Capital punishment has long been a vexatious problem in American
society, and one commented on widely as an example
of American
brutality by those in other countries. The putting to death of
certain convicted criminals was once more or less the norm in the United
States, but various pressures—not least the publication of the horrors of botched executions and sacrifices of the
innocent—led to its abolition in many states. In the past twenty
years, however, the death penalty has returned, and the debate
has been refueled, most recently by Governor George Ryan of Illinois,
who last year declared a moratorium on executions in that state.

Sister Helen Prejean of St. Joseph of Medaille was working with
underprivileged children in her native Louisiana when she became
involved with the question of capital punishment, and that
question has come to dominate her life. In 1993, she wrote Dead
Man Walking (a phrase used in San Quentin when the prisoner is
being led to execution). It centers on two brutal killers, but
encompasses the whole subject of capital punishment and
the people—victims, families, prison guards—who surround it. The
book indicted the system, and was partly adapted in a movie of
the same name.
The harrowing immediacy of
the film won for Susan Sarandon, as Sister Helen, the 1995
Academy Award as Best Actress, and the nomination for Best Actor
of Sean Penn, who played the killer.
This book has now been made the subject of an opera, to a
libretto by