Amy Engel On Eschewing Judgement for Moral Complexity and Context

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Before I became a full-time writer, I spent a decade working as a criminal defense attorney. It was rewarding, exhausting, heart-breaking work. I’m glad not to be practicing any longer, but I also feel lucky to have had the experiences I did during those years. They shaped me into a better, more empathetic person, one who is able to look past a stark black-and-white perspective and see all the subtle gray space in between the extremes. Given my background, writing a legal thriller might seem like the obvious choice, but so far setting a book inside a courtroom hasn’t appealed to me. Keeping the courtroom out of my novels doesn’t mean that each of my books isn’t informed by my time as a defense attorney, and I Did It For You is no exception. Every experience I had during those years as a defense attorney bleeds into my writing. The men and women I defended, most of whom weren’t horrible people, but simply people who had made a horrible choice. The system that is so blatantly stacked against defendants. The understanding that even people who have committed crimes often still have something worth contributing to the world.

When I sat down to write I Did It For You, there were two lessons I’d learned from my time as a defense attorney that I wanted to bring to the story. The first is the knowledge that most people who commit crimes are not simply evil, with no other facets to their personalities. The vast majority of criminal defendants don’t fit the stereotype, so often portrayed in the media, of a monster with no redeeming qualities. During my years as a defense attorney, I never represented a single person whom I thought was beyond hope. They all had someone who loved them; they all loved someone in return; they cried, and laughed, and told stories. And many of them expressed remorse for the crimes they’d committed. I think there is a tendency to write off anyone convicted of a crime, especially a crime of violence. To assume such a person is disposable. But in doing so, we risk losing a bit of our own humanity in the process. It’s a hard thing to extend mercy, to do the work of recognizing someone’s humanity after they’ve done something terrible. But mercy is a gift we can offer that benefits both the giver and the receiver. It doesn’t take the place of punishment, which has a vital role in civilized society. But mercy can live alongside consequence. They don’t have to be mutually exclusive.

But mercy can live alongside consequence. They don’t have to be mutually exclusive.

The second issue I wanted to highlight with this book is the ways in which violent crime and the death penalty impact not only the family of the victim, but also the family of the perpetrator. During my years as a lawyer, I worked on a variety of cases—embezzlement, health care fraud, drug trafficking, federal hate crimes, and one death penalty murder. When I think back on all the cases I worked on, it’s the death penalty trial that sticks with me the most. It wasn’t just the grueling, relentless hours of work or the frustration with the way death penalty trials are conducted in this country. It wasn’t even knowing that a few exhausted, over-worked lawyers were all that stood between a man and death. It was the impact the trial had on our client’s family that I can never forget.

I still vividly remember the moment the jury announced a sentence of life in prison rather than the death penalty. I watched my generally poker-faced colleagues burst into tears, all of us sobbing as we hugged one another and our client. But what I remember most clearly are the faces of our client’s family, the sheer relief that his life had been spared, tempered with the knowledge that they would never again see him outside of prison walls.

In the years since that trial, it is those family members my thoughts have turned to again and again. It’s their stories, their existence, that thread through my latest novel. They had done nothing wrong. Their only crime was raising and loving a man who would one day be involved in a criminal conspiracy that would end in murder. They weren’t guilty of any crime, but they were treated as an extension of the perpetrator, painted with the same broad brush. The family of the victim was treated with empathy and kindness, as they should have been. But the family of our client was looked at with scorn, their pain ignored by almost everyone in that courtroom. As if being related to someone on trial automatically meant their heartbreak wasn’t real or valid. When thinking about violent crime, we tend to only consider the victim and their family. The family of the accused is, at best, forgotten and, at worst, branded as guilty along with the defendant. I think it is easier for us that way. Viewing people in black and white, good and evil, right and wrong, is so much simpler than diving into the nuances, of forcing ourselves to confront all the murky grayness of real life.

Even though, I’m no longer a criminal defense attorney, the people I defended, and their families, will always be a part of me. It’s impossible to sit next to someone day after day in a courtroom, especially when their life is on the line, and walk away unchanged. You can’t be a part of our justice system and not recognize the flaws and inequalities inherent in its design.

Every time I write a book, my primary goal is to tell a good story. I want readers to be immersed in both the plot and the characters. But if, while entertaining readers, I can also guide them into the gray areas, allow them to see in a new light a part of society we usually avoid, then I’m hopefully helping to give a voice to those who are so often ignored or forgotten.

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