BOOKS: ​“Shattered Justice: Crime Victims’ Experiences with Wrongful Convictions and Exonerations”

In Shattered Justice: Crime Victims’ Experiences with Wrongful Convictions and Exonerations, released in August 2022, University of North Carolina-Wilmington soci­ol­o­gy and crim­i­nol­o­gy pro­fes­sor Kimberly Cook explores how crime vic­tims and their fam­i­ly mem­bers expe­ri­ence and process the trau­ma asso­ci­at­ed with the crime itself, the legal process, and the exon­er­a­tion of the per­son they once believed to be the perpetrator. 

Through direct inter­views with twen­ty-one vic­tims of fif­teen dif­fer­ent crimes, includ­ing mur­der vic­tims’ fam­i­ly mem­bers whose cas­es led to death-row exon­er­a­tions, Cook builds on pre­vi­ous research to deter­mine how wrong­ful con­vic­tions and exon­er­a­tions affect the vic­tims of the under­ly­ing crimes, and what strate­gies they use to cope with these traumatic experiences.

Many crim­i­no­log­i­cal stud­ies have focused on the ​“sec­ond assault” that rape vic­tims face when report­ing an inci­dent to the police and going through legal pro­ceed­ings, but these stud­ies fail to look at what hap­pens to crime vic­tims and their fam­i­lies when the wrong per­son is con­vict­ed. All par­tic­i­pants in Cook’s study faced pri­ma­ry trau­ma asso­ci­at­ed with direct vic­tim­iza­tion, sec­ondary trau­ma of report­ing a crime and going to court, and ter­tiary trau­ma brought up with the exon­er­a­tion process, which is often marked by frus­tra­tion, con­cern, and powerlessness.

For the par­tic­i­pants in Cook’s study, emo­tion­al repair and recov­ery was a com­mon theme fol­low­ing the exon­er­a­tion process. Many talked about find­ing self-care prac­tices, talk­ing to exonerees about their expe­ri­ences, look­ing for mutu­al for­give­ness, and get­ting gen­er­al peer sup­port. Research on the impact of trau­ma has doc­u­ment­ed the con­cept of post­trau­mat­ic growth and resilien­cy, which ​“may include shift­ing pri­or­i­ties, refram­ing fam­i­ly rela­tion­ships, improv­ing self-care, and serv­ing oth­ers who may also be expe­ri­enc­ing sim­i­lar changes.” These meth­ods of growth were not only uti­lized by the orig­i­nal crime vic­tims, but also by exonerees them­selves. Among the study’s par­tic­i­pants, sev­er­al found them­selves work­ing in a legal advo­ca­cy realm, help­ing oth­ers access the sup­port they did not have at the time of their vic­tim­iza­tion. Had these indi­vid­u­als been giv­en suit­able sup­port and resources through­out the entire process, the agony of the exon­er­a­tion process could have been mit­i­gat­ed. These par­tic­i­pants hope for legal reform that pre­vents wrong­ful con­vic­tions, mit­i­gates the sever­i­ty of these con­vic­tions, and reme­dies the harm they produce.

Regardless of how the legal sys­tem treats vic­tims, the inves­ti­ga­tion and tri­al pro­ceed­ings add to the trau­mas and hard­ships each of them faces. This sec­ondary trau­ma comes from the often-inad­e­quate sup­port and inac­ces­si­ble infor­ma­tion about crim­i­nal pro­ceed­ings but dif­fers for every crime vic­tim. For the fam­i­ly mem­bers of mur­der vic­tims, the tri­al process is emo­tion­al and tense, as many must sit through argu­ments and tes­ti­mo­ny that may blame their loved one(s) for what hap­pened. This inten­si­ty can be ampli­fied when the orig­i­nal crime vic­tim is relat­ed to the alleged per­pe­tra­tor. Cook tells the sto­ry of Nancy Wilhoit Vollersten, whose broth­er, Greg Wilhoit, was exon­er­at­ed from Oklahoma death row after being accused of the rape and mur­der of his wife, Kathy, in 1985. Vollersten not only had to deal with the death of a fam­i­ly mem­ber, but also the wrong­ful incar­cer­a­tion and cap­i­tal sen­tence her broth­er faced. Greg’s arrest came ten months after Kathy’s death, but law enforce­ment did not keep the fam­i­ly updat­ed on the inves­ti­ga­tion, so his arrest was com­plete­ly unex­pect­ed. Sudden arrests act as sec­ondary trau­ma because inves­ti­ga­tors fail to acknowl­edge that fam­i­ly mem­bers are vic­tims too and tend to with­hold infor­ma­tion. Vollersten wit­nessed her broth­er lose his men­tal health, ​“his phys­i­cal health, his home, his liveli­hood, the oppor­tu­ni­ty to raise his chil­dren. He lost every­thing.” Vollersten was forced to take on the role of fam­i­ly care­giv­er – a respon­si­bil­i­ty and bur­den that came direct­ly from her vic­tim­iza­tion. Kathy Wilhoit’s mur­der is now a cold case and remains unsolved because of law enforce­ment over­sight and con­t­a­m­i­na­tion of the crime scene. This has affect­ed Vollersten’s beliefs about the crim­i­nal legal sys­tem and ​“the trust that [she] used to have that it works all the time has been destroyed.”

For crime vic­tims, the legal sys­tem is expect­ed to pro­vide a sense of jus­tice, but, Cook writes, the ​“sys­tem itself is trau­ma­genic, as addi­tion­al harms occur dur­ing the process,” and con­tin­ue to occur beyond the con­clu­sion of the orig­i­nal inci­dent. Several par­tic­i­pants found sup­port in local inno­cence project attor­neys, who remind­ed them that the legal sys­tem is flawed and that the sys­tem, rather than the vic­tim, pro­duced the wrong­ful con­vic­tion. This assur­ance allowed vic­tims to take ​“the first step toward find­ing solace and under­stand­ing for what had hap­pened and how the mis­car­riages of jus­tice occurred.” The pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary trau­mas these indi­vid­u­als face is com­pound­ed by the addi­tion­al ter­tiary trau­ma of wrong­ful con­vic­tions and exonerations.

When a vic­tim becomes part of an exon­er­a­tion, they reopen ​“the wounds of the orig­i­nal crime that pro­duced many ago­niz­ing effects, a loss of con­trol of their lives, and a sense of help­less­ness in the inves­ti­ga­tions.” The com­plex trau­ma that aris­es can be man­i­fest­ed in avoid­ance, affect dys­reg­u­la­tion, and neg­a­tive self-image. For the racial­ly oppressed, this is often man­i­fest­ed in ​“for­mal and infor­mal seg­re­ga­tion, stigma­ti­za­tion, and the crim­i­nal­iza­tion [and] pro­pa­gan­diza­tion of the fear of Black men.” Many par­tic­i­pants described how both racism and sex­ism affect­ed their cas­es and their real­iza­tion that the sys­tem they turned to for help and relief, pro­duced trau­ma for them. These indi­vid­u­als felt guilt and shame, espe­cial­ly the assault vic­tims who iden­ti­fied their attack­er, for the wrong­ful con­vic­tions they played a role in. Jennifer Thompson, Founder of Healing Justice and a crime sur­vivor her­self, spoke about her ini­tial sup­port of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment and how these views came to change with her vic­tim­iza­tion and par­tic­i­pa­tion in the wrong­ful con­vic­tion of Ronald Cotton. Through her involve­ment in the exon­er­a­tion of Cotton, Thompson became involved with many Texas death row exonerees who were work­ing to stop the exe­cu­tion of an inno­cent man. Thompson, now an advo­cate for the abo­li­tion of the death penal­ty, uses her expe­ri­ence ​“to urge peo­ple to work on pre­vent­ing vio­lent crime and stop­ping injus­tices in the first place.”