Dead Man Walking
In 1982, Sister Helen Prejean starts writing to a death row inmate at Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola, Elmo Patrick Sonnier. After writing several letters to Patrick, who has been convicted of the kidnap and murder of two teenagers, she decides to become his spiritual advisor. During her first visit with Patrick in prison, he tells her about his childhood and shares memories of his father and brother. After few months, Prejean also begins to visit Patrick’s brother, Eddie, who kidnapped and murdered the two teenagers along with Patrick and is serving a life sentence. After the judge sets the execution date Patrick explain that Eddie was the one who lost control and killed the two teenagers. Later Eddie confesses to…show more content… Prejean gives her arguments against it on ABC News and challenges the assertion that capital punishment can be a noble thing. She then lists a number of men put to death for crimes they did not commit. Prejean helps found an organization, Survive, to assist victims’ families in the inner city. At one of Survive’s meetings, Prejean learns about the terrible treatment poor black women in the inner city have received at the hands of the district attorney and police.
In the book Debating Capitale Punishment by Bedau and Cassel they express their concern with the death penalty by stating that "We don’t rape people who have raped and we don’t assault people who have assaulted. We disavow torturing those who have tortured. Yet we endorse killing." They have a valid point in saying that killing is wrong even if someone is killed by another.
They express that if someone is killed by another the punishment shouldn’t be death. The justice system is just that, trying to seek justice for those who deserve it, not revenge. Killing would be revenge for someone who has lost. Everyone is born with rights and that’s what the constitution was made for to uphold those rights that every man and woman was born
