In an excerpt from her book Dead Man Walking: An Eyewitness Account of the Death Penalty in the United States (649), Sister Helen Prejean is opposed to the death penalty and is seeking it being abolished. She has some very compelling arguments.
Sister Helen sets a clear tone for her work in the first paragraph: "I think of the running debate I engage in with “church” people about the death penalty. “Proof texts” from the bible usually punctuate these discussions without regard for cultural context or literary genre of the passage invoked. (Will D. Campbell, a Southern Baptist minister and writer, calls this use of scriptural quotations “biblical quarterbacking.”)" (649)
She notes that she often debates the subject of the death penalty. This brings a sense of authority to her stance and helps her credibility as an authority. She also finds most arguments fail because of the use of biblical references out of context. Appealing to our sense of reason, she describes the most common “proof texts” and sets them in proper context. This was an effective argument because she takes the most commonly used references to support the death penalty and places them in to context to show they were not Jesus supporting death as punishment but more about Mosaic laws at the time these stories were written.
Her weakest argument was the section discussing the history of the Church since Jesus's teachings. Here she speaks about the corruption in the Roman Catholic Church and the invention of "original sin." Sister Helen concludes, Augustine used “original sin” to control the church’s subjects by violent means, even death (651). This part of her argument could have been left out. It felt more like a frustrated attack at the church rather then helping support her cause of abolishing the death penalty. She does, however, supply a source for the information she provides about the documented corruption, wealth, and status that it brought to the Church. This helps again in giving her credibility by showing some of her research.
In her closing argument she states an understanding that we allow executions not because of malice but more out of ignorance of what really happens during these events. Sister Helen has attended an execution and is confident if they were made public we would be ashamed of the process and be forced to abolish the practice. She is speaking from the heart here. This is not a successful argument, however, because she has seen an execution and could share the things she has seen to help break the secret. In this text, however, here she just provides general terms and descriptions of “torture and violence” (653).
Another strong argument from Sister Helen was a list of other actions that if we were to follow the laws set forth in the bible would also be punishable by death: contempt of parents, trespass upon sacred ground, sorcery, bestiality, sacrifice to foreign gods, profaning the Sabbath, adultery, incest, homosexuality, and prostitution. Sister Helen then goes on to surmise that if we try to use the bible as justification for the death penalty, then the above offenses would also be worthy of the same punishment. This argument was very successful as it appeals to our sense of logic when looking to the bible as justification for using the death penalty.
Sister Helen also discusses two flares of hope, as she puts it, Mohandas K. Gandhi and Martin Luther King (652). She was referencing a short essay by Susan Jocoby where she discusses nonviolent aggression. She continues to grow her credibility with more shown research. This is a key point of her argument. Her point here is change can come without violence and if we follow Jesus’s words of compassion, we cannot afford to allow executions. Sister Helen says they cost us to much, morally (652). For a person of faith, this argument would be very successful by appealing to one‘s belief in Jesus.
One thing she failed to address here is the alternatives to the death penalty. Life in prison is costly to our society as well. The cost of housing, feeding, clothing, and maintaining a prisoner takes a toll on our country's economy, and there is a point when the benefit of the greater good does outweigh the life of one. Sister Helen made her best argument when she said, “I would not want my death avenged -- especially by government, which can’t be trusted to control its own bureaucrats or collect taxes equitably or fill a pothole, much less decide which of its citizens to kill” (649).
Prejean, Helen. “Executions Are Too Costly—Morally.” In Barnet and Bedau 649-653.
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