Dead Man Walking

Content Warning: This section of the guide contains references to violent crime. It also contains references to the execution of prisoners.

Helen Prejean is an American nun, author, and activist, best known for her work opposing the death penalty in the United States. She gained a public profile with the 1993 publication of Dead Man Walking: An Eyewitness Account of the Death Penalty in the United States, which chronicles her experiences with capital punishment in Louisiana and the many injustices she discovered in its application. The Oscar-winning 1995 film of the same name bolstered her profile even further, and she has been one of the best-known death penalty abolitionists in the US ever since.

Born in Baton Rouge in 1939, she joined the Sisters of Saint Joseph of Medaille at the age of 18. After receiving a Bachelor’s in English and Education and a Master’s in Religious Education, she spent many years as a teacher. In 1982, while working at a housing project in New Orleans, she accepted an offer to exchange letters with a death-row inmate. By her own admission, she had thought little of the issue of capital punishment up until this point. Shocked and outraged by a system that she viewed as tilted against the poor, especially those who are Black and poor, she took on the role of spiritual advisor for many inmates, not only seeking to bring them solace as they approached their scheduled death, but also seeking all available legal means to postpone or even avoid their execution.