56 pages • 1 hour read
Susan KuklinNo Choirboy: Murder, Violence, and Teenagers on Death Row
Nonfiction | Book | YA | Published in 2008A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapter 1Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary: “I Was a Teenager on Death Row”
Content Warning: This section contains references to violence, sexual assault, drug abuse, racism, and suicide. Additionally, the source material features three instances of an offensive racial slur, quoted by two of its subjects as having been used against them in verbal assaults.
Kuklin begins with the dateline, “Decatur, Alabama, August 12, 1993” (1)—the time and place of the slaying of 16-year-old Kevin Gardner. Gardner’s friend and classmate, another 16-year-old named Roy Burgess Jr., soon emerged as the prime suspect. Kuklin quotes Roy, whom she interviewed extensively for the book, on his sentencing for Gardner’s murder. When the judge read him the death sentence, Roy and his family screamed in shock; the jury had voted 10-2 for the relatively lenient sentence of life without parole, but the judge overruled their decision. Immediately, two “redneck” policemen seized Roy, who was sobbing uncontrollably, and dragged him to a waiting squad car.
Roy comments on the reductive injustice of the courts and public seeing him as a “monster,” noting that in the years prior to his arrest, he had shown an impressive work ethic and potential. He began working at 15 as a cook at a Popeye’s restaurant, and he quickly improved his skills until he was cooking at a steakhouse. He goes on to describe his bleak, roach-infested cell on death row and the extreme loneliness and fear of his first night in prison. Knowing nothing about the appeals process, he was convinced that he would be executed within a few weeks.
Kuklin notes that Roy was still 16 at the time of his sentencing. In 2001, after more than six years on death row, his death sentence was commuted to life without parole, and he was put in with the general prison population. Ten years passed between Roy’s conviction and Kuklin’s first meeting with him; he was 26 at the time of the interview. Kuklin describes Roy’s middle-class background: his “fair” grades in school and stable home. Nevertheless, he felt directionless as a child, was hyperactive, and exhibited mild behavioral conditions.
Kuklin draws on court records and newspaper accounts to describe what led to Roy’s arrest for murder. Roy had been hanging out with a group of slightly older teens; unbeknownst to him at the time, he says, the men were gang members. The group planned to steal a car and some other things from Kevin Gardner. For reasons that remain unclear, one of the teens shot and killed Gardner during the robbery. The next day, Roy’s three accomplices told the police where to find Gardner’s body, eventually fingering Roy for the murder. The police, who could have detained them and questioned them separately upon first finding the body, chose not to. Kuklin notes that the three older boys had ample time to agree on a story after their release because they all lived together in the same house. The three received complete immunity in exchange for their testimony against Roy. Eventually, Roy admitted to killing Gardner; however, he recanted his confession in court, claiming he had told the police what they wanted to hear just to be left alone. Despite the sworn testimony of two young women who claimed to have heard one of his accomplices confess to the killing, Roy was convicted. All three accomplices walked free.
Roy describes his closeness with his father and three brothers before his arrest, as well as the Christian strictness of his upbringing, mostly enforced by his devout mother. Unlike his mother, he says, his father loved him unconditionally and was his greatest advocate after his arrest. His lawyer did not show much faith in him and did the absolute minimum in his defense. In jail prior to his trial, he passed the GED exam, and the local sheriff allowed him to attend the graduation ceremony in cap and gown without handcuffs: an act of kindness for which Roy later thanked him in a letter. Roy notes that he has continued his education in prison and particularly loves the works of Milton, Dante, and Shakespeare.
Roy seems nostalgic for death row, which he remembers as being calmer and more of a community than the general prison population. The other condemned prisoners were not only “tolerant” of his wild, 16-year-old self, but taught him, fed him, and counseled him about prison life. He compares them to surrogate fathers and notes that they provided a “buffer” for him; if he had gone into general right away, he thinks, he might have been killed or raped. Death row also offered him more amenities, such as his own cell and TV, as well as access to things like typewriters, word processors, and tape recorders. Nevertheless, Roy comes out fiercely against the death penalty, arguing that the claim that it serves a “preventive” purpose is sheer hypocrisy; as evidence, he cites the recent execution of a prisoner in his seventies.
Stevenson, an attorney and anti-death-penalty activist who was Kuklin’s main guide and adviser during her research, outlines some of the stark differences between death row and the general population. Death row prisoners are isolated in their cells for 23 hours a day, protecting them from attacks by other prisoners. Moreover, the typical death row prisoner experiences a sense of brotherhood with his block mates since all share the same fate. Most of them know that they must get along with each other since they are not going anywhere; this is their home for life. By way of contrast (Roy adds), the general population has many short-term prisoners who feel no such loyalty for each other, making it much more of a “cutthroat” environment.
Unlike these short-termers, lifers (those, like Roy, with a life sentence) are denied many privileges and opportunities, such as outside work or even office duties. The stress and sameness of his constricted life, Roy says, often bring him very close to despair. He finds solace in books, letters, and visits from family, and in his own poetry. He says he has no friends in prison. Nevertheless, he still finds cause for hope; Stevenson may yet succeed in getting him a new trial on the grounds that his sentence of life without parole was a throwback to the pre-Roper era.
Chapter 1 Analysis
Roy’s conviction and sentencing are a case study in both Race, Injustice, and Capital Punishment and Trying Juveniles as Adults. The Supreme Court’s 1976 decision (Gregg v. Georgia) ended a national moratorium on the death penalty, but it also implied that state-sanctioned death should function not as revenge but as a last-ditch method of containing those whose crimes exceeded a certain level of premeditation, sadism, and cold-bloodedness and rendered them unsafe to society. A serial killer is the classic example of this sort of offender.
By contrast, Roy had no serious disciplinary problems prior to his arrest for the murder of a classmate. This will be a pattern throughout Kuklin’s book: The crimes of Kuklin’s teenaged subjects demonstrate an impulsive randomness that seems less a product of premeditation than of panic or groupthink. On another day or in slightly different circumstances, the killings would not have happened. In Roy’s case, the youths involved had no clear plans for disposing of the stolen items, most of which they tossed out or abandoned. As for the victim’s car, they had only vague plans of taking it to a chop shop (a place where stolen vehicles are mined for profitable parts) in Richmond. Since they could not find one, they abandoned the car as well. This car, which they had intended to sell to strangers, was undoubtedly soaked with the victim’s blood since they had shot him while he was seated behind the wheel—hardly the calculated act of seasoned criminals. The story Roy’s accomplices used to lead police to the victim’s body—that they were “berry-picking”—might even have been lifted from the 1980s preteen adventure film Stand by Me. When they finally confessed their part in the murder, they characterized the killing as unexpected and (to them) inexplicable. Whether it was Roy or his slightly older accomplices who pulled the trigger, the entire crime is remarkable for its guileless foolishness.
Science shows that adolescents are far more prone than adults to impulsive, unplanned, and even self-destructive acts since their brains are not yet fully developed. This short-sightedness also leaves adolescents more susceptible to making false confessions, which might have happened in Roy’s case. His accomplices certainly had reason to pin the crime on him, though no one seems to have questioned their account. As Roy’s lawyer Stevenson notes in a later chapter, the typical police modus operandi all but guarantees that when a felony has more than one author, the first accomplice to make a statement gets the deal: in this case, a virtual get-out-of-jail-free card. Regardless of the extent of his guilt, Roy’s work history and decent grades would have seemed to make him a candidate for rehabilitation. None of these extenuating circumstances seems to have been considered by the prosecutors, who charged him as an adult, or by the judge, who overruled the jury’s 10-2 recommendation for a sentence of life without parole.
Again and again, Kuklin suggests that youths inexperienced in the ins and outs of crime and punishment suffer greatly for their reluctance to inform against so-called friends. A system that in theory aims to penalize the more hardened criminal element often—for expediency’s sake—accomplishes the opposite: Frequently, it is these longtime perpetrators who are savvy enough to bargain with detectives and prosecutors and wriggle their way out of doing serious time, all at the expense of their more innocent companions.
Kuklin’s interviews with Roy only serve to underscore the injustice of his sentencing—first to death and then to life without parole. With his pursuit of education and interest in literature, Roy shows every sign of having matured and grown into a thoughtful adult. What’s more, his account of the differences between death row and the general prison population makes a powerful case for the possible rehabilitation of even the most hardened offenders. Roy still regards these men as his teachers and “fathers,” and he describes vividly not only their sense of compassion for newcomers like himself, but also their loyalty and solidarity—e.g., their coordinated “screams” of protest just before an execution. Roy attributes this to “reflection” during their lengthy sentences, much of it in the monk-like isolation of their cells. Yet most of them will be systematically killed in the name of justice.
At least one of the many executed men whom Roy knew personally was over 70 years old, which, he says, belies the idea that capital punishment serves a “preventive” function. He instead suggests that it is about revenge, which explains why the defendants’ potential for rehabilitation is so rarely taken into account. “If the person is willing to change,” Roy says, “or tries to do something with his life or give back to society, you can’t just slaughter people like that” (23).
Roy’s own growth seems to have begun shortly after his arrest: It was while awaiting trial that he earned his GED. In the years that followed, Roy mostly stayed out of trouble. As Stevenson notes, “That’s what’s no remarkable about kids. They grow up. […] Each time it is a different person, more so than adults. These changes are profound” (25). In the eyes of the law, however, all this growth is irrelevant: Roy’s sentence remains life without the possibility of parole, and Kuklin leaves readers with little hope that he will ever be allowed to work at a prison trade, let alone contribute his talents and knowledge to society at large.
