitated by a distrust of the system of jurisprudence. The ultimate irony is its attempt at preserving order while, at the same time, contributing to social violence.

Was there a "motiveless malignity" present in Christopher Simmons, and others who commit such acts, which manifests itself in such violence? Is it there in all of us? Long before Shakespeare's villain Iago, St. Paul addressed the Thessalonians on the "mystery of iniquity." 'Tis in ourselves that we are thus or thus? The mystery remains.

Gillers, Stephen. USA Today, February 9, 1995, News Section.

Kernan, Alvin. "Othello: An Introduction," from Shakespeare: The Tragedies, Alfred Harbage, ed., New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1964, p. 75.

Lauerman,Connie. "Court Is Giving Jurors Emotional Scars," Chicago Tribune, 1994, as quoted in St. Louis Post Dispatch, "Everyday Magazine," August 9, 1994.

State of Missouri vs. Simmons, June 13-17, 1994, Hillsboro, MO.

"Stress in Court is Giving Jurors Emotional Scars," St. Louis Post-Dispatch, August 10, 1994.

USA Today, February 9, 1995, News Section.