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The Rice Thresher
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Thresher Staff Sister Helen Prejean, the author of Dead Man Walking, the basis for the Academy Award-winning movie starring Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn, spoke about her interaction with death row inmates and the death penalty on Tuesday night. Prejean, a member of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Medaille in New Orleans since 1957, also encouraged audience members to sign the Moratorium 2000 petition calling for an end to the death penalty in the United States and around the world. "The people are not wedded to the death penalty," Prejean said. "The American people are a good and decent people, and we got manipulated and pulled into this death penalty, this death business, because of fear and because of a number of things." At the beginning of her talk, Prejean let her audience know they would hear the story of Patrick Sonnier, the man whose story is told in her book, along with her arguments against capital punishment. "I am going to take you through the essential journey, through the high points," Prejean said. "It started with a religious awakening for me. ... For a long, long time I didn't know, or I didn't get all this stuff. People kept trying to connect Christian faith with this social justice stuff. And I'm going, 'Look, I'm spiritual, I'm not political. I'm apolitical. If the poor have God they have everything.' Imagine saying that." Prejean said she realized being apolitical was not the right way to lead her life. "We go along with the death penalty, with everybody else, we bless nuclear submarines, we bless the global economy, the free market," Prejean said. "I was just in Nicaragua where people are dying because of the global economy. "I began by going into the St. Thomas housing projects, living among the African-American people who were struggling against poverty and racism. I began to see the way the police treat people, especially the young black men. I began to see that when people in St. Thomas are killed, you can barely find it in the newspaper." Prejean said she first learned of Sonnier in 1981, when she was asked to participate in a program that provided pen pals to men on death row. At that time, there had not been an execution in Louisiana for more than 10 years. "Do I know this is going to change my whole life?" Prejean said. "Do I know I'm going to watch this guy die in the electric chair two and half years later? Of course not. See, God knows that, too." She said when she found out no one had visited Sonnier in prison, she started to visit him as his spiritual adviser, a role she has filled for four other death row inmates. Prejean said she was struck by how human he was when they first met. Prejean said she first started to question the legal system when she learned that Sonnier had a brother serving a life sentence for the same crime. Sonnier's brother had received a reduced sentence because he testified against Sonnier. "When I first met Patrick Sonnier, my daddy was a lawyer," Prejean said. "I thought it would be an absolute fluke if we ever had an innocent person on death row. I really did. I said, 'We've got the best legal system in the world.' Now, 95 innocent people have come off of death row." Prejean said she now sees flaws in the legal system. "I understand it a lot better now," Prejean said. "Actually, it was all in seed form in Pat Sonnier's case. A poor man who had an attorney who visited with him for two half-hour periods to prepare his defense. "You begin to realize that we have a very frail, human system. You have to realize that there's a rhetoric that drives the death penalty." Prejean said innocent people are convicted of murder all too often as a result of prejudices in our society. "Eight out of every 10 people sitting on death row tonight are there because they killed white people. And if people of color are killed, guess what happens? Is there the same outrage over the death? ... And look at the drive-by shootings in the inner cities - how many kids have been killed, and who's outraged over that?" Prejean said. Prejean said 72 percent of Americans now support a moratorium, because even if they believe in the death penalty, many believe its application is faulty. "For us to clean [the death penalty] up, for us to say we're going to do it, and we're not going to do it in a racist way, means that we're going to be as outraged if a white suburban housewife gets killed or a black inner-city kid gets killed," Prejean said. "Do you think we're at that point? Can we do that?" Prejean, who is involved in the organization Murder Victim Families for Reconciliation, talked about her relationships with the parents of the two teenagers murdered by the Sonnier brothers. "I know there are two arms on this cross," Prejean said. "And the person being executed and their family are on one arm, and the victim and their family are on the other arm." Prejean said she has found out that victim's families do not always support the death penalty. "I was naive about victim's families," Prejean said. "I thought every family would want the death penalty. They don't. And sometimes it can split a family right down the middle." "How are we at a point where we believe that killing and violence could be redemptive for us, as a people?" Before concluding her talk, Prejean encouraged the audience to talk to their state legislator about a bill that will come before the Texas legislature to allow the option of a life sentence without parole. This sentence is not available in Texas at this time. Hanszen College senior Andy Kobylivker said he was impressed by Prejean's speech. "She is a very good storyteller, and very effective," Kobylivker said. "A lot of people were moved by what she said." Prejean also signed copies of her book, which were on sale after the lecture.
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