Nursing

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THE

CATHERINE CORE

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St. Catherine University

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Cover art courtesy of Elizabeth Erickson. Hildegard's House of Light. Mixed media, 2011, 22 x 18 inches

This painting depicts a version of a visionary moment as experienced by Hildegard of Bingen. Hildegard was a twelfth century mystic, as well as a writer, composer and a Benedictine abbess in what is now Germany. She founded monasteries, corresponded w ith popes and emperors, wrote theological and medicinal texts and liturgical songs, and oversaw the cre- ation of illuminations based on her visions. An accomplished and renowned woman in a time and place that restricted women's social par- ticipation, Hildegard described her visions as "the living light of God." Hildegard died in 1179.

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Nancy A. Heitzeg is professor of sociologtj and co-director of the interdisciplinary program in critical studies of race and ethnicity at St. Catherine University. As a sociologist, Heitzeg has written and published widely on issues of inequalihJ, their intersections, and corresponding actions toward social change. In this essay, she argues that systemic oppression is at the heart of justice issues, and that these must be addressed through a process of reflection, social analysis, moral evaluation, and action. Issues of criminal injustice in the Trayvon Martin case and the death penalty abolition work of Sister Helen Prejean, CSJ, illustrate this on-going process. How have Prejean's actions toward justice been informed by her own reflection, analysis, and evaluation? Which of the four parts of this process utilize your own strengths, and which parts are more challenging for you?

There Is No Justice without Action

Nancy A. Heitzeg

Justice and Action: A Theory

There can be no justice without peace and there can be no peace without justice.

-Martin Luther King Jr, 1968

"No Justice/No Peace." On February 26, 2012, 17 year old Trayvon Martin headed to a convenience store in Sanford, Florida to pick

up ice tea and Skittles. He never made it back home. Self-appointed neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman profiled the hooded sweatshirt-wearing Trayvon as a potential "criminal," called 911, and then in defiance of the dispatcher's request to remain in his vehicle, fol- lowed Trayvon. An altercation occurred, ending with the unarmed Trayvon Martin being shot and killed by Zimmerman, who claimed self- defense under Florida's controversial Stand Your Ground law. Sanford Police failed to arrest Zimmerman that night, accepting without question his version of events (Nzegwu 2014).

Forty two days after Martin's death, Zimmerman was finally arrested and charged with the murder, only after mounting public pressure on the police and prosecutor. A Change.org petition created by Trayvon's par- ents, Tracy Martin and Sybrina Fulton, garnered over 2 million signa- tures, and both local and national protests kept the spot-light on the case. The profiling and killing of a young Black male for walking home was an eerily familiar story that recalled both slave patrols and the Jim Crow era policing of space and place that many had hoped was over. As Nzegwu (2014, p. 1-2) notes in the introduction to Remembering Trayvon Martin, Special Edition of ProudFlesh:

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M tin African-American The senseless arid tragic murder of Trayvon ar , an teenager was troubling. In the aftermath of the killing and the natio~al protests that ensued, a series of historical grievances against African-Americans ~ere front and center. The litany of grievances includes racism, ~a~e relat10ns, racial profiling, inequality, and vigilante killing, that are remm1sc~nt .of the Fugitive Slave Law period. The unmasking of these tensions 1gruted a national debate on race and racism, focusing attention on the embed~ed racism in the American legal system and the profiling of Black and Latino youths and men by law enforcement agencies.

Fifty-eight years earlier, the brutal murder of fourteen year-old, Emmett Till, had occurred. Till was tortured, beaten, with his eyes gouged out, and shot in the head. Till's crime, at that time in 1955, was that he said "Bye baby" to a white woman, the wife of a shopkeeper, Carolyn Bryant, now Carolyn Donham. His mutilated body was dumped in the Tallahatchie River by Roy Bryant, the husband of Carolyn, and his brother, J. W. Milam. It was weighed down by a cotton gin until it surfaced three days later. Although Emmett's case is not a direct parallel to Trayvon Martin's, who was killed while walk- ing in the gated community where his father and his fiancee lived, it shed light on the pattern of racism that pervades the country then and now.

The case of State of Florida v George Zimmerman went to trial on June 10, 2013. The prosecution presented what some felt was a lack-luster effort, while the defense succeeded in putting Trayvon Martin on trial as the aggressor who put George Zimmerman in fear for his life. The jury-5 white women and one Latina-agreed and, on July 13, 2013, found Zimmerman not guilty of Second Degree Murder and Manslaughter. The verdict again sent thou- sands in more than 100 cities back into the streets with hoodies up, chant- ing again, "Am I Next?", "I am Trayvon Martin", and yes, "No Justice/No Peace" (Heitzeg 2014).

"No Justice No Peace." On the face of it, many felt that this was an accu- rate assessment of the particular result in the Trayvon Martin case. Clearly, there was no legal justice for the dead Trayvon Martin, whose killer was very belatedly arrested, and then found not guilty. No Peace either, for his memory, now tainted by a legal verdict that in fact held him culpable for his own death, for Walking While Black with Skittles and ice tea. No Peace for his parents who continue their efforts to repeal Stand Your Ground laws in Florida and the other 30 states that allow for claims of self-defense without a requirement of retreat (Heitzeg 2013).

But "No Justice No Peace" meant something more. It was too about what Trayvon Martin represented; his case offered a glimpse into the long his- torical legacy of systemic racism in the criminal justice system. The story was old and familiar to scholars and those who have lived it. That's story is this: Prison in the United States is a direct outgrowth of slavery, a sys- tem designed and re-designed to exploit a largely black captive labor force-first with prison as plantations and convict lease labor all sup- ported by legal segregation, Slave Codes transformed into Black Codes,

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564 There Is No Justice without Action

and extra-legal lynching, and then later as the prison industrial complex and the death penalty (Davis 2003; Alexander 2010).

The War on Drugs, referred to by Alexander (2010) as "The New Jim Crow", has both escalated the incarceration rate and increased its' racial dynamic. The United States is the world's leader in incarceration with nearly 2.3 million people currently in prison or jail-a 500% increase over the past thirty years Gones & Mauer 2013). Despite no statistical differ- ences in rates of offending, this trend towards mass incarceration is marred by racial disparity. Policies such as intensive "stop and frisk" police prac- tices, mandatory minimum prison sentences, and three-strike legislation all disproportionately affect people of color. While 1 in 35 adults is under correctional supervision and 1 in every 100 adults is in prison, 1 in every 36 Latino adults, one in every 15 black men, 1 in every 100 black women, and 1 in 9 black men ages 20 to 34 are incarcerated (Pew 2008).

A recent report issued by the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, Operation Ghetto Storm: 2012 Annual Report on the extrajudicial killing4 313 Black peo- ple by police, security guards and vigilantes (2013), highlights the extent to which young Black males in particular are at risk for the sort of profiling that killed Trayvon Martin. The report further notes this:

Every 28 hours in 2012 someone employed or protected by the US government killed a Black man, woman, or child. These killings-every 28 hours in 2012 someone employed or protected by the US government killed a Black man, woman, or child-come on top of other forms of oppression black people face. Mass incarceration of nonwhites is one of them. While African-Americans con- stitute 13.1% of the nation's population, they make up nearly 40% of the prison population. Even though African-Americans use or sell drugs about the same rate as whites, they are 2.8 to 5.5 times more likely to be arrested for drugs than whites. Black offenders also receive longer sentences compared to whites. Most offenders are in prison for nonviolent drug offenses.

"No Justice No Peace" is not just an immediate response to the case of Trayvon Martin; it is an indictment of the entire system of injustice. It is the grassroots articulation of a theory and a call to on-going action. Theory emerges from the lived experience of people as well as from scholarly works, and embedded in these words, is the everyday expression of a the- ory of justice and action, a theory where one cannot be imagined without the other.

"No Justice/No Peace" is a call to solidarity, a call to organize, a call to resistance in the face of systemic oppression. At the root, issues of justice are issues of oppression. Oppression is a collective, not just individual, concern; oppression involves the systematic domination and exclusion of groups via exploitation, marginalization, powerless, cultural domination and violence (Young 1990, p. 42). Oppression names some groups as "Other," and systematically disadvantages them while privileging the groups that they are not.

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Oppression refers to systemic constraints on groups that are not necessarily the intentions of a tyrant. Oppression in this sense is structural, rather than the result of a few people's choices or policies. Its causes are embedded in unquestioned norms, habits, and symbols, in the assumptions underlying institutional rules and the collective consequences of following these rules (Young 1990 p. 43).

Justice issues are systemic issues; they reflect larger structural patterns of inequality and disparity. Nationally and globally, systemic and institution- alized classism, racism, sexism, heterosexism, ageism, ableism, speciesisrn, anthropocentrism are pervasive and persistent systems of oppression. While each operates as a particular system of oppression, each also inter- sects with other systems to create what Hill- Collins terms a "matrix of dom- ination." (Hill-Collins 2002), that is, oppressions are systemically connected. And, these oppressions, each and all, are perpetuated-not necessarily by the intentions of individuals-but by the reproduction of structures of power, privilege and domination.

Oppression refers to the vast and deep injustices that some groups suffer as a consequence of often unconscious assumptions and reactions of well- meaning people in ordinary interactions, media and cultural stereotypes, and structural features of bureaucratic hierarchies and market mecha- nisms-in short, the normal processes of everyday life (Young 1990 p. 43).

Finally, perhaps most importantly, justice issues require action-"No Justice No Peace." There is, in fact, no justice without action; the two are inextricably linked. Oppression must be responded to both individually and collectively, and it must be responded to in a way that addresses the root structural issues. Charity-love, direct care and service to the imme- diate needs of the oppressed-while laudable and necessary in the short term, is not enough.

We cannot eliminate this structural oppression by getting rid of rulers or making some new laws, because oppressions are systematically reproduced in major economic political and cultural institutions (Young 1990, p 43).

Since oppression is systemic, it requires an organized response. Taking action against injustice, against oppression may seem a daunting task. Social structures seem untouchable and immune to efforts at change. But social structures are created by social processes, and so by social action they can be undone. As Dinn (2008, p. 8) observes, "Even the most flawed social structure is an extension of ourselves." We of course can personally change, and so too, can we reorder structural arrangements to reflect jus- tice-not oppression.

Taking action against injustice is an on-going process; social systems are rarely changed in just one day. Scholars from all disciplines of the Liber- als Arts, spiritual leaders, and activists have outlined a process to guide action towards justice. It is a process rooted in the notion that knowledge is never neutral; knowledge reveals injustices, calls out for evaluation

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and carries with it an obligation to act. Variously termed praxis (theory+ action) or critical pedagogy by secular scholars (Marx, 1844, Gramsci 1971; Freire 1970; Horton and Freire 1991)) and "The Pastoral Circle" by religious traditions such as Catholic Social Teaching (Holland and Hen- roit 1990; Wilsen, Henroit and Mejia 2005), this process allows for contin- ued engagement with personal experience, social analysis, moral judgment, and action plans. The process is not necessarily linear or always orderly; we may enter and re-enter at any stage. The open-ended diagram represents the key stages, which are clarified in the discussion below.

MOVING TOWARD SOCIAL JUSTICE

REFLECTION ON EXPERIENCE

ACTION PLAN

MORAL JUDGMENT

Figure 1. Moving from Making Social Analysis Useful by Rita Hofbauer, GNSH, Amata Miller IHM, and Dorothy Kinsella OSF, Leadership Conference of Women Religious (1983)

Reflection on Experience We have all experienced injustice. Perhaps we are part of an oppressed group; perhaps we are allies; perhaps we have benefited-intentionally or not-from the oppression of others. Reflection on experience allows us to make the connections between our lives and the larger structural real- ity, or as the women's movement put it, to see that "the personal is polit- ical" (Hanish 1969). This may be done by recalling direct personal experience or via the vicarious experience offered by the arts-music, lit- erature, art, theater and film. We must name our locations, our privileges and our oppressions, as well as the knowledge and talents we may trans- late into action.

Social Analysis If we are to transform social structures, we must understand the differ- ence between "personal troubles and social issues" (Mills 1959, p. 11). This stage of the process requires us to draw upon the best available

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information from a range of scholars and activists. We must analyze the scope of the justice issue, understand the social, economic, political, and cultural contributors, identify the groups who benefit and who are harmed, and examine both existing policies and potential solutions. We must know what we are up against. As Alinsky (1971, p . xix) observes, "It is necessary to begin with where the world is if we are going to change it to what we want it to be."

Moral Judgment "We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented." (Wiesel 1999) In the face of experience and evidence, we must evaluate. Our val- ues guide our understanding of our experiences, the larger social analy- sis and our actions. Even if the origins of our values differ, we can agree on a common set of principles such as those expressed in the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948). Various spiritual and philosophical traditions offer deeper insight into the justice issue, and prepare us to align our values with analysis and action.

Action Plan We must engage in informed action-"The struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, or it may be both. But it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand," (Douglass 1857). The range of potential actions against structural injustice is inexhaustible. We can speak out and we can write-poems, songs. novels, drama, letters, essays, journal articles and books. We can make art, protest, lobby, edu- cate, vote, legislate, organize, mobilize, march, stand up, sit-in, jail-in, boycott, and still more. Some will resist in the courts; some will resist in the halls of Congress; some will resist in the streets. No Justice/No Peace.

The p rocess of moving towards social justice, the process of challenging oppression, is better illustrated than explained. Scholars and activists have described the theory and process, but it is best understood by exam- ining the practice. What follows is the example of Sister Helen Prejean, CSJ, and her journey to abolish the death penalty. Sister Helen's story, like that of Trayvon Martin, focuses specifically on the injustices associ- ated with the criminal justice system and state-sponsored killings, but her activism also generally illustrates how this process may be applied to a particular aspect of oppression. Her life and work evidence the on-going movement from reflection to analysis to evaluation to action and back again, moving towards social justice.

568 There Is No Justice without Action

Moving Towards Social Justice: Sister Helen Prejean, CSJ

Comfort the afflicted and afflict t/ie comfortable

-Dorothy Day 1952

It began-as it often does-with a seemingly simple question. Such seem- ingly simple questions often begin our longest, our most arduous and most transformative journeys. So it was for Sister Helen Prejean; .

When Chava Colon from the Prison Coalition asks me one January day in 1982 to become a pen pal for a death row inmate, I say, sure. The invitation seems to fit with my work at St. Thomas, a New Orleans housing project of poor black residents. Not exactly death row, but close ... I've come to St Thomas to serve the poor, and I assume that someone occupying a cell on Louisiana's death row fits that category (Prejean 1993, p. 4).

Sister Helen (b.1939), a Sister of St. Joseph of Medaille since 1957, was well acquainted with issues of injustice. Leaving first, a privileged life in Baton Rouge and later an "ethereal faith" focused on inner peace, acts of charity, and the world beyond, Sister Helen had already chosen the path of justice, although "it would take me a long time to understand how sys- tems inflict pain and hardship in people's live and to learn that being kind in an unjust system is not enough" (Ibid, p. 7). Originally a teacher, she had come to St. Thomas in 1981 as part of her Order's commitment to stand with the poor. Through her interactions w ith the residents-many whom had a relative in prison-and The Prison Coalition, she was already aware of the race and class disparities in police-citizen encoun- ters, incarceration rates, and the application of the death penalty. And she was opposed to the death penalty, both her Christian faith-"Jesus Christ, whose way of life I try to follow refused to meet hate with hate and violence with violence" (Ibid, p. 21}--and the philosophy of Albert Camus (1957, p. 199}--"resist, do not collaborate in any with a deed you believe is evil" -guided her opposition.

Still, no one, certainly not Sister Helen, could anticipate that the response to the letter-writing request would mark the beginning of a long jour- ney-"! don't know yet that the name on this tiny slip of white paper will be my transport into an eerie land that so far I have read only about in books." (Prejean 1993, p. 3-4}--a journey that would lead from the St Thomas Housing Projects of New Orleans to the death chamber at Louisiana State Penitentiary to international fame as a tireless advocate for the abolition of capital punishment.

Elmo Patrick Sonnier #95281 was the name on that slip of paper. Sonnier, a troubled youth with a past ridden with criminal activity, was convicted, along with his brother Eddie, for the November 5, 1977 rape and murder of Loretta Ann Bourque, 18, and the murder of David LeBlanc, 17. While

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both brothers were initially sentenced to death in Louisiana's electric chair aka "Gruesome Gertie", Eddie was sentenced to life in prison upon re-trial. In spite of her horror at Sonnier's crimes, Sister Helen wrote.

The image in my mind was that if people were in prison they must be really bad and the people on death row . . . they've done the worst possible crimes. I think there is a kind of notion that people on death row are people who have killed and will kill again . . . they are just violent killer people. When I looked into Patrick Sonnier's face the first time I visited-I knew there was goodness in him from his letters, but when I visited him, I was so nervous and I was amazed when I looked into his face and saw how human he was and that we could talk to one another, just two human beings. It was such an amazing experience that has been confirmed in so many ways since (Andersen 1998).

Sister Helen's correspondence with Sonnier inevitably led to visits with him at the Death House at Louisiana State Penitentiary. It is here that she is transformed from pen-pal to spiritual advisor, a metamorphosis that was not without considerable pain and doubt. She becomes more con- vinced than ever that the State of Louisiana is involved with legitimated murder, murder which is tacitly supported by the Warden, the guards, the chaplains, the priests, the Governor, murder which is explicitly sup- ported by the public at large and many of the families of the victims. She struggles with guilt and grief for the LeBlancs and the Bourques-fami- lies of the murdered teens-the vengeance they feel towards Sonnier and the anger they feel towards her. Has she betrayed, abandoned them, as she consoled their children's killer? And what of the family of the offender-are they not victims too?

Beyond the moral dilemmas presented by the particular case of Patrick Sonnier, the structural injustices of incarceration and capital punishment are further revealed to Prejean. The race, class gender disparities that mark the entire criminal justice system are magnified in death penalty cases. As she sees firsthand the composition of the inmate population at Angola, the racial dynamics of incarceration become clearer. LSP Angola is the largest prison (the only one to boast its' own Zip Code) in the United States-over 5000 inmates on over 18,000 acres. 90% of them are African American-the majority from New Orleans and Jefferson parishes-and 90% will die there. Angola is the site of the old Angola Plantation, which following the Civil War immediately became a prison, where inmates continue to labor for free due to the loophole that negates the liberatory promise of the 13th Amendment-"Slavery and involun- tary servitude-except as a punishment for crime-shall be abolished" (Brewer and Heitzeg 2008, p . 67).

Prejean similarly becomes increasingly aware of the role of race in the death penalty and the prevalence of its use in the South; race of victim and race of offender remain the best predictors of prosecutorial decisions to pursue the death penalty who will be executed. African Americans are

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over-represented on death row relative to both their percentage of the population and their participation in the crime of murder. And cases involving white victims are most likely to be prosecuted as capital cases; nearly 80% of all murder victims in case involving an execution were white, even though whites represented only 50% of murder victims (Death Penalty Information Center, 2014). Prejean comes to agree with the assessment of scholars who argue that the death penalty is yet another mechanism for controlling blacks, especially in the South, where some have argued that the lynch mob has merely been replaced by the "killing state" (Ogletree and Sarat 2006). And yes, even though Sonnier is white, he is poor as are 99% of the more than 3100 death row inmates, whose reliance on public defenders in essence provides no defense at all. Sonnier and the other indigent inhabitants on death row illustrate the saying Prejean has heard often in the housing projects of St Thomas, "Capital punishment means those without the capital get the punish- ment." Inadequate defenses, an appeals process that is fraught with road- blocks for the accused, and endless personal trauma for both offenders and victims mark the way from trial to death.

On April 5 1984, Sister Helen is a witness to the execution of Sonnier, the first of 4 death row inmates that Sister Helen would eventually accom- pany to execution. Shortly after Sonnier' s sentence was carried out, she began to organize, first with trainings for spiritual advisors, the creation of a legal aid office, a public awareness march from New Orleans to Baton Rouge, the founding of Survive-an organization designed to sup- port families of victims of violence, and finally the decision to devote her- self completely to the abolition of the death penalty.

I realize that I cannot stand by silently as my government executes its citi- zens. If I do not speak out and resist, I am an accomplice . . . . No one in the entire State of Louisiana is working full-time to talk to the public about the death penalty. I will do this. The decision unfolds like a rose (Prejean 1993, p. 115-117).

Prejean later served as spiritual advisor to Robert Lee Willie. Willie was executed by electrocution on December 281984 for the kidnap, rape, and murder of 18 year old Faith Hathaway. His case, like that of Sonnier's, is filled with similar anguish, legal challenges and losses, and great strug- gles with the issue of vengeance felt by the victim's family. In 1993, Sis- ter Helen chronicled her experience with both men in Dead Man Walking: An Eyewitness Account of the Death Penalty in the United States. In the intro- duction (Ibid p xi), she writes

I stepped quite unsuspectingly from a protected middle-class environment into one of the most explosive and complex moral issues of our day, the question of capital punishment .. . I began naively. It took time-and mis- takes-for me to sound out the moral perspective, which is the subject of this book. There is much pain in these pages. There are, to begin with, crimes that

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defy description. Then there is the ensuing rage, horror, grief, and fierce ambivalence. But also, courage and incredible human spirit. I have been changed forever by the experiences that I describe here.

The book becomes an international best seller translated into twelve lan- guages, an opera, and an Academy Award nominated film in 1995 (Susan Sarandon won Best Actress for her portrayal of Prejean). Always search- ing for new ways to increase public dialogue about the death penalty, Sis- ter Helen continued to write, speak, and organize. She founded the Death Penalty Discourse Center and the Moratorium Project as ways of pro- moting the national discourse on the death penalty and as a resource for abolitionists. And, she urged director I producer Tim Robbins to create a version of Dead Man Walking for the stage:

Through the film, then the opera, I was convinced of the power of the arts to stir reflection and deepen public discourse ... early in 2002 Tim wrote the play. He called me up to New York for a reading, and he and I and everyone in the room were blown away by its power, even though it was simply read. 01ttp:/ I www.dmwplay.org/ playproject.html)

Prejean along with Tim Robbins, founded The Dead Man Walking School Theater Project. Directed by Sister Maureen Felton, OP, The Play Project allows high school and college students' easy access to performance rights for Dead Man Walking. The play has been performed by nearly 200 high schools and colleges-including the College of St Catherine in 2006.

Continuing as a spiritual advisor to death row inmates, Prejean tells the stories of Dobie Gillis Williams (executed by Louisiana in 1999) and Joseph O'Dell (executed by Virginia in 1997) in her 2005 book, The Death of Innocents: An Eyewitness Account of Wrongful Executions: She writes in the introduction, (ibid, p . 2)

As in Dead Man Walking, this is my eyewitness account of accompanying two men to execution-but w ith one huge difference: I believe that the two men I tell about here-Dobie Gillis Williams and Joseph Roger O'Dell-were innocent. The courts of appeal didn't see it that way. Once the guilty verdicts were pronounced and the death sentences imposed every court in the land put their stamp of approval on the death sentences of these two men with- out once calling form a thorough review of their constitutional claims. The tragic truth is that you as a reader of this book have access to truths about forens ic evidence, eyewitnesses, and prosecutorial maneuvers that Dobie's and Joseph's jurors never heard.

Through the cases of Williams and O'Dell, Prejean expands upon her pre- vious moral and social analysis of the death penalty. In addition to the pervasive issues of race and class bias, Death of Innocents raises questions about the execution of those who are actually innocent, an issue that was coming to public attention at the time this book was written. Since 1973,

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work by Innocence Projects, mostly lead by college students, had lead to the exoneration of 143 death row inmates in 26 states (Death Penalty Information Center, 2014).

Death of Innocents contains a detailed history of the Catholic Church's posi- tion on the death penalty, which for 1600 years-from Augustine to Aquinas to the mid 20th century-supported the state's right, in self- defense, to kill those who had committed grave crimes. Prejean chronicles the slight but significant shift in position post Vatican II and her on-going dialogue with church officials, many who remained vocal supporters of the death penalty. It is the late Pope John Paul, responding to a growing global abolition movement, who signals the change in course. In Evangelium Vitae (1995), he urges church leaders to become more courageous in opposing the use of capital punishment. The pope also speaks out on behalf of Joseph O'Dell in 1997, and Prejean writes to him calling for a shift in the church's official position "I pray for the day when Catholic opposition to govern- ment executions will be unequivocal" (Prejean 2005 p. 127). Less than a week later the Vatican announces an official change to the Catechism; all language referring to the death penalty as an option is removed. It is not Prejean's letter alone but the combined efforts of over Catholics world- wide who had continuously and consistently expressed their opposition for decades. In the end, Prejean (2005, p 130) notes this about her interpre- tation3 of the shift in the language of the Catechism:

The omission changes everything, because Catholic teaching now says that no matter how grave, terrible, outrageous, heinous, cmel the crime, the death penalty is not to be imposed . ... Whom then might governments kill?? No one.

To argue that the death penalty is morally wrong is one matter; it is another to document the blatant racism, classism, legal error, and sheer ineptitude play in the application of the death penalty in the United States. Prejean does that in Death of Innocents as well, detailing the recent history of Supreme Court rulings from the famed 1972 Furman v Georgia ruling to the present. Between 1967 and 1977, there were no executions in the United States as the Supreme Court heard a series of legal challenges to the constitutionality of the death penalty. All cases came from South- ern states, including the landmark cases of Furman v Georgia (1972), Gregg v Georgia (1976), and Coker v Georgia (1977). All cases involved black men and raised legal questions with regard to the 8th Amendment prohibition against "cruel and unusual punishment' and the 14th Am~ndment clauses of "due process" and "equal protection of the laws," in essence, issues of racial discrimination. In sum, the Court ruled in Furman that capital punishment was cruel and unusual if it was applied in an "arbi- trary and capricious manner" (Furman v Georgia, 1972) The result was a revision of state statues, affirmed by Gregg, as that allowed for the death

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penalty if (1) there were guidelines outlining capital offenses and allow- ing for consideration of aggravating and mitigating circumstances and (2) there was a two-part trial where the imposition of sentence as sepa- rated from the finding of guilt.( Gregg v Georgia 1976) These cases form the framework for the current application of the death penalty which is cur- rently available in 32 states and at the federal level, with the United States remaining as the only so-called First World nation where the death penalty has not been abolished.4

Prejean decries these decisions as well as the ensuing cases, which ignore statistical evidence of institutionalized racism (McKleskey v Kemp 1987), split hairs over whether 15 or 16 or 17 year olds are mature enough to be executed (Thompson v Oklahoma 1986, Stanford v Kentucky 1989), allows for the execution of the mentally ill and the intellectually disabled (Penry v Lynaugh 1989, Murray v Giarrano 1989), permits court-appointed attorneys to be defined as "competent" even though they may be unqualified, asleep or even drunk at trial (Herrea v Collins 1993), and increasingly limits the avenues of appeal for death row irunates (Strickland v Washington 1984), even in cases like that of Dobie Gillis Williams or Joseph O'Dell where pro- cedural error and evidence of actual innocence hang like a dark pall over the cases. She quotes 18th century philosopher and prison reformer Cesear Beccaria; she argues with elected Supreme Court justice ad death penalty advocate Antonin Scalia in the New Orleans airport; regrets that elected officials cannot be moved to compassion even in the face of irunate redemption, and in the end, urges the court to stand with the late Justice Harry Blackmun, who after 20 years of wrangling with the with the legal minutia of death penalty cases, finally and firmly declares, "I will no longer tinker with the machinery of death" (Callins v Collins 1994).

In the 30 years since she responded to Chava Colon's request to write Sonnier a letter, much has changed. Over 122 countries have abolished the death penalty in the law of practice (Anmesty International 2013). Every year since 1997, the UN annually passes a resolution calling for a morato- rium on the death penalty, and the International Criminal Court has banned its use in any crime. The U.S. Supreme Court has deemed the execution of juveniles (Roper v Simmons 2005), the mentally retarded (Atkins v Virginia, 2002) and non-murderers (Kennedy v Louisiana 2009) unconstitutional. Legal challenges to the use of lethal injection continue and Nebraska has banned the use of the electric chair as cruel and Wlusual punishment. 6 additional states have abandoned capital punishment since 2009, leaving 32 states that retain this as a sentencing option. Public support for the death penalty is at a 40 year low, and U.S. executions and death sentences continue to decline with only 2% of COWlties accounting for more than 50% of all executions (Death Penalty Information Center, 2014). Religious and secular organiza- tions from the U.S. Bishops to Anmesty International to the innocence Pro- ject continue to call for abolition.

574 There Is No Justice without Action

And Sister Helen carries on. In an early interview, she was asked about the course her life had taken. Referring to her first intentions when she entered religious life, Prejean said that her life actually has not taken that different a course.

'I still feel like I am a teacher,' she said. 'My classroom's bigger now, it includes the United States and Europe and the United Nations and a lot of media interviews, but basically it's living the Gospel message the best that I can and sharing what I leam along the way' (Andersen 1998).

And so it is. Yes, Sister Helen carries on. Speaking, writing-now her spiritual memoir, River of Fire-, expanding the Play Project, collaborat- ing with a wide range of abolitionist organizations, engaging the death penalty discourse in any and all ways possible, always moving towards social justice, always in that on-going process of reflection on experience, social analysis, moral judgment and action.

Another World Is Possible

We make the road by walking ...

-Horton and Freire, 1991

The injustice of oppressive social structures must be named and must be challenged. In matters of justice, there is no neutral ground; we all stand-by design or default, by action or inaction-with the either oppressors or the oppressed. Those who wish to stand on the side of jus- tice are compelled to act, for there can be no justice without action. The story of Sister Helen Prejean-and the stories of countless activists, some well-known and many not-illustrates this: moving towards social jus- tice, moving towards an end to structural oppression, is an ever-emerg- ing, always evolving process where new insights are continually gained, and new actions imagined and undertaken.

Moving towards social justice requires the recognition that each day, each setting, each circumstance provides new opportunities for action in any number of arenas. It requires the recognition that each of us can con- tribute in ways small or large. Larde reminds us in Transformation of Silence into Language and Action (1984, p. 44) that simply speaking out is one of the most important actions towards justice that one can take: "it is not difference which immobilizes us but silence. And there are many silences to be broken."

And most of all, moving towards social justice requires patience, com- mitment, hope, and the "optimism of uncertainty" (Zinn, 2004). We must know-with Prejean and Trayvon's parents, supporters and the all rest- that we ourselves may not see the full realization of our efforts, but some- one someday will. For yes, "the moral arc of the universe is long, but it does bend towards justice" (King 1968). And yes, that famed Margaret

Na11ctj A. Heitzeg 575

Mead (1977) quote--"Never doubt lliat a small group of thoughtful co111111itted citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only tiring that ever has"- appears endlessly on t-shirts and bumper stickers and posters and but- tons, only because it is so precisely true.

In the very last lines of the introduction to The Death of Innocents (2005 p. xvi), Sister Helen closes with these words, which bear repeating here- " .. . May you be impassioned to devote your life to soul-size work. I hope what you learn here sets you on fire."

No Justice/No Peace.

Notes 1 For centuries, the so-called "Castle Doctrine" has held that a homeowner may

use deadly force against intruders and legally claim self-defense. Until recently, The Castle Doctrine {as expressed in various state laws) also required key elements in order for a successful claim of self-defense to be made. Gener- ally, the person must be in their home, there be an unlawful intrusion {as opposed to standing on your lawn), the use of deadly force must be "reason- able," and in many cases, there is duty to retreat i.e. deadly force must be a last, rather than first, resort. Stand Your Ground legislation removes many of the limits imposed on shooters by the Castle Doctrine-the self-defense claim extends to public places, there is no requirement of "retreat," and the burden is now on the prosecution to determine "reasonableness." The first such legisla- tion was passed in Florida in 2005. Pushed by the National Rifle Association and American Legislative Exchange Council, these laws spread quickly; 24 additional states now have comparable legislation. Stand Your Ground legisla- tion has been associated with increased homicide rates, heightened risk for teenagers, and racial disparity in the application of the Self-defense claims. See Heitzeg, N. A (2013, November 13), "Perceived Threat and Stand Your Ground", Criminal Injustice at Critical Mass Progress, Retrieved March l , 2014 from http: I I criticalmassprogress.com/ 2013I11I13 I ci-black-life-perceived- threat-and-stand-your-ground/ ·

2 The prison industrial complex is defined as follows: "The prison industrial complex is a self-perpetuating machine where the vast profits (e.g. cheap labor, private and public supply and construction contracts, job creation, con- tinued media profits from exaggerated crime reporting and crime/ punishment as entertainment) and perceived political benefits (e.g. reduced unemploy- ment rates, "get tough on crime" and public safety rhetori~, funding increas~s for police, and criminal justice system agencies and professionals) lead to poli- cies that are additionally designed to insure an endless supp~y of "clie~ts" for the criminal justice system (e.g. enhanced police presence m poor_ne1gh- borhoods and communities of color; racial profiling; decreased funding for public education combined with zero-tolerance policies an_d, in~reased .rates .of expulsion for students of color; increased rates of adult cer~1cation for 1.uverule offenders; mandatory minimum and "three-strikes" sentenong; dra~oman con- ditions of incarceration and a reduction of prison services that contnbute t~ the likelihood of "recidivism"; "collateral consequences"-such as felony dis~n­ franchisement, prohibitions on welfare receipt, public housing, gun ownership,

I

576 There Is No Justice without Action

voting and political participation, employment-that nearly guarantee contin- ued participation in "crime" and return to the prison industrial complex fol- lowing initial release) (Brewer and Heitzeg 2008, p. 620).

J The position of the Catholic Church is complicated. The Church has long held that governments have the right to use capital punishment in order to protect society. The current position reflected in the Catechism, The U.S. Bishops' state- ments and Pope John II's Evangelium Vita does not deny the right of govern- ments to impose the death penalty, but increasingly argues against its' use; "If bloodless means are sufficient to defend human lives against an aggressor and to protect public order and the safety of persons, public authority must limit itself to such means, because they better correspond to the concrete conditions of the common good and are more in conformity to the dignity of the human person" (Evangeli11m Vitae par. 56).

4 The use of capital punishment in the U.S. and around the world has a lengthy and complex social, legal and political history. For an overview and additional resources see Death Penalty Information Center http:/ /www.deathpenalty- info.org I and Amnesty International http: I I www.amnesty.org I en I death- penalty

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