Author Criticizes Death Penalty in US Courts

In an event that was part spiritual awakening, part Southern storytelling and part moral crusade, Sister Helen Prejean, of Dead Man Walking fame, enthralled a packed crowd at the Divinity School yesterday afternoon.

Speaking before a crowd of about 200 in Andover Hall, Prejean offered a strong indictment of the criminal justice system in the U.S.

The courts, she said, favor the person "who can jump through the legal hoops the best, and who has the best attorney."

"I was naive," Prejean said. "I thought the courts were a place where everyone went and told the truth."

Prejean, a three-time Nobel Peace Prize nominee, decried the continuing use of capital punishment in the U.S--in comparison to Europe, where virtually all countries have repealed the measure--and the conditions in which Death Row inmates live.

"All of your human rights are gone because you're in a cage basically waiting to be killed," she said.

She noted that the emotion involved in death-penalty cases makes it hard for many Americans to think rationally about the death penalty.

"The reason is it so hard for us is of course we are outraged when we hear about these crimes," she said.

Most juries feel pressured to give the death penalty so they do not show disrespect to the victim, she said.

Dead Man Walking tells the story of Prejean's relationship as a spiritual advisor to Patrick Sonnier, the convicted killer of two teenagers sentenced to die in Louisiana's Angola State Prison.

The book spent 31 weeks on The New York Times bestseller list and won a Pulitzer Prize nomination before it was made into a popular movie in 1995. Susan Sarandon, who played Prejean in the movie, won an Oscar for the role.

Since 1998, Prejean has led a petition drive called "Moratorium 2000," an effort to repeal the death penalty in the U.S. and across the world. She has collected almost two million signatures so far.

Prejean said she plans to present the signatures to Secretary-General Kofi Annan at United Nations headquarters in New York Dec. 10.

Yesterday, Prejean outlined her personal journey as a nun in a New Orleans housing project, and then as the spiritual advisor to Sonnier.

Her experiences working in the St. Thomas housing complex starting in 1981 helped her realize how privileged her life had been, she said.

"I didn't know any poor people," Prejean said. " 'Cause you know, when we are privileged, we don't know we are privileged."

More generally, she said, her previous misconceptions of poor people were emblematic of the divisions separating many Americans.

"We have exaggerated fears of each other, and we don't go into certain neighborhoods and we're afraid," Prejean said.

Prejean's first visited Sonnier on Death Row in 1982. She called the experience "life-changing."

"I'm scared to death. I mean, I'm walking in a prison for the first time," Prejean recalled. "I was so scared, because I knew I was stepping into a territory I didn't have control of."

But after she met Sonnier, and he told her about his love of hunting and the kind of "venision roast" his mother made, she added, her fears were calmed.

"He was smiling," Prejean said. "He said, 'Sister, you came. Thanks for coming to see me. Thank you.'"

"We have two million people incarcerated in this country," she added. "And most of them are abandoned."

Prejean's hour-plus speech was also peppered with numerous jokes delivered in her warm Louisiana drawl.

"Nuns are big-time in New Orleans," she said. "Nuns ride free on the buses."

Audience members said the depth and thoughtfulness of Prejean's speech impressed them. She received a standing ovation.

Fran E. O'Donnell, a librarian at the Divinity School, said Prejean's talk was "amazing."

"She was very personable, and funny, and very down-to-earth," O'Donnell said.

Prejean said a Terence McNally-directed opera of Dead Man Walking in San Francisco is in the works, as well as a series of nationwide dramatic productions of her work led by Tim Robbins.