More from Mary Leary on Flannery O'Connor and Criminal Law

Thank you, Rick, for highlighting my forthcoming article, "Screaming Into the System: The Symbiotic Relationship Between Flannery O'Connor, Violence, and the Criminal Law."    I thought MOJ readers might appreciate a little context on my journey to write this rather unusual article for a law professor. 

As many MOJ readers are aware, 2025 is a huge year for one of America’s most famous Catholic icons, Flannery O’Connor, whose 100^th birthday is being celebrated throughout the country and the world.  There have been numerous conferences in Georgia, Torun, and this summer in London to celebrate the O’Henry Prize and National Book Award winner.  In addition to these conferences, many news outlets have covered the tremendous impact of O’Connor and the lessons she still has for contemporary America (WSJ, NYT, ArtsATL, Savannah Morning News ), not to mention the release of Ethan Hawke's feature film: Wildcat.  

While one may think the lessons O’Connor has for us are limited to literary or theological, I was fortunate to have an experience last Spring which reminded me she has a great deal to say about the law – and that was the beginning of this forthcoming article.

Last Spring, I had the pleasure of teaching as a visiting professor at the University of Georgia School of Law in Athens, Georgia.  What is a nice Irish Catholic law professor from New England to do when living in Georgia for four months?  Well, head to the Archives of Flannery O’Connor at Georgia College and State University and begin researching an article, of course.

It was here in the archives, surrounded by draft speeches and earlier versions of stories that I had a very O’Connor-esque experience.  I originally intended to research how O’Connor was influenced by true criminal law events and how they found their way into her stories.  However, as is so often the case with O’Connor, what one expects, and what O’Connor has in mind are two very different outcomes. 

Once in the archives I was able to see how actual violence and crime she or her community experienced found its way into her stories, as well as how she used the law to comment upon the treatment of the vulnerable in society.  But she had much more in store.

Quite unexpectedly,  I also saw up close her deep vocational approach to her writing - especially at a time when she felt society was not open to her message or, in her words, was a “hostile audience.” While reading these letters and draft speeches about the challenges of moving an audience to see events they do not want to accept (in her case to have the post war materialistic secular world see the presence of grace), she brought me right back to my early days as a child abuse/family violence prosecutor.  Even today, in those courtrooms women and children who suffer serious abuse are often ignored or disregarded by judges and attorneys. 

O’Connor described her work as trying to reach this unwelcoming audience by capturing their attention (“to the hard of hearing you shout, and for the almost-blind you draw large and startling figures.”).  Similarly, the prosecutor – or indeed any attorney representing the vulnerable – faces an uphill battle of convincing a jury that unimaginable violence has been inflicted on a vulnerable person.  This is a message jurors often do not want to hear because it is too disturbing and challenges their own sense of security.  But they also do not want to believe it because it often comes from the mouths of the marginalized: a segment of society that is literally pushed to the margins as unimportant and not worthy of attention. 

Both O’Connor and such an attorney are in a sense "screaming into the system," hence the title to the piece.

Therefore, what emerged from the research was an article which not only describes the influence of the law on O’Connor, but a symbiotic relationship in which O’Connor can influence today’s lawyers.  Her vocational approach to her writing - especially at a time when she felt society was not open to her message - speaks very much to today's legal advocates.  This is especially true for today’s advocates who speak for the voiceless and find themselves greatly frustrated by the odds stacked against them.  The article explores this give and take(the symbiotic relationship) and argues that O’Connor offers today’s legal advocates an inspirational framework on how to approach this important work at a time when the country is so eager to silence the marginalized.