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Jack Green arrived home from the hospital and went upstairs to "recuperate" from his recent hospitalization and catch up on current events by reading the paper. His son, Andy, came up and joined him. After a moment, the dog began to bark outside, which Green knew meant someone was driving down their football field- length driveway.
Andy looked outside and said, "Dad, it's a state police car."
"Well, we better go downstairs, then," said Green, pushing himself up from the bed.
It was 80 degrees outside, the sun was shining and it was a beautiful day.
Green knew the police officer. He was a good friend of the family. There was another man with him that Green did not know.
As they approached the front door, Green said, "Hi, Frank, how ya doing?"
Frank did not respond and after they had entered the house, Green said again, "Hi, Frank, how are ya?"
The response was not, "How are you doing, Jack?"
It was, "I'd like to introduce you to the state police chaplain."
The next words, according to Green, were the most "godawful" words a parent can hear.
They weren't, "Good afternoon, Jack."
They were, "I'm sorry to inform you that your daughter Leslie was just killed."
That was the image painted into the minds of the 13 individuals who were ordered by the court to attend a session of the Victim's Impact Panel.
Green, the second panel speaker, said very plainly, "I don't want your pity. I'm not here for your pity, I absolutely will not accept it. I'll accept your sympathy."
When a person is convicted of drinking and driving in Kosciusko County, the court orders them to attend one session of the new Victim's Impact Panel. There is no charge for the panel and all speakers volunteer their time. The court sends a list of names indicating who has been ordered to attend the monthly panel to Frank Choate, counselor at MedPark and founder of the panel.
Choate said the emphasis was not to get people to stop drinking. The main purpose of the panel is to appeal to the emotions of first- time convicted drunk drivers and make them understand the consequences of drinking and driving.
"It's an emotional appeal directly to the emotions of the person," said Choate.
If it works, Choate doesn't feel there is anything wrong with such an appeal. He said that people do a lot of things that are based on emotions alone.
The appeal takes the form of true, emotion-packed stories told by people like Green, who have been affected by the actions of drunk drivers.
Jessica Gaither's telephone rang at 12:05 in the morning.
It was not the call she was expecting
She thought her son would be calling to tell her he would be coming home late.
Instead, she was told that he wouldn't be coming home at all. Gaither's son, Jay, had been killed by a drunk driver.
"He crushed his head," Gaither pauses and looks at the audience. "He was killed instantly."
Many of the attendees cannot keep eye contact and look away when Gaither's gaze passes over them.
Gaither said that any one of the attendees could easily have been the one to take her son's life, "He didn't think he would be a murderer the next day."
"I lost a beautiful, beautiful 18 year-old son by a drunk driver before he graduated high school," she said to the attendants of the panel, hiding her emotions as best she could.
"Not going to his graduation but going to his funeral," her emotions almost failing her. "Instead of buying a gift we bought a coffin."
The attendants of the panel stared back at Gaither not quite knowing what more to expect.
The driver that killed her son, Jay, was 18 at the time of the accident, 12 years ago, and was driving under the influence of alcohol.
"I don't know how you feel if you kill someone," she said slowly and evenly. "That's murder. And if you're driving under the influence, it can happen with the flash of an eye."
Choate began the panel last February. He became interested in the concept after several of his clients mentioned being part of a "Victim's Impact Panel."
After talking to two judges for Kosciusko County, James Jarrette and Joseph Sutton, who handle nearly all of the DUI cases, Choate set himself to preparing the panel.
The panel he created is a "carbon copy" of the one being used in Elkhart, which Choate remembered as being "extremely moving."
The panel consists of three or four people who have lost loved ones due to the actions of drunk drivers. The speakers tell what their loved ones were like, their personalities, and then they describe in detail what it was like to lose them.
"A big part of the emphasis is on what it's like after the tragedy has occurred," said Choate.
For example, the last time Jack Green saw his daughter alive she said she loved him and that she would see him later.
Then she turned around and told him that she was going to a local festival the next day and knew how well he liked apple dumplings.
"I know you can't get there," she said. "When you get home, there will be one in the refrigerator for you."
"I love you, Les," said Green.
"I love you, too, Dad," she said. "I'll see you at home."
Two days after the accident that took his daughter's life, Green opened the refrigerator.
"My heart broke," he said slowly. "In the refrigerator, in a little plastic container was the apple dumpling."
The year after Jessica Gaither's son died she would wake up and hear him calling her name.
"He would call me..." said Gaither, losing hold of her emotions briefly.
She regained her composure quickly, though, and continued.
She would see boys that looked like him in a crowd of people and think she saw him. She couldn't speak to any of his friends without crying.
"The panel has one purpose and one purpose only," said Choate, "and that is to help people to understand what it is they are doing when they drive under the influence of alcohol."
"A lot of people view this court order as a punishment," said Choate, "but it really isn't."
He restates that the panel is not to get individuals to stop drinking but get them to call a cab, call a friend or drink at home.
Choate said that seven out of 10 people drink alcohol, anywhere from once on New Year's Eve to a case of beer a day.
In 1997, the Kosciusko County Sheriff's Department reported 227 cases of driving while intoxicated.
How many people are drinking and driving that do not get caught?
Gaither said, "It doesn't matter if it's midnight or 10 o'clock or six o'clock in the morning. These guys are out there all driving under the influence of alcohol."
At the end of the meeting participants are given a survey to evaluate the panel.
Nearly all of the participants said they felt some form of sympathy or "heartache" for the speakers in varying degrees.
Several surveys indicated a commitment to stop drinking alcohol. Choate said that, while he would like to believe them all, he knew that some were probably just telling him what he wanted to hear.
Only one of the answers to the survey was written in a sarcastic style.
Choate said they would not be able to really see any results for several months, but the program in Elkhart, which has even become bilingual, speaking English and Spanish, has several speakers available.
Choate encourages anyone willing to become a speaker for the panel to contact him. He admits that it takes a special kind of person to be able to stand before a group of individuals and tell a story about how a loved one was killed by a drunk driver.
It becomes even harder when the audience has been convicted of the same drunk driving crime as the person who killed their loved one.
