Review Heitzeg’s social justice framework in the Catherine Core Reader, p. 566. She presents it as a process with four key stages (Heitzeg, 2014):

1. Reflection on experience: this stage allows us to make connections between the larger structural reality and ourselves.
2. Social analysis: This stage causes us to analyze if the issue is a personal issue or a social issue. Go back to Ways of Knowing…how do you know this to be true?
3. Moral judgment: As Heitzeg (2014) states, “We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor”.
4. Action plan: Social justice issues require action.

Visit the Guardian newspaper site for The Black Lives Movement here

https://www.theguardian.com/world/black-lives-matter-movement

  Read at least two stories about the systemic racism in Britain’s legal /criminal justice system.  Begin your post by summarizing and citing them using APA format.  Then, reflect on how the UK and the US approach systemic racism differently within Heitzeg’s social justice framework.

•

THE

CATHERINE CORE

READER

St. Catherine University

XanEdu
Change the course.

,

Copyright© 2014 by St. Catherine University
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America

ISBN 13: 978-1-58390-136-6

No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without
permission in writing from the publisher.

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.

St. Catherine University Web site: www.stkate.edu

XanEdu
Change the course.

530 Great Road
Acton, MA 01720
800-562-2147

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:

562

NanCIJ A. Heitzeg
563

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,

I
I

\

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.

,

NanctJ A. Heitzeg 565

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

‘

566 There Is No Justice without Action

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

NanctJ A. Heitzeg 567

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

Nanci} A. Heitzeg 569

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

570 There Is No Justice without Action

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

NanctJ A. Heitzeg 571

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,

572 There Is No Justice without Action

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

Nane11 A. Heitzeg
573

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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