At age 6, Clifford O’Sullivan (pic­tured with his moth­er) tes­ti­fied in favor of a death sen­tence for the man who had killed his moth­er. That man, Mark Scott Thornton, is on California’s death row. Now, 20 years lat­er, O’Sullivan says he believes Thornton’s life should be spared. When he took the wit­ness stand dur­ing the sen­tenc­ing phase of Thornton’s tri­al, O’Sullivan told the jury, ​“All I think is that what the bad man did to my mom should hap­pen to him. It’s real­ly sad for my fam­i­ly ​’cause she was one of the great­est moth­ers I’ve met.” In the years that fol­lowed, O’Sullivan strug­gled to heal from his moth­er’s death, exper­i­ment­ing with drugs and alco­hol and even com­mit­ting bur­glary as a teen. Today, he is an emer­gency room nurse in Nashville. In an inter­view with The Tennessean, he says he believes only a ​“hair-thin” dif­fer­ence in cir­cum­stances stopped him from end­ing up like Thornton. O’Sullivan also has become dis­il­lu­sioned with the death penal­ty, say­ing, ​“It cer­tain­ly does­n’t do the two things it’s sup­posed to do. Offer ret­ri­bu­tion and deter­rence.” In 2014, he met Thornton, and the men spent 5 hours talk­ing about their lives. The meet­ing cement­ed O’Sullivan’s belief that Thornton should not be exe­cut­ed. ​“If they put him up for a date I would stop it, just like I start­ed it,” O’Sullivan says. ​“It would­n’t hap­pen. Over my dead body.”

(J. Bliss, ​“Save the life of your moth­er’s mur­der­er? He would,” The Tennessean, May 15, 2015.) See Victims and New Voices.

Citation Guide