Authors: Helen Prejean
That, I believe, is what it’s going to take to abolish the death penalty in this country: we must persuade the American people that government killings are too costly for us, not only financially, but — more important — morally.
The death penalty
costs
too much. Allowing our government to kill citizens compromises the deepest moral values upon which this country was conceived: the inviolable dignity of human persons.
I have no doubt that we will one day abolish the death penalty in America. It will come sooner if people like me who know the truth about executions do our work well and educate the public. It will come slowly if we do not. Because, finally, I know that it is not a question of malice or ill will or meanness of spirit that prompts our citizens to support executions. It is, quite simply, that people don’t know the truth of what is going on. That is not by accident. The secrecy surrounding executions makes it possible for executions to continue. I am convinced that if executions were made public, the torture and violence would be unmasked, and we would be shamed into abolishing executions. We would be embarrassed at the brutalization of the crowds that would gather to watch a man or woman be killed. And we would be humiliated to know that visitors from other countries — Japan, Russia, Latin America, Europe — were watching us kill our own citizens — we, who take pride in being the flagship of democracy in the world.
And here I am driving to Baton Rouge from the death house, where tomorrow a man is going to be executed, and it’s going to
happen all over again and I’m going to be there and there’s nothing I can do to stop this senseless, futile killing.
It all seems so overwhelming.
A good night’s sleep, that’s what I need
.
I take several long, deep breaths. I’m coming into Baton Rouge.
No need for phone calls this time to line up the funeral and burial. Robert’s family is taking care of that. Sisters Kathleen and Lory say they’ll be at the gates of the prison tomorrow night during the execution, and other Sisters will be there, too. The “Sob Sisters,” as Vernon Harvey calls us. The plan is for me to get to the prison by two o’clock in the afternoon and, after the execution, if I’m up to it, to drive the car back. If I’m too upset to drive, one of the Sisters will drive my car.
A phone call comes from Jason DeParle, a close friend and reporter at the
Times-Picayune;
he wants to offer me his support. There are calls from Bill and Debbie Quigley and Millard, Tom Dybdahl, and other friends and coworkers. Pilgrimage for Life, our statewide anti-death-penalty group, will conduct prayer vigils in New Orleans and at the Governor’s Mansion in Baton Rouge.
Jason DeParle has interviewed Robert and written a long article about him which carried the headline: “Murderer Willie Going to Chair a Proud Man.” Jason told me he had struggled with the story because throughout the interview Robert had presented such a “macho” and unrepentant image, and as a reporter, of course, he had no choice but to render the image Robert projected. He tells me this somewhat apologetically because he knows I am Robert’s spiritual adviser and trying hard to “work” with him. Jason will be doing follow-up stories of the execution and the funeral. He’s young, an excellent writer, and sensitive to issues of social justice. When his schedule allows, he comes to the potluck suppers at the Quigleys’.
I get a good night’s sleep, thanks to the now familiar getting-through-an-execution formula of a sleeping pill and a cup of hot milk. I awake rested and ready. The feelings of futility and despair of yesterday have washed away. It’s December 27, the feast of St. John the Evangelist. He was the one to record in his Gospel the words of Jesus, “You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.”
At two o’clock I arrive at the prison. I look at the visitors’ building there in the bright sunlight and I find myself playing a childhood game: when I look at this building again, the execution will be over,
and what will the building look like then? When I was a child setting out on a family vacation I’d look at a particular bush in the front yard or the doorknob on the kitchen door. Then, when we returned home, I’d look at the object again and remember that I had looked at it before. I guess it was a child’s way of plumbing time, of sensing its passage.
Now I look at the building and know that when I see it again, Robert Lee Willie will be dead.
The prison vehicle is waiting for me.
As I enter the death house, I see that Elizabeth, Robert’s mother, and her three sons, Robert’s stepbrothers, are already there.
Mickey and Todd are sitting closest to the white metal door. In chairs behind them are Elizabeth and Tim. I met them when I visited Elizabeth. They are handsome, healthy-looking kids. I can tell it’s eighteen-year-old Mickey, the oldest, who’s keeping the conversation going. He’s teasing Robert, accusing him of trying to steal his girlfriend during one of Robert’s last calls home. “She was only on the phone a few minutes,” says Mickey, “and there she was falling for the ole Robert charm. I had to take back that phone.”
I pull up a chair and look at my watch. It’s 2:10. Rules say the family can visit until 5:45.
The talk goes on for a while about Mickey’s girlfriend and then all the girlfriends Robert has had, and Robert asks Todd if he has a girl. Todd still has a little boy’s round face, and when Robert asks him about a girl, his ears and the sides of his cheeks and neck turn pink, and he says he doesn’t have time for girls, that he has too much fishing and camping to do, and talk turns to the tent and camping equipment he got for Christmas. Tim tells him to tell Robert about his recent experience of sleeping in the back yard. There are smiles at this and Elizabeth tries to divert the teasing, saying, “I made him come in. I was worried. I went out there and made him come into the house.”
Robert asks Todd what happened and Todd is suddenly tired of sitting in the chair and he stands up near the door and moves his fingers up and down the mesh screen and says how he and his buddy put up the tent by themselves and cooked their own meal outside and stayed in the tent until about midnight, when they heard some kind of animal prowling around and making noises — not a cat or dog or anything like that, they could tell, but some kind of “wild animal.”
I can tell Robert is highly amused. Probably he hasn’t had many
conversations like this with his stepbrothers, especially Todd, who would have been only seven years old when Robert was arrested in 1980.
He asks Todd which it really was — that he came inside because he was scared or because his mother came out and got him — and Mickey gives Todd a tap on the back and says, “Tell the truth now, tell the truth,” and Todd is shifting from foot to foot.
He’s just a kid, and I have to smile, remembering when I was a kid and all the times we set out to spend the night in the back yard. We’d throw sheets over the clothesline for our tent and talk and sing songs from Girl Scout camp and, inevitably, around midnight or so, sounds of “wild animals” would drive us inside.
Sometimes there are silences between the stories, and now and again a guard passes by as he goes through the back glass door to Camp F, and you can hear the swish of the air and feel the gush of cold as he opens the door. Elizabeth tells Robert that some people have been asking her about the funeral and she says she wouldn’t talk about that and told them, “He’s not dead.” She is standing up by her chair and smoking and Robert must be relieved because she seems to be holding up and isn’t crying. Maybe it’s the unreality of the place, the sun shining so bright and all of her boys sitting around, teasing each other,
appreciating
each other — except that Robert will soon be dead, this could be a pleasant family visit.
As Blackburn approaches, I glance at my watch and see that it’s three o’clock and already an hour has gone by, and Blackburn tells the family that they will have to be leaving now.
I look at Robert and he says to the warden, “Already? Isn’t it kind of early?”
I know Robert knows what the rules say, about families being permitted to stay until 5:45. We had talked about it before.
Warden Blackburn repeats, “It’s time for you folks to be leaving now.”
Robert could protest this and I would join him in it. He’s being cut out of three hours with his family on the last day of his life and for some reason he isn’t upset. Maybe he doesn’t want to get into a confrontation with the warden which will upset his mother.
Robert stands up and says he’s collected his stuff in two pillowcases and he’d feel better if they just took his stuff home with them now rather than having the prison send it later. He wants to make sure they get it. The guard on watch at the end of the tier moves to get the white bags and asks Robert to step back to the opposite
end of the tier while he opens the door. He hands the two bags to Captain Rabelais.
“This is all my stuff here. Mick, y’all can see about dividin’ it up. Except my boots from Marion. I’m gonna walk to the chair in them boots. No cryin’ now,” he says, “I don’t want no cryin’. I’m not tellin’ y’all good-bye yet. I’ll call you tonight.”
I ask the warden if the family can hug Robert and he shakes his head no. “Security,” he says.
“See ya, man. Stay strong,” Mickey says, and he almost gets it out, but there is a crack in his voice when he says “strong.” Tim and Todd are beginning to walk out. Todd’s face is crumbling into tears. Mickey and Elizabeth are moving toward the foyer. Elizabeth keeps jabbing a Kleenex to her eyes. “We love you, Robert,” she says.
“No cryin’. I’ll call you tonight. I’ll call you.”
There’s some sort of mix-up over the two pillowcases, some inventory slip that needs to be signed before the bundles can be released. Tim has taken Todd outside and Elizabeth, Mickey, and I are standing in the foyer with the two pillowcases on the floor at our feet. Mickey, his voice barely containing his anger, says, “These people ought to get
organized.”
Robert, behind the door, can hear voices though he can’t see us. “What’s the holdup?”
“Somebody’s got to sign some paper,” Mickey says.
Robert gives a scornful laugh. “These people,” he says. “This place sure ain’t Marion, I’ll tell you that.”
It takes fifteen minutes or so for the inventory paper to be produced and signed. Tim and Todd are walking together in the parking lot in the front of the building. I put my arm around Elizabeth and walk with her to the front door. “Don’t worry, I’ll be with him. He has a lot of spunk, a lot of inner strength,” I tell her.
“I know. I know. He’s stronger than any of us,” she says.
I watch through the front glass door as the boys and Elizabeth get into the van. The doors slam, the motor starts, and the vehicle drives away. One of the boys gives a little wave to me as they are driving off, and I see that Mickey has an arm around his mother’s shoulders. She has her head in her hands.
I look down at my watch: 4:15, and here it is, the coldness in my stomach, the aloneness, and this time the
exact knowledge
of what each hour of this night will bring.
I recall a snatch of the Miserere, Psalm 51, that we used to
recite each day as we moved to the dining room after the noontime examination of conscience. We also recited the psalm when a Sister was dying.
Have mercy on me, God, in your goodness; in the greatness of your compassion wipe out my offense
…
Do not cast me from your presence and your holy spirit take not from me …
No, I realize, I don’t have
exact knowledge
of what the night will bring. The protocol, yes, I know the protocol, but Robert Lee Willie? What if he rages and fights all the way to the chair? What if the tough veneer cracks and he sobs or faints?
I turn back to the white metal door.
Robert is standing near the door and taking slow drags from his cigarette. I wonder if the spell of control is broken. I wonder now what he’ll do, what he’ll say, but I can see that his hand is firmly on the helm of his feelings, that he’s in charge of his own agenda. Maybe he’s even relieved now that the family visit is over. His mother had barely cried, and it had not been a tearful, wrenching parting. Maybe that’s why he didn’t protest when the warden asked the family to leave early. Maybe now in these last hours it’s easier just to take care of himself. It is, after all, what he’s been doing since childhood.
“I’m goin’ out with my boots on,” he says, “and if it ain’t too much trouble for you, ma’am, I’d sure appreciate bein’ buried in these boots.”
The air is still heavy with the finality of his family’s leaving, and I start moving away the four empty chairs facing the white metal door. There will be only one chair now. It is darkening outside. The fluorescent lights have been turned on.
Create a clean heart in me, O God, and a steadfast spirit renew within me
.
Robert asks me about the results of the polygraph test.
Zuelke, who had conducted the test this morning, had processed the results at his office in Baton Rouge. Since prison rules prohibited his telephoning the results directly to Robert, he called me.
“Zuelke said your answers showed stress, just as he had predicted,” I tell him. “He said the results were inconclusive.”
The news surprises him. “Man!” he says. “Is the dude sure? Is he absolutely, positively sure? I felt at ease answering all the questions. I didn’t feel no stress at all. Man! I can’t believe I failed that test.”
“Zuelke didn’t say you failed the test,” I say. “He said that your responses registered stress, which may in normal circumstances be associated with lying, but here, facing death like this, who wouldn’t show stress? All Zuelke said was that the test showed stress, which he fully expected it would.”
It amazes me that Robert actually thought he could transcend feelings of stress here in this death house on the day he’s scheduled to die.
“Robert, you’d have to be a robot or insane not to feel stress,” I say, and I tell him that mothers have a way of knowing the truth about their children, and that surely his mother is not going to rely on a semiscientific test to determine whether she believes him or not.