Dead Man Walking

By Sister Helen Prejean

 

In this book, Sister Prejean writes about her encounters with the death penalty. It describes the process two men suffered on their way to the Louisiana electric chair.

The story starts out with Sister Prejean working for social justice and welfare in St. Thomas, a poor black part of New Orleans. She talks with the impoverished and forgotten. The prison coalition, one day, asks her to be a correspondent to a man on death row. She accepted thinking that it would progress no further than that.

Her correspondent turned out to be Elmo Patrick Sonnier, convicted of rape and double homicide. The first letter she sent with a hope that he wouldn’t respond, but he did. After several letters, she began to see the person behind the name and deed. Eventually, he asks if he can call her, and soon afterwards, asks if she can come and visit him.

She asks him what kind of guest she should sign on as. Patrick tells her to pick spiritual advisor because the visiting hours are longer. On the way to the prison, there is a sign saying, “Do not despair. You will soon be there.” She parks at Angola prison complex and is shuttled out to death row. In front, there are rows of flowers, ironic in front of a place in which men are condemned to die. She talked to the resident chaplain who filled her in on the rules of Angola. She was stunned to find that the priest wasn’t really fighting against the death penalty and had a sort of jaded acceptance.

She finally met Sonnier face to face in the visiting room. They were separated by a screen but could talk freely, except for the guard. They talked about different topics, and discussed the chaplain. Of almost all the personnel at the prison, the chaplain was the one Patrick liked the least. With all the guards and the warden, Patrick was on good if not joking terms, and he got along fairly well with the other inmates. The chaplain calls the prisoners the scum of the earth and looks down on them.

After several visits, Pat begins to talk about his childhood, his family, and the night of the murders. Both he and his brother Eddie pointed the blame at each other in court hoping to show reasonable doubt, but Eddie got life and Pat got death. Sister Prejean begins to visit Eddie, and both Pat and he tell her that it was Eddie. As Pat’s execution date is set, the talk finally goes to God, sins, and forgiveness.

Pat’s execution is postponed by the state. Sister Helen gets Millard Farmer to defend Pat at the next hearing. Millard works against the death penalty whenever he can, as he believes life without parole. At the next hearing, Sister Prejean meets with the victims’ families. She realizes that she should have reached out to them earlier and tried to comfort them. The families feel slighted by her lack of compassion towards their plight. The hearing uphold the decision.

Pat and Sister Prejean begin to prepare for Pat’s execution. The group of Pat’s defense begins to wear themselves ragged. Pat is moved into the death house awaiting the date of his death. As the time draws near, the prison does its best to keep emotions at a minimum, thereby causing fewer problems. Sister Prejean talks Pat into seeing the chaplain for confession. Although he shows a high amount of contempt for the chaplain, he still goes through with it. Pat tells Prejean that he has left most of his affects to her in his will, and that his last request is to not be buried in Angola. The last true full conversation they have is about his last words. At first, Pat wants to show his contempt for the world that had done this to him. But Prejean asks him if he wants his last words to be words of hate, or words of love and forgiveness. He changes his last words.

Then the guards come to get Pat ready. They shave off his hair and eyebrows, and then gave him his last meal. His meal was what one could consider home-style, not fancy but a respectable dinner. Then they lead him off to be executed. Prejean walks with him, speaking words of comfort and Bible passages. Patrick asks the warden for one favor, to be allowed to touch Sister Prejean’s arm: it is allowed. Pat asks forgiveness from one of the parents to try to leave the world in peace. He didn’t trust himself to speak to the other father, as the father constantly expressed almost glee at the thought that Pat would be executed. Then Pat is strapped to the chair and killed.

Sister Prejean, her fellow sisters, and Pat’s family came together and gave Pat a decent funeral. Soon afterwards she is asked to be another spiritual advisor. This time it is to Robert Lee Willie. Willie is a soft-spoken, thin, blonde man. He has an aura of confidence in the face of the inevitable, and he fights for the rights of men on death row.

Soon afterwards, Sister Prejean organizes and takes part in a anti-death penalty march to Baton Rouge. On the way, she is asked after and interviewed by the media. She is surprised by the responses of the reporters after they hear her beliefs and learn the facts of the executions. Many change their opinion to her side. At the end of their journey, she meets with the counter protestors, headed by Vernon Harvey, the father of the girl Willie had killed. Sister Prejean remembered her mistake about not meeting with the victims’ families last time and set up a time to meet with the Harveys.

She meets them at their house for dinner. They state their beliefs on the issue, and Prejean returns with hers. Vernon tells her about all the pain he has been through, and Prejean sympathizes. But she tells him that she believes that killing murderers is just another death that doesn’t solve anything. They say their farewells, understanding each other much better.

Sister Prejean takes her second visit to Willie. They talk about Willie’s feelings and beliefs, and his past. Willie tells her that he admires her for being a fighter for a cause, like him. One of the main things he’s doing with his time is working on a suit to improve death row conditions.

The time comes for Willie’s hearing. It turns out to be a sort of formal debate. While both sides use emotion, it is the Harvey’s feelings that win out. Despite this, Willie hasn’t lost his characteristic cockiness. The countdown to Willie’s execution has begun.

At Prejean’s next visit, Willie’s demeanor hasn’t changed. But he has started to show a more reflective side. He expresses his wish that his death might bring the Harveys some degree of peace. His lawsuit is making some minor headway, but he wishes he could see it through.

Willie begins to give interviews with various networks and newspapers.  He tells the interviewers that his problems are not from his family, that most of his life has been spent as an outlaw and he likes it that way, and he criticizes the U.S. governments attempts to control people through executions and assassinating foreign leaders.

Prejean’s first visit with Willie after he moved into the death house was one to seek clarity. He spoke of his time at Marion, a more militaristic prison than Angola, with a certain fondness. He talked about the Aryan Brotherhood in Marion. Each member got two tattoos, a swastika and a skull. It meant you were a member for life. The Brotherhood shared everything and kind of ruled the prison on the level of the prisoners. Even though breaking from the group meant you would be killed, Willie spoke kindly about them because with them he belonged. He also speaks of the support the other members of death row at Angola have given him. They have told him they want to go out like him, with their heads held high. Willie requests for a polygraph test to calm his mother’s anxieties.

On the day of Robert’s execution, his family comes to say good-bye. After his family leaves, Prejean talks to him again. Willie asks to be buried in his Marion boots. Prejean talks to him about earlier racist and derogatory comments he had made. He tells her it was more about people not standing up for themselves than anything else that truly bugged him. As a guard came to shave Willie’s hair, Prejean told him, “You have dignity, Robert, and no one can take that from you.” The strap down team takes his boots, his last outward sign of dignity. Willie gives Helen his black knitted hat, the one he always wore. Despite going to his death without any dignified haircut or shoes, he still walks his jaunty walk. His last words are “I would like to say, Mr. and Mrs. Harvey, that I hope you get some relief from my death. Killing people is wrong. That’s why you’ve put me to death. It makes no difference whether it’s citizens, countries, or governments. Killing is wrong.”

Again in private and in interviews, Helen questions the use, benefits, legality, and effects of executions. After Willie’s funeral, she again fight the death penalty. The Harveys still fight for the other side. But one day the Harveys invite her to a meeting of the Parents of Murdered Children. She accepts reluctantly. At the meeting, she finds both sides of the death penalty argument there. The group is a support group. Sister Helen realizes that she has been neglecting the victims’ families. Along with her anti-capital punishment campaign, she works with groups that help families of victims legally and emotionally. She continued to work for a change.

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