Friday, June 11, 2004

Which case is most important to all of us?

By Father DAVID L. EPPS
Religion Columnist

Consider the following court cases that have, to one extent or another, grabbed the attention of the media:

• The Michael Jackson case.

• The Kobe Bryant case.

• The Scott Peterson case.

• The Terry Nichols case.

Now for a test: Which of the following cases has NOT been in the media to the point of nausea? The answer is the Terry Nichols case.

Michael Jackson is, of course, the multi-millionaire “King of Pop” who has been accused of having encounters of a sexual nature with a minor. If the defendant weren’t Michael Jackson, the media would ignore this case as it ignores thousands of similar cases that occur each year across the country.

Kobe Bryant is the 24-year-old Los Angeles Lakers star who, in December 2003, was charged with the sexual assault of a 19-year-old woman in Colorado. Bryant, a member of the Lakers team that won three straight NBA championships in the 2000-2002 seasons, was the Most Valuable Player in the NBA All-Star game in the 2002 season. Like Jackson, it’s Bryant’s fame that has kept his case in the news when tens of thousands of similar cases a year go ignored by the media.

Scott Peterson is a different sort of case. Peterson is accused of murdering his wife and unborn child. Even before his arrest in April of 2003, the Peterson case captured the attention of the media. Perhaps it was the Christmas Eve 2002 disappearance of Lacy Peterson that grabbed the media but, truthfully, thousands of people disappear and are murdered every year. What all three of these cases share in common is that all have been “routine” cases that have been splashed day after day across the television screens. Nothing about them is extraordinary, except that, in two of the cases, the alleged perpetrators are famous.

It likely that there are a good number of people who, if they haven’t kept up with the news lately, do not have a clue who Terry Nichols is or what his case is about. Yet, his case is, arguably, the most significant case heard in court in a decade. On May 26, a jury found Terry Nichols guilty of 161 counts of felony first degree murder. Nichols, you may recall, was also found guilty of murder in the deaths of 8 federal workers in the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995. Nichols was described by prosecutors as the mastermind of the plot that resulted in the deaths of 168 people and one unborn child. Nichols’ co-conspirator, Timothy McVeigh, was executed June 11, 2001.

The Oklahoma City bombing was the worst terrorist act on American soil prior to the September 11 attack. At the time, a stunned America was aghast that such a terrible crime could occur in our own country. A few years later, however, Americans seem to have forgotten the awful carnage that occurred on that fateful day.

What does it say about a nation that sits transfixed as a court case involving a professional basketball player or a pop singer is blasted across the airwaves while a man who murdered 169 men, women, and children (including one unborn child) is barely noticed at all?

In the end, Michael Jackson, Kobe Bryant, Scott Peterson, even O. J. Simpson, are minor players in American culture. History may even record that they are insignificant in the broader scheme of things. But Terry Nichols and Timothy McVeigh? These two men are very significant. These two men betrayed their own country and brutally snuffed out the lives of average Americans on a monumental scale. In many ways these two men are far more evil than those who attacked on September 11.

These two were our own sons. They were brought up in a free and open society. They were raised as Americans. Both men served their country in the military, McVeigh earning several citations during the Gulf War. These two men remind us that the most evil among us may be living right next door and “look” as American as apple pie. They ought to disturb us deeply.

The fact that we are more interested in the court cases of the singers and the ball players than we are in the cases of those who truly do the nation harm says something dark about us as well.

[Father David Epps is rector of Christ the King Charismatic Episcopal Church on Ga. Highway 34 between Peachtree City and Newnan. The church offers Sunday services at 8 a.m. and 10 a.m. He may be contacted at www.ctkcec.org or at frepps@ctkcec.org.]