E-Mail This Article to a Friend Still walking (continued)

Q: Do you consider your religious faith to be at the core of your argument against the death penalty? And if so, how do you make that argument to people who aren’t religious or who don’t have faith? How do you make it accessible to them?

A: In fact, some of my greatest struggles have been with the religious people. Look at Scalia, making this religious, theological argument. I’ve always found that to be a paradox, an irony. There were some polls that showed the more people went to church, the more they believed in the death penalty. [But] Jesus was very incarnational. Jesus was very flesh and blood. "I was hungry, you gave me to eat; I was a stranger, you took me in; I was imprisoned and you came to me." He was very down to earth. That coincides with human rights and the dignity of the person. And human rights means we shouldn’t torture someone. That’s why my faith brings you down to the dignity of the human person. I think that is what is persuasive to people, regardless of if you ever step into a church or a synagogue. All human beings can unite around human rights and the dignity of a person, and that we shouldn’t be mean to people, we shouldn’t torture people. That’s the ground that I stand on, and that is the way that I put the arguments forth.

And also the sadness of someone like Justice Scalia, who could never touch a human cheek, he has so many layers of gloves on. Look how removed he was from the reality of people suffering, and what it meant to kill. He even refers to himself as machinery. "I know I’m part of the machinery of death." You can see him lose his humanness right in front of your eyes when he starts talking about himself as a machine.

Q: Do you know if Justice Scalia has read the book yet?

A: No, I don’t know. And I don’t know if he will. I tend to think he probably won’t, because I think he would totally discount [it]. But I don’t know that. We are going to send it to all the members of the Supreme Court, and I would not not send him a copy. It’ll be interesting. And I don’t know that he’ll ever respond publicly, either, because he chooses his audiences, and he chooses the way that he responds or doesn’t respond. I doubt if he’ll enter into any kind of public debate, and he’ll just carry on with being part of the machinery of death, and stamping his approval on things. Though human beings can always change, so we can never discount what grace might do. So far, it doesn’t seem that there’s any opening, but one never knows.

Q: Were you surprised that Scott Peterson got the death penalty?

A: Not at all, because here’s the other thing, along that line of the impossible burden: what’s the jury gonna do? You know, the pressure on a jury to protect the public, and also the way our society says we [should] honor people who have been killed. And the evidence, even though it was circumstantial, really pointed a lot against him. I think they felt they had to do the right thing for the community, and there’s just huge pressure to do it. In the Terry Nichols case, the jury people who voted not to kill Terry Nichols, boy, they [got] letters of hate. There’s huge pressure on them, social pressure, to deliver a death verdict. I feel sorry for them. I feel sorry for these human beings who are asked to do this with, so often, not sufficient information. Or even when they do have full information, you have these inscrutable things of a terrible crime, and then a terrible childhood, so who knows? Who has the wisdom to say, yeah, you should live, or no, you should die? People can’t handle it. Maybe let’s just acknowledge that and get on with putting all these resources for death into places for kids that are addicted to drugs, and working with at-risk kids, and helping our kids in public schools, and helping people when they get out of prison to find jobs. Let’s get on with the life things. And I’m hoping that’s what this book will do, that people will just close the book and say, "Enough. Let’s put an end to this thing."

Q: How do you define forgiveness?

A: A victim’s family, whom I just had dinner with the other day, Lloyd LeBlanc, is the one who gave me the best working definition. His son David was murdered; that’s the story in Dead Man Walking. And he said, "People think forgiveness is weak, like I’m condoning what they did. They killed my boy. Our family name has died with my son." But he said, "I’m not going to let that anger and that bitterness overcome me, because then I’ll be dead too." And he said, "So I’m not going to let that hatred overcome me. And I’m going to keep being a loving person, even though they did this."

Q: What’s next for you?

A: Well, a book unleashes this tsunami, so you follow the currents. I’ll be talking to different people about the book. I know how it goes now; with Dead Man Walking, I didn’t have a clue about what was going to happen. The invitations to speak will pour in. Mostly I try to get out there to young people in universities and colleges. I’ll continue to visit and accompany the people on death row, and I’ll get on the road and continue talking to people.

Q: What are you most proud of?

A: I guess I would say fidelity. And I don’t know if you want to use the words "proud" and "fidelity" in the same sentence. But I know this is important, to be faithful. And by fidelity I mean that the people I go to see on death row, and the murder victims’ families whom I accompany, that I’m faithful. That when I say I’m coming to see them, I see them. That I give them time. Because people are the most important things. You know, when I walked out of that execution chamber on the night of April 5, 1984, having watched Patrick Sonnier executed by electrocution in front of my eyes — you know, you’re called. A passion seizes you. I knew that I had been a witness. Few people would ever see this. My job is to tell the story, and I know I’ve been faithful in doing that, and I’ll continue to be faithful in doing that.

Sister Helen Prejean reads from The Death of Innocents at Borders, in Framingham, on January 12, at 7:30 p.m., and at the Brattle Theatre, in Cambridge, on January 13, at 6 p.m. Tamara Wieder can be reached at twieder[a]phx.com