This isn’t exactly related to my project, but today I had a conversation with my dad and brothers about the criminal justice system that was really interesting. My dad was asking me about my project, and he was really curious about how the courts and prisons are reacting to COVID-19. We ended up getting into a conversation about Dead Man Walking, because he really wants to watch the movie. I realized through explaining the stories in Dead Man Walking that what I found really unique about the book, compared to many popular accounts of the death penalty (like Bryan Stevenson’s books and Anthony Ray Hinton’s The Sun Does Shine) is that both men in the book are completely guilty of their crimes and are executed. And yet in the face of those facts, Sister Prejean still makes the case that the death penalty is inhumane and unjust regardless. That a rightfully convicted murderer should not be killed is a much harder and subtler point to make, and she still makes it successfully. There is serious value in spreading the stories of men like Anthony Ray Hinton, who were wrongfully convicted because of racism, but it’s also important to emphasize that the death penalty is wrong under any circumstances, which is what Sister Prejean attempts to do.