Like many other states WA faces a severe budget crunch this year, so the bill will focus on taking the extravagant amount of money used to maintain a death machine and devote it instead to real help for murder victims’ families, solving cold cases, and doing catch up on the huge backlog of prisoners awaiting DNA tests.

A key part of the organizing strategy will be to involve college students in the three-year  campaign of repeal.

Whenever we talk budget I always emphasize that financial resources are not simply a “practical” issue, but rather a deeply moral issue. Martin Luther King, Jr. used to say a budget is a moral document.

Now here’s interesting fodder for a conversation with President Obama. For starters: “Aren’t you, too, very, very concerned about the fact that already 135 innocent people have been released from death row? How many will it take before we recognize the failed system? Not to mention the shocking, appalling racist application of the death penalty presently carried out in the Deep South states.”

Do you have any ideas about how we might get a conversation going with President Obama and his wife, Michelle, about this issue? Would you like to help us mount a young people’s letter writing campaign to the White House to end the death penalty in the U.S.?

Think boldly. Organize strategically. Act quickly. Please respond and let me know your thinking!

- Sister Helen

To: Mr. Timothy Lockwood
Chief of CDCR  Regulation and Policy Management

Regarding Proposed Amendments to Title 15, Article 7.5, Sections 3349

Dear Mr. Lockwood,

All of my remarks about the proposed amendments to the lethal injection protocol center around this theme: Keep the window open. Make the torture and killing transparent.

Sadly, it is the personal experience I have had of accompanying six human beings to their deaths at the hand of the state that urges me to give this testimony.

KEEP THE WINDOW OPEN as the execution team goes about strapping down the person to be killed and as they insert the intravenous lines, including cut downs that may be necessary if there is difficulty in finding a suitable vein.

KEEP THE WINDOW OPEN during the administration of the poisonous chemicals and as the person is dying as well as after the person has been killed, as the medical professional verifies the death and as the corpse is put into a body bag and removed. Do not conceal any part of the killing process, and do not hide the identity of the personnel who carry out the killing, including the medical personnel. If we feel no need to protect the identity of legislators who have enacted death as punishment on the statute books or district attorneys who seek and secure death sentences, or juries who sentence people to die or judges who pronounce sentence, why do we hide the identity of those who carry out the killing, including those who concoct and administer the lethal chemicals and the medical personnel who supervise the proceedings?

KEEP THE WINDOW OPEN TO THE MEDIA so the citizens can witness the killings done in their name and which, perhaps, they themselves have called for. Through media coverage let legislators see the killings they have desired and mandated into law, and require district attorneys who procured the death sentences to witness the killing they sought.

DO NOT KEEP OUR EYES FROM SEEING THE DEATH AGONY of the person being killed by use of a paralytic drug. Are you aware that in hearings about lethal injection, veterinarians have testified that in the euthanasia of animals they no longer use paralytic agents because such drugs prevent them from seeing if the animal is in distress as they are dying? Use of a paralytic agent in the killing of a human being may be the most cowardly act of all. Its sole purpose is to hide the death agony from the eyes of those who witness the death. What if, for whatever reason, the sleeping barbiturate does not take effect? What if those being killed at our hands are fully conscious but, because of paralysis, are unable to move a finger or cry out as the potassium chloride burns through their veins and convulses their heart? If these killings are legitimate and legal, why do we take such pains to shield ourselves from seeing the agony they necessarily entail? The curtain that must be removed is not only the curtain on the window of the execution chamber at San Quentin, it is the curtain masking our own hearts toward these killings of our citizens, which we claim to want, yet are so reluctant to face.

I wrote the books, Dead Man Walking and The Death of Innocents, and give talks around this nation to bring people face to face with state-sanctioned killing and what it does to us all. May my testimony advance the day when the great state of California will forever consign to a museum the instruments and policies and protocols of state killing that we address today.

Sister Helen Prejean, csj

Take young Neda Agha Soltan, killed by a single bullet this past Saturday, her killing caught on video for all the world to see. Young people writing their souls online. One student saying “I will participate in the demonstrations tomorrow. Maybe I’ll be killed. I’m listening to all my favorite music. I even want to dance to a few songs…I write these words for the next generation so they know we did not surrender to despotism.”

I spend a good part of my time traveling the country speaking to young people at schools and colleges. I love the smart questions, the fire and the passion of these young people and the dedication of their teachers. Speaking to thousands of people each year, I get a good sense of the changing mood surrounding the death penalty, and I have felt the rising of the tide against the death penalty.

One sign of that trend was this letter from a high school teacher in Augusta, Georgia, that I received recently and that certainly was “too good not to share”.

Sister Helen,

Let me begin by saying I understand how busy you are and I do not expect a response. But I would be remiss if I didn’t write.

I had the benefit of hearing you speak at my school in Augusta, Georgia several years ago.  I was moved by your words and subsequently by your writing.

I teach Catholic Moral Theology to high school sophomores. I am in the middle of the block on social justice, and have just finished the topic of capital punishment. I am thrilled to say, for the first time in the many years I have taught this subject, my students have been unanimous in their condemnation of capital punishment. Without exception, they have all stated that capital punishment is totally unnecessary and immoral. While I have seen the numbers opposed to capital punishment grow in recent years, this is the first time I have not had at least one dissenting voice.

My emotions are a mixture of pride for their understanding of this critical issue and excitement over the fact that the message may finally be taking hold – that all life is precious.

I have often felt I was making no progress in these issues, but occasionally I see a glimmer of hope.  All I can do is continue the fight. At least now I have hope for the future.

This was too good not to share. Please pray for our youth as they become the decision makers of the future.

Take care and may God continue to bless you in your ministry.