Life force - Q&A with Sister Helen Prejean

by Shafik Meghji

Sister Helen Prejean has been campaigning against the death penalty in the US for over 25 years. Based in Louisiana, she has been a spiritual adviser to seven death row prisoners. In 1993 she wrote Dead Man Walking, which was turned into an Oscar-winning film starring Susan Sarandon. Her new book, The Death of Innocents, was published this year. It tells the stories of Dobie Williams and Joseph O'Dell, both of whom Sister Helen supported, campaigned for and later accompanied to their executions - and who she says were wrongly executed by a fatally flawed judicial system.

 

Amnesty Magazine: What inspired you to write The Death of Innocents?

Sister Helen: After Dobie Williams was executed, I sat with his mum in her kitchen. She told me that no one had heard Dobie's story and asked me if I would tell it - and I promised I would. I thought it might make an article for a magazine, but then I got involved with the case of Joe O'Dell, and I knew I had to take on the courts system as well. I also wanted to recount my visit to see the Pope. Gradually, all this material turned into a book.

AM: But what made you decide to write about prisoners you consider were innocent at the time of their execution?

SH: It was just the way it worked out. The 'innocence' dimension does up the ante, because for most people this is an absolutely unacceptable state of affairs, and it starts them thinking about the whole death penalty issue. I try to show what the death penalty does both to the victim's and the prisoner's family, as well as to the person on death row. That we're executing innocents shows that the system doesn't even work right. But of course, we have to get rid of the death penalty for people who are guilty as well.

AM: How is the death penalty made socially acceptable?

SH: Through the use of social, political, legal and religious authority. Supreme Court judge Antonin Scalia, for instance, quotes fundamentalist Christian texts to claim that we have a divine right to use the death penalty. You also have to remember that the death penalty is 99 per cent about politics and one per cent about justice. Politicians use it as a potent symbol of their being tough on crime to help them get elected. They don't try to tackle the causes of crime and violence. And the executions themselves are kept as secret rituals, so few people ever see or know what happens.

AM: How did you get involved with Amnesty International?

SH: I've been involved with Amnesty since the start of my campaign work. I really learnt about human rights from Amnesty International - it formed me. Someone from the organisation once wrote that human rights are 'inalienable'. That just hit me like a thunderbolt and has always stuck with me.

AM: What's been your biggest achievement?

SH: I think it's been helping to get the debate on ending the death penalty going through the book and film of Dead Man Walking. I feel good that my work is playing a part in getting people to really understand the issue.

AM: And disappointment?

SH: When conservative, pro-death penalty judges Samuel Alito and John Roberts were elected to the Supreme Court earlier this year. I felt if we had had a decent-minded Supreme Court, we could have had a constructive debate and end the death penalty.

AM: What campaigns are you involved with at the moment?

SH: I continue to be a spiritual adviser for Manuel Ortiz, a citizen of El Salvador, who is on death row in Louisiana for murder. I believe he is absolutely innocent.

AM: You're based in New Orleans. How have you coped since Hurricane Katrina?

SH: I'm living with my sister in Baton Rouge now. My life has stayed pretty normal, really - I've just swapped the airports I fly out from! But Hurricane Katrina symbolised so much about what's wrong with America. There's been no dialogue about race and poverty as a result, and so many people's lives are in limbo.

AM: What are your plans for the future?

SH: I just plan to keep on doing what I'm doing - campaigning, and giving about a gazillion talks a year. I've witnessed the death penalty and I feel I have an obligation to keep on campaigning.

Amnesty Magazine, May/June 2006 issue

Find out more about Amnesty's campaign against the death penalty