Crime and Punishment I - Remorse

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051107/ap_on_re_us/arsenic_death

Ann Miller Kontz drafts an eloquent mea culpa talking about just how remorseful she is for killing her husband, her daughter's father, with a motive somehow connected with an affair she was having at the time.

Now the important part: the remorse comes after years of denying any involvement in the murder, in the course of a plea bargain when it became likely the prosecutors had sufficient evidence to convict. After the issue of whether the statements made by her dead lover (he committed suicide) to his attorney were still protected by attorney/client privilege went to the North Carolina Supreme Court (twice), and were ultimately released, implicating her. She plead guilty to second degree murder rather than the first degree murder of which she was clearly guilty.

This is after she blithefuly remarried. "Miller" is a relict of the man she killed.

Now, I'm sure she would like us to believe that she was actually ripped up inside all the while, keeping a brave face so her daughter would not have to live with the knowledge that her mother very intentionally killed her father with arsenic (aka: the truth). All the benefits accruing to our Ann herself (freedom, new family) were a byproduct of her sacrifice for her daughter. Undoubtedly she engaged in personal mortifications of the flesh and spirit on a regular basis.

This just happened to be the story today. We've seen the "remorse" a thousand times by people implicated beyond extrication, usually after they have forced some commonwealth to spend enormous effort and money that could have gone elsewhere to bring them to heel, as in this case - an offense against their fellow citizens, if nothing else: continuing evidence of bad faith.

Remorse means you will make a sacrifice to make what amends you can, to your victim, to society which you injured in a variety of ways, to the truth if you've lied. It does not mean pleading guilty to a lesser crime than you have committed, which will STILL keep you in prison until your child is grown and - one would hope but humans are contemptible things - your new unmurdered husband will have moved on.

Crime and remorse? True remorse? Live-changing remorse rather than oops-I-really-screwed-myself regret? It happens - with about the same ratio of gold to lead in the earth's dirty crust.