With passion and spunk, Sister Helen Prejean captivated a law school audience Wednesday, tearing into the death penalty and sharing her experiences as a spiritual adviser to death row inmates.
The Louisiana nun, whose 1994 book Dead Man Walking won critical acclaim and inspired a Hollywood movie, has become one of the country's most forceful opponents of capital punishment. "What I do is help the American public wake up on the death penalty," she said.
She explained that even though the pace of executions has quickened in the last decade, most Americans have failed to reflect on the moral implications of the death penalty. "You get blue-haired grandmothers who say, 'I'm in favor of it. They deserve to die.' That's not reflection," she said.
Although it is important to maintain outrage at murder, Americans too often dehumanize murderers by seeing their lives as only a "freeze frame" of the horrible act they commit. "It's easy to kill a monster," she said. "It's even easier to kill a monster we never meet."
Prejean began her death penalty work in 1982, corresponding with Louisiana prisoner Patrick Sonnier. She said Wednesday that she never expected the letter exchange to bring her into the death house as Sonnier's official spiritual adviser and witness to his execution. Several times during her speech, Prejean recited that date-April 5, 1984-as the climax of her political and religious awakening. "When you are in the presence of suffering and you are in the presence of injustice, something happens," she said.
The quest to alleviate suffering and injustice has motivated Prejean ever since, and she used Wednesday's speech to highlight the flaws in the criminal justice system. Most glaringly, the capital defense system is sharply biased against the poorest defendants, she said. From her personal experience, Prejean told of incompetent defense lawyers who met with their clients only twice or failed to introduce mitigating circumstances such as lifelong physical abuse from the victim.
Prejean also decried the justice system as racist, explaining that crimes against white people have always been punished more harshly than those against blacks. "When we had the death penalty for rape, you think it was for rape of women of color?" she asked.
Using her horror stories, Prejean brought a powerful message to the law students in attendance, many of whom are already doing pro bono work for prisoners on death row but are also being wooed by high-powered corporate firms.
"Whatever professional house you build, make sure there's a room in your house for poor people," Prejean said. "Maybe not a whole house, but have a room for poor people, because they have nobody-but you."
Prejean, who has witnessed five executions, said she sees her role as expanding beyond providing advice to the victims. She told of the cowardice she felt in 1984 when she considered approaching the families of Sonnier's victims. This experience helped her realize that victims' families-as well as the families of the inmates-all experience tremendous pain and need spiritual guidance.
Prejean said she feels that public support for the death penalty is waning, citing surveys showing that Americans are becoming more like their counterparts in other industrialized countries. A petition circulating Wednesday gathered at least 100 signatures asking for a moratorium on executions.
Unfortunately, Prejean said, politicians have failed to respond. She said she's heard death penalty supporters Vice President Al Gore and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton praise her book as "powerful." "I used to think political leaders were like rudders, but now I know they're like weather vanes," she said. But Prejean remains undeterred, urging everyone to consider the benefits of life sentences without parole for murders. "We can be safe without imitating the violence."
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