Life and Death

Jfer and I went to a panel discussion last night part of The Journey of Dead Man Walking symposium sponsored by UT's Humanities Institute. It was the third in a series of five parts - we've missed the first two, but we have tickets to the next one, the Dead Man Walking opera and plan to go to the last on as well.

Last night's panel discussion featured Sister Helen Prejean, the author of the book, and Jake Heggie, the composer of the opera and was moderated by UT professor Evan Carton. The discussion was mixed with members of ALO and two local elementary schools performing parts of the opera. It was quite and captivating event. Both Sister Helen and Jake Heggie are captivating speakers that clearly convey their convictions and involvement. Listening to them talk about their work makes me read the book and rent the movie and we are very much looking forward to the opera.

The death penalty is such a polarizing issue here in America and the Sister very convincingly presented her views as to why it's wrong for our society to be putting people, even guilty-as-sin murderers, to death. She has been involved both with death row inmates - she mentioned that of the six that she has accompanied to death have were guilty and the rest have been either innocent or not competent - as well as with victims families, although she's more often viewed as an adversary by the latter. I wished that they had brought somebody from the other side of the argument to the panel as well. As it was, it felt a little like the Sister was preaching to the choir.

Personally I have had mixed feelings about capital punishment. There are such horrendous crimes where death seems to the least you can do to the criminal and that used to seem justification enough to me. Yet I think now that capital punishment, despite what its proponents say, is much more about vengeance than about justice - especially considering some of the people that are being put to death. Look at the statistics, a tremendous portion of death row inmates is poor, black, uneducated and/or mentally ill or retarded. But even executing those that do not have the cards stacked against them like that just doesn't feel right to me. I don't think society is any more at danger from a life-behind-bars prisoners than from an executed one. And there is nothing you can do about the later if he turns out to be not guilty after all - as too many death row inmates turn out to be.

Several years ago the husband of a friend was senselessly murdered. My visceral reaction to this event was that I wanted to see those punks put to death - not as a determent or to "protect society" but simply because they deserved no better and there they'd never amount to anything half as worthwhile as the wonderful husband and father whose life they took away for kicks. I've heard about his family's pain and have seen the toll it was taking on my friend years after the event. Yet the widow pleaded on the murderers behalf against capital punishment - and there wasn't any doubt about guilt in that case. I had a difficult time understanding that she would go out of her way and do this. Yet putting them to death would not bring her husband back or make her feel any better. By pleading for their life she rose high above those men and made a strong point about the sanctity of life - everyone's life. I think that's something that we as a society should strive for as well.