On Jan. 26, 2007, I found myself in the middle of an overflowing University of Oregon Law School lecture hall. I listened intently as a charismatic, inspiring nun spoke of her efforts towards changing the “paradigm of justice” in the United States. This was Sister Helen Prejean, internationally recognized advocate against capital punishment and author of the widely renowned books “Dead Man Walking: An Eyewitness Account of the Death Penalty in the United States” (also a major motion picture), and “The Death of Innocents: An Eyewitness Account of Wrongful Executions.”
After waiting in a long and crowded line for my own signed copy of “Dead Man Walking,” I returned home and began to read. I learned that Sister Helen began corresponding by mail with death row inmate Patrick Sonnier in 1982, and was moved to become his spiritual advisor and friend. She supported him through the agonizing days until his prescribed death sentence, and provided him with the opportunity to grow and heal despite his fast-approaching death at the hands of the criminal justice system.
Sister Helen’s objections to capital punishment flow out of her religious beliefs. In addition, she argues that the death penalty perpetuates the cycle of violence, and is not at all effective in reducing crime rates because it does not apply equally to all criminals.
Today, capital punishment is legal in 35 states. Oregon is among them. As of Aug. 2009, 32 men were on death row at Oregon State Penitentiary, and the last execution in Oregon took place on May 16, 1997. In my experience, many of us are distanced from the issue of the death penalty, and are unaware that the United States joined China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan to make up the countries with the most executions in 2008. Amnesty
International cites that together, these five countries carried out 93 percent of the world’s executions that year.
Hearing about Sister Helen’s work moved me to involve myself with prison issues in our community. Last Spring, I participated in the Inside-Out Prison Exchange, a program that allowed me to take a literature and ethics course alongside several inmates at the Oregon State Penitentiary. As a part of our experience, the University of Oregon students in this class were given an extended tour of the prison that included a viewing of the Execution Chamber. Never before have I felt so wrong for standing inside four walls. The coldness and sterility evoked both an absence of human emotion and an unbearable sense of loneliness. Seeing the expressions on the faces of my peers, I understood that I was not alone in this observation.
“Is God vengeful, demanding a death for a death? Or is God compassionate, luring souls into love so great that no one can be considered ‘enemy’?” I reflect upon this quote from Sister Helen, and open the cover of “Dead Man Walking,” where several words written in a flourishing cursive will never cease to motivate me: “Madeline — choose life!”
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