It was the biggest news of the year. Police had arrested a man named Murli Chandra in Texas and charged him with “conspiring to commit murder” of Charlie Brown. The picture of the accused person’s mug-shot was displayed on every TV channel and on the front page of every major newspaper in the country.
The police had done an exceptionally good job. They were conducting a sting operation on the Internet to catch anyone who would try and kill Charlie Brown. Fortunately, one of the undercover cop started chatting with Murli in an Internet chat room. The police officer whose real name was John Wayne had clearly identified himself as Charlie Brown. Still Murli expressed his desire to kill Charlie Brown without any shame or hesitation. During the chats, Murli had told the police officer how he had always hated the Charlie Brown comic strip character; he then described his whole plan to kill Charlie Brown. It was then that the brave police officer, with the help of several other investigation agencies, trapped Murli and arrested him before he could do any damage to poor Charlie Brown.
All the news channels on TV brought on experts from “Child Protective Services” and other such agencies that are designed to protect children in the USA. All the experts showed their disgust at such a horrific crime. One expert described Murli as a “monster”. She herself had one of her children killed by a similar monster. As she described her own anguish, she broke down in tears and screamed:
“This monster Murli should be put behind bars for the rest of his life. He has no heart! Why would he plot to kill poor Charlie Brown?”
Another expert commended the work of the police and said:
“We must all work together to protect our children. We cannot allow people like Murli to attack and kill our children!”
A third expert described stressed:
“People like Murli are the biggest danger facing America’s future. Unless all Americans unite to fight such a danger, there will come a time when America’s future will be lost!”
In local social gatherings this news item was the talk of the town. People cautioned each other to watch out for Murli-like monsters that might be roaming the streets of the country in search of unsuspecting children. Mothers thanked God that one more monster was behind bars. Now they could feel a little bit safer because Murli would not be able to target their children. Many men, trying to impress the women, declared their hostile intentions against Murli should he ever cross their paths. Women were very impressed by this display of manliness and their readiness to protect children against monsters like Murli.
Many politicians were also very vocal in their condemnation of such criminal acts against children. Some of them appeared on TV and declared open war against such “child hunters” – the term used to describe monsters like Murli – by stating that “such criminal acts against our children will not be tolerated and the guilty will be punished to the full!”
Incidentally, the elections were also coming up. Both the Attorney General and the Lieutenant Governor of Texas had their re-election campaigns launched. Their platforms were clear – they both focused on the case of Murli and trumpeted his arrest as a success for their efforts in trying to “protect our children”. In fact, they proposed a bill that demanded death sentence for people like Murli. When they went to the Texas Legislature with the bill, they brought with them the names and pictures of all convicted child-killers and all those who had attempted to kill any children. Murli’s name and picture were also among the list. The Attorney General made an emotional speech and appealed that his efforts be supported by tougher legislation so that he could take all “child hunters” off the streets – that was the mission of his life, he declared, because he cared for the children.
The Attorney General particularly pointed out the case of the “child hunter” Murli Chandra as one of his success stories. He described how the valiant efforts of his department helped capture this dangerous monster. Only God knows what Murli might have done to poor little Charlie Brown had the police not arrested him. Many people listening to his speech had tears in their eyes, and they all secretly thanked God for saving the life of Charlie Brown.
Despite constitutional hurdles, the bill passed with overwhelming majority. The law-makers of Texas had made it very clear that they wanted to protect the children and that no constitutional barriers will stop them from pursuing their noble agenda.
Both the Attorney General and the Lieutenant Governor won the re-elections easily. There actually never was any question about their victory. People were glad to re-elect such heroes for their self-less efforts to protect the children from “child hunters” like Murli.
Then one day an article appeared in a local newspaper. It was written by a well respected and experienced journalist named Bill Zinni. He pointed out that since there really wasn’t any child involved in Murli’s case, it was unfair to group him as a “child hunter” with other people who had actually killed or attempted to kill real children. The author of the article also pointed out that this case might not be as simple as it seems. Since everything took place in an Internet chat room – where the lines between reality and fantasy are blurred – and since no real child was involved – Charlie Brown is a fictional cartoon character – there were elements of the protection of free speech, as outlined in the First Amendment of the US Constitution, that were involved. He further pointed out that the justice system must be based on reality and factual events, and not on fiction, and since no real person or child named Charlie Brown was involved, the case against Murli was based only on fiction. This, Zinni pointed out, was a violation of the very basic definition of the word “Justice”.
The very next day there was an outcry at such a ridiculous article. Several people and politicians wrote angry responses to the editor of the newspaper for publishing such an outrageous article. Bill Zinni was labeled a “child-hunter sympathizer” – some people simply called him “stupid”. One angry mother wrote:
“It is obvious that Murli is a child hunter. I am sick of these anti-American liberal pacifists who make it a duty to every time bring up the US Constitution to protect such monsters. What if Charlie Brown were a real person? Would Mr. Zinni still try and bring up the US Constitution to protect Murli? What excuse would he bring up then?”
She ended her long letter with a plea to the newspaper not to publish such anti-children articles in their newspaper again.
Mr. Zinni wrote a response to all these angry letters in a letter of his own. He pointed out that no one actually dealt with the issues he had raised; rather, people proceeded to attack his character. Referring to the angry woman’s letter cited above, he pointed out again that judicial systems are supposed to be based on logic and facts, and not on hypothetical what-if scenarios. Otherwise anyone can create any hypothetical “what-if” scenarios and start arresting people based on these fictional assumptions. Mr. Zinni tried to calm the people down and explained that he too cared about the children, but that he did not lose sight of reality in pursuit of his goal to protect the children. Fiction remains fiction regardless of how noble the goal is.
The next day Mr. Zinni was fired from his job by the owner of the newspaper. Mr. Zinni had proved himself to be a child-hunter sympathizer, and he was a shame to the high standards of journalism that was the norm in the US. He was obviously not getting the point that the public wanted all “child hunters” behind bars.
In Murli’s personal life things were also turning crazy. He made bail, but the next day he was fired from his job. He called his employer and asked why he was fired. He was told that the company can’t have any “child hunters” on its payroll. He tried to remind his boss of the principle of “innocent until proven guilty,” but his please fell on deaf ears. He tried to get other jobs in Texas, but no one would hire a “child hunter” even if he hadn’t been convicted yet.
Murli had one consolation. Despite all the chaos, it seemed that his wife was going to stick by him. He had been an excellent father to his children, and his wife promised him that even if they get divorced, she would help him because he was “such a wonderful father” to their children.
To make ends meet Murli had to seek employment outside of Texas. Finally he secured a job in Michigan. So Murli left his family in their Austin (Texas) home and moved to Michigan. He would still come back to Texas on a monthly basis to meet his daughters.
One time when he returned to Texas, he found that his wife was now behaving strangely with him. One day while he was working on his home computer, he found a copy of an e-mail from one of his brothers in law to his wife. He was shocked to read what was written in the letter. The brother in law was suggesting that his sister should leave Murli. What was more disturbing was what was written after that: Murli’s mother in law and this brother in law both thought that Murli was planning to kill his own children. No facts were mentioned as to what gave them such an idea. It seemed obvious to them that if Murli was accused of planning the murder of Charlie Brown, he must also be planning the murder of his own children.
From that point on, Murli’s relations with his wife took a downward spiral never to recover again. Murli asked his wife about that letter, but she dismissed it and said that she didn’t believe Murli would ever plan to kill his own children. For the time being, she let Murli see and spend time with his children.
Murli had hired a very good defense attorney in Texas. The attorney assured him that the State’s case against him had “big holes” in it and that they would exploit these holes. Murli felt confident that justice would prevail and he would not be found guilty. After all, he had chatted with people on the Internet before, and this was not the first time he had threatened to kill a fictional character. He had fun this way on the Internet and knew that since there really was no person named Charlie Brown that he was planning to kill, he would not be convicted based on fiction.
Then things began to get even worst for Murli. The Texas Attorney General had expanded his program to protect children from “child hunters” and almost every week people were being arrested on charges of “attempted murder” or “conspiracy to commit murder” of Charlie Brown in Internet sting operations. The media was bombarding people daily with news and pictures of these new “child hunters” that were getting caught by the police on a daily basis; people began fearing for the safety of their children since they now realized that the Internet and the streets must be crawling with these “child hunters” which is why so many of them were getting caught. The hatred for these “child hunters” was growing so much that it started to seem that anyone accused of such a crime stood no chance of a trail by an impartial jury.
The relationship between Murli and his wife was also getting worst. One time he returned from Michigan to find that his wife had changed all the locks of all the doors of his house. Now he couldn’t enter his own house without his wife’s presence. When he asked her about it, she made up a story of how she had lost her keys one day and then someone that night had tried to enter the house; the next day she changed the had all the locks changed for safety. Murli was glad that his family was safe and naively accepted the story she told him. Every time he asked for a spare key, she made some excuse, until finally it was time for him to go back to Michigan.
Murli’s trial date was near. The District Attorney had offered him eight year probation with no prison time if he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit murder of Charlie Brown. Murli thought that the whole thing was ridiculous. There was no Charlie Brown and therefore, he could not have attempted to kill him or even conspired to have him murdered. Murli could never plead guilty to something that he believed he never did and that he knew was based on fiction and not on facts. So he rejected the offer.
It was now November and Murli called his children from Michigan. He promised them that he would come to Texas and spend Thanksgiving holidays with them. Both of his daughters were extremely excited that their daddy would be coming home again on Thanksgiving, and then they could do all the fun things with him. Murli was also looking forward to this time. He knew that his trial was getting near and this was probably the last time he could spend with his daughters before his trial. Though he was confident of winning the case, there was still the possibility of an unexpected decision.
Murli arrived in Austin one day before Thanksgiving. He had taken a few extra days off from work for this trip so that he could be in Austin for ten days. He was so excited to see his children that he called his wife as soon as he landed on the airport. When his wife answered the phone, he told her that he was at the airport and that he would be coming home soon to see the kids. He was surprised when she told him that she was already on her way to Dallas with their daughters and that she had planned t o spend the Thanksgiving dinner with her family in Dallas. Murli was very disappointed. His wife knew very well that he was coming especially to spend the holidays with his daughters.
Murli asked his wife if she could leave the children with him in Austin and go to Dallas by herself, but she refused. However, she promised that she would bring the kids back to Austin on Friday – the day after Thanksgiving. Murli was disappointed but he told himself that at least he would still have nine whole days to spend with his daughters when they return after Thanksgiving.
Murli went to stay with a friend in Austin. On Friday, he waited anxiously for his wife’s call. But she never called. Murli got worried and tried to call her cell phone several times, but she never answered. He left messages for her and then also called her elder brother and left a message that he was worried and that they should call him soon. No one called back that Friday.
Next day Murli again called his wife several times, but no one answered the phone. Now he was very worried – he thought his family had gotten into some accident. He checked all the local newspapers and internet news to see if there had been any accidents on the road between Dallas and Austin. There were a couple of accidents, but fortunately for Murli they did not involve any of his family members. Murli was getting very worried.
Murli’s friend suggested that to relax and calm down, they both should go and watch a movie. He told Murli not to worry as he was sure that his wife would call him back soon and that everyone was okay. So the two friends went to watch a movie. As they were returning from the movie that night, Murli’s cell phone rang. It was his wife. She apologized for not keeping her promise and told Murli that she had been suffering from a terrible migraine headache for the past two days, which is why she wasn’t answering her phone. She promised him again that she would come early morning the next day. Murli told her to drive carefully and to take care of herself. He requested her to call him as soon as she gets to Austin the next day since he now had seven days left and he wanted to spend as much time with his daughters as possible.
The next morning Murli again waited for his wife’s call. But again, there was nothing. He tried calling her several times, but there was no answer. As the evening approached on his fifth day in Austin, he now realized that his wife was playing games with him. So he left his first angry message on her cell phone that Sunday night:
“I don’t know what games you are playing, but I thought you and I had agreed that no matter what happens between us, we would never use our children against each other.”
That Sunday night, Murli drove to Dallas, hoping that he could personally appeal to his mother-in-law and brothers-in-law to intervene and ask his wife to bring the children to him. But apparently his in-laws had moved to another apartment; so he didn’t find anyone. He called his eldest brother-in-law again and left a message asking him to return his call as he was now in Dallas and really wanted to see his daughters. But his brother-in-law did not reply. Now Murli was angry. He cried and left an angry message for his brother in law that he would only understand Murli’s anguish if one day his own wife runs away with his children. Murli then drove back to Austin.
He tried calling his wife again on Monday several times. But there was no answer. He left another message – as he cried – pleading with her to let him see his daughters, and not to use the children against him even if she had some vendetta against him.
Then on Tuesday Murli received a call from his wife. She was claiming that he was now too angry and that she was afraid to bring the children to him unless he calmed down. He reminded her that now he had been in town for seven days and that despite several promises from her, he still hadn’t seen his children. It was natural for him to be angry. As he described all this and cried, she told him that she would let him meet the children on Wednesday. He pleaded with her to keep her promise this time.
Wednesday, she called him around noon and asked him to wait until 5:00 PM when she would take the children from the daycare center and bring them to him. Murli decided to wait until 5 at a bookstore. 5 O’clock came and went and his wife never called him. At around 6 that evening he called her, but she was not answering her phone. He was angry again and left another angry message that she was being very unfair and that if she really wanted to involve the kids then he would fight her for child custody once his trial was over and they filed for divorce.
At around 7 O’clock Murli received a phone call from his eldest brother-in-law. He was complaining that now Murli was too angry and that his sister was afraid to meet him until he calmed down. Murli tried to explain to his brother-in-law through examples why his anger was justified:
“If you stab someone with a dagger, he will scream! You can’t ask him not to scream while the dagger is still stuck in his body. There is a simple solution to make the person stop screaming: stop stabbing him! I have been here for eight days now; I have only two more days left before I have to return to Michigan for work. I have been unable to even see my daughters! I have heard one promise after another from my wife, and still I haven’t seen my daughters. What do you expect me to do? Laugh? Of course I am angry. You can’t ask me to calm down while the dagger is still stuck in my body. Bring me my daughters and I will calm down! That is a simple solution.”
To make a long story short, Murli never got to meet his children during that trip. He left several angry messages on his wife’s answering machine threatening her with legal action as soon as his trial was over. He flew back to Michigan. As he got off the airplane, he noticed a message on his cell phone. It was from his daughters. Apparently, once his wife was sure that he had left Texas, she had decided to have his daughters call him.
Murli listened to the message:
“Daddy, we miss you! Where have you been? We thought you were coming to see us. We love you!”
Tears rolled down Murli’s face as he listened to that message. The poor girls didn’t have any clue what he had been through during this trip. He knew there was no point in calling back as his wife wouldn’t let him speak to his daughters. He had decided not to call his wife any more. He was now going to focus on his trial and deal with his divorce after the trial.
One week went by and there was absolutely no communication between him and his wife or his daughters. Then one day, he received a phone call from a police investigator in Texas. The officer told him that his wife had brought all the recorded phone messages that Murli had left on her cell phone during his visit. The officer told him how he sounded like a crying maniac on these messages. Murli argued that he hadn’t said anything illegal on those messages – he had only threatened his wife with legal action – and tried to tell the officer the whole context of those messages. The investigator would not listen to any of Murli’s arguments, and instead threatened that if Murli ever tried to contact his wife, he would revoke his bail and put him back in jail. The investigator made it very clear that he would rather believe Murli’s wife than a “child-hunter”. No “child-hunter” should deserve any fairness.
Murli decided to let this episode go. He reasoned that his wife must be doing all this under the tremendous pressure the whole family was in due to Murli’s arrest and the upcoming trial. The trial was very close now and Murli could not afford to lose focus from it. He decided to deal with his wife later. Divorce was now inevitable. But his heart softened again, and he told himself that once his trial was over he would not fight for child custody – he did not want to separate his daughters from their mother – but would settle for joint-custody because any vengeance on his part would eventually hurt his daughters. He was sure that once the trial was over his wife would agree to joint-custody instead of fighting for sole custody.
In January, Murli went back to Texas for his trial. Despite all the media attention, Murli felt that he would win the case because he had faith in the American justice system.
The trial started with the jury selection. It was a difficult phase because as soon as they were told that Murli was accused of being a “child-hunter,” most of the potential jurors were visibly angry and started staring at Murli with a look of disgust. One woman started crying and asked to be excused because her younger baby brother had been killed by a murderer, and she plainly stated that she would convict anyone accused of being a “child-hunter”. She was excused. Others felt the same, but they kept quiet.
A jury of twelve people was selected. They were all aware of the legal and logical presumption that any accused should be considered innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt by the State. However, in reality – because Murli was accused of such a monstrous crime – most jury members had already assumed him guilty. It was now up to Murli to prove his innocence. The legal standard was completely flipped because the Texas Attorney General, the Lieutenant Governor, the media and the heroic police officers could not be wrong. If they all accused Murli of “conspiracy to commit murder” of Charlie Brown, then he must be guilty. After all, had the media and the political leaders of the country ever misled the people before?
The State presented its case. The State prosecutor produced as evidence the copies of the chat Murli had with the undercover police officer on the Internet. Then he asked Mr. John Wayne, the undercover officer, to come to the stand and testify. During cross examination, Murli’s defense attorney asked Mr. Wayne if people on these Internet chats generally tell the truth about their age, gender or identity. Mr. Wayne said that in his experience people often lie about their age, gender or identity in these chat rooms.
Then the defense attorney asked Mr. Wayne if he could tell during the chats whether Murli believed he was chatting with Charlie Brown or with someone else pretending to be Charlie Brown, and Mr. Wayne replied in the negative. When asked if he could tell whether Murli was seriously planning to kill Charlie Brown or not, Mr. Wayne again responded that he could not tell.
At this point, Murli felt happy because Mr. Wayne was the State’s primary witness. Murli’s indictment clearly stated that the State was accusing him that he “believed” he was chatting with Charlie Brown, and the judicial standards clearly state that the State must prove beyond a reasonable doubt every element of the indictment. Now the State’s star witness, who was the only person even with the smallest chance of guessing what Murli believed, had clearly stated in his testimony that he could not tell. This was reasonable doubt, and the case should have ended there. However, that never happened.
It was now the defense’s turn to present witnesses. Murli took the stand in his own defense. He explained that he often played around like that in Internet chat rooms with various people and since he agreed with Mr. Wayne that people on these Internet chats often lie, he never took anything they told him seriously. He stated clearly that he knew he wasn’t chatting with Charlie Brown, but with someone pretending to be Charlie Brown. He reminded the court about the freedom of speech that the first amendment of the US Constitution granted to the citizens of the country. Murli argued that his written text in an Internet chat room – where people often talked about whatever they felt like – about a fictional character was protected under the first amendment.
Before the trial Murli was tested by two doctors – a psychiatrist and a psychologist – to determine if he displayed any personality disorders normally associated with “child-hunters”. The two doctors were presented as witnesses and they testified that they didn’t find any character disorders associated with “child-hunters” in Murli. To the contrary, they testified that their tests showed that Murli displayed care and empathy towards children.
So far, it seemed to Murli that things were going in his favor. He had clearly explained his side of the story; the State had not provided any evidence to disprove his story; the State’s own star witness had testified that people often lie about their identity on these Internet chats, and that he couldn’t tell whether Murli believed he was chatting with Charlie Brown, or whether Murli had any real intentions of killing Charlie Brown; and finally, the testimony of the two doctors had further clarified that Murli did not display any profile characteristics of a “child-hunter”. But still Murli felt that the jury members were yet to be fully convinced of his innocence and were presuming him to be guilty, as he noticed several of them staring at him angrily.
Murli leaned towards his lawyer and whispered something in his ear. The defense attorney stood up and reminded the court of the sixth amendment of the US Constitution as well as the well established norms of international law that a defendant has the right to question any witnesses against him or any potential victims in his alleged crime.
“Your Honor! The defense would request the court to summon a witness whose testimony should clarify any doubt regarding my client’s innocence,” the defense attorney asked politely.
“And who is that witness?” the judge inquired.
“We would like to call the victim, Mr. Charlie Brown, whose murder was allegedly planned by my client, to the witness stand in accordance with the rights granted by the sixth amendment of the US Constitution and the international law to my client,” the defense attorney requested.
Silence; everyone in the court room was silent. The judge, the jury and the prosecutor – all had an expression of confusion on their faces.
“But Charlie Brown doesn’t exist! He is not a real person,” the judge replied after a long pause.
“So you are saying that my client cannot exercise his constitutional right of questioning the person he allegedly planned to murder because there is no such person?” asked the defense attorney.
“Yes, I guess,” the judge responded with a clear tone of confusion in her voice.
“So if the person is not real and doesn’t exist, is it logically possible at all for my client to attempt to kill that non-existing person?” the defense attorney asked.
“The court would like to caution the defense not to try and confuse the issue by such questioning. Child hunters are serious criminals and we need to address this problem seriously,” the judge responded with signs of agitation clear in her tone.
“But that is the question the defense is asking. Who is the actual person my client planned to murder? Who is the child my client was ‘hunting’?” asked the defense attorney.
“Well, we all know the child is Charlie Brown,” the judge replied in a matter-of-fact manner.
“Can we bring this child to the witness stand to question him?” asked the defense attorney again.
“I will not allow this line of questioning to continue anymore. This is ridiculous!” The judge was now visibly angry.
So Murli never got the chance to face the fictional character he was allegedly planning to murder. But he still thought that there was no way the jury was going to find him guilty. He got the shock of his life when the jury returned with a guilty verdict. “How could that be?” he thought. Shouldn’t he have been assumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt? The State never provided any proof to establish Murli’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Even the alleged victim didn’t exist.
Murli felt that he was in the Twilight Zone. He was convicted of a heinous crime, which did not have any real victim. Wasn’t the judicial system based on facts, reality and what actually happened, rather than on fiction, emotional slogans and hypothetical what-if scenarios? He pinched himself. “It must be a dream!” This was not the America he had come to almost sixteen years ago as a young student. He had been under the illusion that this was the land that respected freedom of speech and that respected its own constitution. Murli was aware that there were other countries in the world where judicial trials were actually farce and where logically flawed laws – based on fictional hypotheses rather than facts – were implemented. He never thought that such would be the case in the United States also.
The sentencing phase was no different than the guilt/innocence phase. The prosecutor, happy with the conviction success, was now rousing up jury member’s emotions further. He showed Charlie Brown’s pictures to the members of the jury and reminded them:
“You have met the victim Charlie Brown! This time we were fortunate that the monster we know as Murli was not successful in killing him because of the great work of our police officers. But what if he did succeed? He would have killed Charlie Brown. We must send a message by punishing him to the maximum so that no one in the future may attempt to kill Charlie Brown.”
The members of the jury thanked God that Murli was caught in time. They dread thinking what Murli might have done to poor Charlie Brown had the police officer not caught him just in time.
Before the trial Murli had contacted several of his friends and members of the Church group that he belonged to. He had requested them to be character witnesses for him in case he was convicted, and they all assured him that they would be there to support him. But now some of them had also started viewing him as a “child-hunter”. A few of them told Murli’s defense attorney that they were “creeped out” by this whole thing and would not really want to put their reputations on the line by being character witnesses for a “child-hunter”. Some of his friends who attended the trial and heard the chat logs read out loud where Murli had explicitly described how he would kill Charlie Brown, later expressed their disappointment with their friend Murli whom they considered guilty. They were sad to know that their friend Murli was actually guilty of “conspiracy to commit murder” as they assumed that the assumptions made by the State were correct; so even if there was no real person Charlie Brown, Murli was, in their opinion, still guilty. They never thought about checking the logical and factual validity of the State’s assumptions.
Murli was disappointed because he considered these people his friends. He was confident that these intelligent and thinking people would see through the media hype and realize that Murli never really attempted to kill anyone – it was all fiction. But, he came to realized that propaganda can make even thinking people blind to the facts and reality.
There were, however, a few friends who came to testify on his behalf. One of them was a grandfather of an 8 year old boy. He stated during his testimony that despite this conviction, he would still trust Murli with his grandchild. Another friend, who had a 4-year old daughter, testified that he had full knowledge about Murli’s case and despite that he had trusted him several times to babysit his daughter. He further stated that despite this conviction, he still believed in Murli’s innocence and that he would still trust him with his daughter.
But the members of the jury had made up their minds. They sentenced Murli to thirteen years in prison. Now Murli would not see his children for a long time and would not be able to provide them with any financial support. Murli’s old parents back in his country were not going to see him in this life again. His sick father, who was suffering from lung cancer and whose treatment was dependent upon the financial help from Murli, was now going to suffer and pay with his life. This was an exemplary punishment for Murli the great monster. His parents and children deserved what they got for being related to such a heinous monster. The members of the jury could at least now sleep with peace for making the streets of the US safer from another “child-hunter”.
“How ironic,” Murli thought. A case where originally there were no real victims, had now created at least four real victims in Murli’s children and parents. Several questions were racing through Murli’s head: Is this what justice is supposed to achieve? Who had he hurt? Why was he put in the same category as people who killed or attempted to kill real children? Why was he given such a stiff prison sentence that was even harsher than the prison sentences given to many who had actually attempted to kill real children? Was the jury really concerned about humans? Why did they then make victims out of Murli’s parents and children in a case where originally there were no real victims?
These questions were pointless. The main concern of the jury members was to put a potential murderer of their beloved Charlie Brown behind bars. Had they let him go, God only knows what monstrous act he would have committed against poor Charlie Brown.
Murli was sent to prison. He was put in “protective custody” because his case was given a lot of media attention and there were several prisoners who wanted to kill him. They didn’t care whether Murli had harmed any real children or not. As long as the label of “child-hunter” was attached to his name, he was a fair target for killing.
In protective custody, Murli was kept in isolation along with all the real dangerous murders and rapists. For “recreation” he was taken out by himself for only one hour every day in the recreation yard, tied in chains with one guard with him. One day as Murli was walking in the yard – it was always hard to walk when his feet and arms were in chains, but he would struggle and manage to walk in circles a bit – the guard on duty observed him for a while and then asked him:
“How old was the child?”
“There was no child,” Murli replied.
“What?” The guard said in disbelief.
“We were told that you were a dangerous child-hunter and we needed to be careful around you!” He continued.
With tears in his eyes, Murli explained the whole thing to him. The guard felt very sorry for Murli and told him that he couldn’t believe such a thing could ever happen in the United States of America. He wished Murli good-luck and said, “I hope you win your appeal!”
The guard must have been a closet “child-hunter” or he would not have shown sympathy to such a dangerous monster. It was obvious that the guard was lacking the great education which enabled many of the legislators, judges and prosecutors of the State of Texas to overlook the basics of logic and reality. No wonder he was just a prison guard.
Soon, Murli was transferred to another prison unit. His appeal was filed. He also hired the best parole lawyer in Texas. In about eighteen months Murli came up for parole. His lawyer was confident that since Murli had no prior criminal record and since there was no real victim in the case, he would be granted parole. To everyone’s surprise, Murli was denied parole. In their reasons for denying parole, the parole board members stated that Murli was a danger to the society and his selection of an innocent victim like Charlie Brown was evidence that if released, he would commit other monstrous acts against other fictional children.
Murli’s hopes now rested on his appeal. He had hired another lawyer to file his appeal because he had heard that after his conviction, his defense attorney – who was concerned about his own reputation – privately told several of Murli’s friends that he thought Murli was guilty. This was a shock for Murli because when he himself had asked attorney for his honest opinion prior to his trial, the attorney had replied:
“I believe you are innocent. I am not just saying that because you are my client, but I truly believe that you are innocent. The State obviously has big holes in its case.”
In his appeal, Murli’s appellate attorney had raised the obvious issue, i.e. that the State presented no evidence to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt. However, the court of appeals denied the appeal and affirmed the conviction. In its opinion, the court of appeals neglected the clearly stated standards for performing the analysis to determine whether the State proved its case beyond a reasonable doubt or not. In fact, the court of appeals performed no analysis at all and simply stated its opinion in one paragraph, stressing that the jury was free to dismiss anything in Murli’s favor, and therefore, the conviction was affirmed.
Despite the trial and sentencing, Murli still had some confidence left in the American justice system. He thought that if the jury made a mistake, the court of appeals would certainly correct the mistake and reverse his conviction. It was clear that if the court had applied the standards of analysis, it would have no other option but to reverse the conviction. Obviously, no judge, who was looking to be re-elected in the upcoming elections, could risk freeing a “child-hunter”. The judges of the court of appeals figured that their re-election was more important than Murli’s life. It was pure commonsense that re-elections be given precedence over the innocence of a person who was going to kill a fictional character.
Murli’s appellate attorney filed a petition for discretionary review with the highest court of appeals in Texas – The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. It required at least four judges to vote in favor of granting a review for the court to hear Murli’s appeal. Murli’s appellate attorney was very hopeful that they would be granted a review. She told Murli that because this was a new type of case and because the lower court of appeals gave such a poor opinion, disregarding the clearly stated standards of analysis outlined by The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, that the higher court would want to review the appeal.
A few months later, however, Murli received a letter from hi appellate attorney that the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals had voted not to grant a review. These were also judges seeking re-elections. If the court granted a review, then according to the standards of analysis set by the court itself, it would have no option but to set this “child-hunter” free. And no one wanted to be remembered as “the judge who let a child-hunter go free.” Murli was now condemned to serve his sentence with no other outlet.
But this was not all. Murli was to bear further wrath from his wife – now his ex-wife. She had been telling his friends that the reason why she didn’t let Murli meet his children that Thanksgiving week was because she believed Murli was planning to kill his own daughters. One of her friends asked her what evidence she had for these allegations. She said that she had no evidence, but that she trusted her mother, who was apparently informed by God via some angel that Murli was planning to kill his own children.
“Besides, wasn’t Murli convicted of being a child-hunter, and we all know that anyone who is convicted in the court of law must be guilty,” his ex-wife explained to her friend. So, she reasoned, if Murli was planning to kill Charlie Brown, he must, by default, be also planning to kill his own children. Who could argue with such strong logic? Plus, how could she ignore the revelations received by her mother directly from God.
Murli, however, continued to try and maintain contact with his daughters. He sent several letters and cards to them hoping that his ex-wife would give them his messages and his love. His hopes were dealt a severe blow one day when he received a letter in prison from his elder daughter after about a year and a half. Murli was ecstatic with happiness to receive the letter from his daughter. But when he read the letter his heart broke into a million pieces. Someone had been putting lies and false memories in his daughter’s head. In the letter, she wrote in broken English how she wanted him to remember when he planned to kill her and her younger sister. In the brief letter, the 7-year old then urged Murli to seek God’s forgiveness for planning to kill his two children. This apparently mature message – which was obviously dictated to his daughter by someone – abruptly ended with “Daddy, I miss you and I love you. Please come soon!”
Murli just sat there staring at the letter – tears flowing down his cheeks. He couldn’t believe what he was reading. It was bad enough that he had been accused of planning to kill his own children by his ex-wife, but that such an idea would be implanted in the mind of his young daughter was completely unbelievable. It was a very low blow from his wife – it hurt him more than anything in the world, including his conviction and incarceration. He cried for the next several days. How could his daughter have memories of something that never happened?
The answer came to him a few months later when he read an article in the Newsweek magazine. It stated:
“’The profession [of psychotherapy] hasn’t shown much interest in the problem of treatments that can be harmful,’ says psychology professor Scott Lilienfeld of Emory University.’ Of the few psychotherapies that have been tested for safety, too many cause harm to at least some patients.’
“The failure to heed Hippocrates reflects the assumption that psychotherapy is, at worst, innocuous. That naïve trust should have been blown out of the water when ‘recovered memory’ therapy actually created false memories, often of childhood sexual abuse, tearing families apart.” (Sharon Begley – “Get Shrunk at Your Own Risk” – Newsweek, June 18, 2007)
Murli was now getting the answer. If even adults can be made to have false memories through psycho-suggestion, how easy could it be to have the impressionable mind of a 6 or 7 year old to “remember” things that never happened? Murli now realized that the so-called ”memory” of his daughter of him planning to kill her and her younger sister was implanted in her innocent mind by his ex-wife, her mother, or some psychotherapist. This revelation, however, did not do anything to reduce the hurt caused by that letter; in the years to come, just the thought of that letter from his daughter would bring tears to Murli’s eyes. But he could do nothing from the prison to dispel these false memories from his daughter’s mind. She would now suffer the psychological consequences for the rest of her life due to her mother’s paranoia and lies.
Dear reader, if you think that this story of Murli Chandra is too unbelievable, then read on. You will see that the story has taken place in American history before, and more importantly, it is taking place even today in various states throughout the US.
