A dead man walking and an FSP class crying

I never thought a class called Social Justice, History, and its Practice would conjure up such emotion as it did this past Tuesday. Our silence spoke volumes of the sadness and shock that everyone was feeling towards Dead Man Walking. For me, the most horrifying thing about the movie came at the end. Not only was the visualization of the lethal injection horrifying, but the fact that there is a gallery in which people can watch the lethal injection take place. Although they have technologically improved the process of the lethal injection, I think the process of simply watching it is horrible enough. I do not know how a human could sit through watching someone die, no matter how attached or unattached they were to them.

One of the greatest aspects of the movie in my opinion was the fact that it brought up many political and government issues that are commonly unheard of. For example, the role of wealth in regards to capital punishment. More specifically, in the movie, the man being sentenced to death was at the moment, and all of his life, in poverty. On the contrary, the man who committed the murder with him was let off with an extremely lighter sentence and not put up for death at all. Not only does this movie divulge into the political issues, but taps into the spiritual aspect of the situation.

Although Sister Helen was quite leery about meeting this convicted murderer, she takes the time to listen to his stories. After feeling touched by his plea, she agrees to try to have his death sentence revoked. However, throughout this whole movie, I found it interesting that they never truly gave Sister Helen’s stand on his trial, or even the death penalty in general. When she meets up with the victims parents, her job becomes even more difficult. She remains with the convict until he is put to death but finds the stregnth herself and the convict to spiritually guide him to a better place and experience redemption before dying. This experience was obviously life changing to Sister Helen and if I was in her place, I would immediately become anti-capital punishment. I feel like this type of consequence is inhumane for anyone to experience, whether they are the victim or onlooker.