REQUIEM FOR AN INNOCENT BOY

Do you recall the 1990 murder of Brian Watkins, a 22-year-old visitor to New York City? Watkins was a member of a devout Mormon family from Utah that had come east to attend a tennis tournament. Watkins was set upon by a pack of savage muggers intent on robbing them in a train station. As his family watched in horror, Brian was stabbed to death.

Completely unnecessary. Completely senseless. Utterly infuriating. Beyond words to describe, let alone make to sense of.

The murderers were apprehended and tried. In two separate trials, seven of the defendants have been convicted and sentenced to 25 years to life. Judge Edwin Torres, the judge in the case, is an extraordinarily eloquent man. Listen to these excerpts from his sentencing at the second trial last month. Reflect on how generations of liberals' expanding the rights of criminals have spawned a victims' rights movement, dedicated to the principle that crime victims, and their families, also have rights.

New York: A Death in the Family

"But to the Watkins family, what is to be said? A re-visitation to this courtroom, this unholiest of landscapes to them, must border on the spectral. There seems to be no end to their nightmare. Their sorrows, it might be said, come not [as] single spies, but in battalions.

"The second ordeal, was however, necessitated by the complexities, if not convolutions, of decisional law. And no grievance, no matter how egregious, can be redressed save by law. If I may presume, I believe I speak for every New Yorker when I say, we are with you in your hour of interminable grief. And the mortal wound inflicted upon your son, Brian, has rent a tear in the heart of this city, and all the rivers of tears it has shed for Brian, and all its fallen children, can neither heal nor fill that breach [in] a city confronting over 2,000 murder victims, inching up to 3,000 a year. The slaughter of the innocent marches unabated: subway riders, bodega [grocery] owners, cab drivers, babies; in laundromats, in cash machines, on elevators, in hallways. Armageddon, indeed.

"But this city cared about Brian Watkins, and it mobilized its hard-pressed resources ($16,000 for defendant Morales's expert pathologist alone) and effected justice for at least seven of Brian's tormentors, in a case that transcended state and even national boundaries. And the jury's verdict should serve notice that New Yorkers will come to grips with these marauding packs that threaten our quality of life, nay, our very lives, whatever the cost, and notwithstanding an abiding sense of sadness that we have spawned, in our midst, such a feral element.

"Let there be no mistake, this was a `wolf-pack,' in all its vestiges and precision of execution. Reconnaissance, deployment, coordination of attack, distribution of the spoils. And these three defendants partook, from start to finish.

"Mr. [Anthony] Anderson, all six feet plus 220 pounds of him, was the herald of things to come. He arrived, with his crew, at the subway station at 53rd Street and 7th Avenue, and promptly engaged in a harsh exchange of words with the witness Anthony Gonzalez. Mr. Gonzalez, it appears, would not be woofed. He barked back, so Mr. Anderson backed off; he had easier prey to tend. But he left his impression on Gonzalez, an ominous portent for Anderson. For it was Anderson who announced for all to hear, `It's killing time,' and set in motion the whole train of events that followed. The whooping and the shrieking, bursting upon their victims, like wolves upon the fold. Michelle Watkins, the daughter-in-law, covered her face with her hands. They must have appeared a demonic apparition to her. She never saw, fortuitously, the glint of [Gary] Morales's steel as it plunged into the chest of Brian Watkins. That flash of light would have haunted her dreams forever.

"And what about Mr. Morales, `rock-star' of graffiti fame and assorted escapades, big enough at 6 feet, 200 pounds, without his cohorts, to have neutralized Brian Watkins without exertion. One would address the rhetorical `why' to Morales that has so vexed Brian's father, Sherwin Watkins, from the outset. What need was there to slay this boy? Under the bright lights of that platform in full view of his family? Perhaps their very vulnerability incited greater ferocity. Or that flush of omnipotence killers exult in. We will never know. Morales takes his secret with him.

"But what is beyond even cavil here is that you three set upon this defenseless family, without mercy, like a pack of jackals. You kicked, punched, slashed, stabbed and robbed them. A craven, cowardly attack, after which you partied with the proceeds until 4 a.m.

"Of contrition and remorse, you externalized none during the agony of Mr. and Mrs. Watkins when they had to re-relive their ultimate trauma on the witness stand. (Emphasis original.) Mr. Lopez, on Sept. 3, 1990, was found not only sleeping at home, but slept in the car awaiting transport to the precinct. I think their regrets are more coterminous with their being caught than anything else.

"And I think the state here manifests the quality of its mercy in the very sentence parameters it imposes. For the defendants have only confinement to contend with and the pursuit of their appeals, there being no end to litigation in this state, and there are at least 7,000 pages through which to burrow. Hope springs eternal.

"But for Brian there is no hope, no appeal. He is confined to eternity. And in the face of that ineffaceable wrong, the very walls of this courtroom, which have contained this wretched tale of woe, over and over again, cry out for justice.

"If I may be indulged an aside, I am, soul and sinew, a product of this city, Harlem streets, public schools, city colleges. I yield to no one in my gratitude and devotion to it. And insofar as I am empowered, I will be damned before i see it roll over, its death-knell tolled by a handful of killer-muggers such as these. Not now, not ever.

"To the Watkins family, one parting note. I know there is no night that can banish your sorrow. Perhaps, the passage of time can abate its misty rains. And perhaps, the commonality of grief this entire community experienced can serve as some measure of comfort. I give you my solemn assurance that there are legions of New Yorkers who will never forget Brian Watkins.

"This has been, to say the least, a searing experience; you do not come out the same person who went in. I know of no judge who relishes the role which sentences such as these constrain, least of all myself. But the way is clear here. These defendants were the engines of destruction that brought irreparable devastation to the Watkins family, their own families, and the demoralization of an entire city."

New York State Court Judge Edwin Torres

(Except where noted as original, emphasis has been added in this reprint.)