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Death penalty foe stresses activism

Author and activist Sister Helen Prejean shared stories from her 25-year crusade against the death penalty last night, urging the audience to be proactive in bringing an end to the "inhumane" practice.

"You have a chance to be the first state to abolish the death penalty," Prejean said, noting that New Jersey has placed a temporary moratorium on the practice and that legislators are considering a bill that would replace the death penalty with life without parole.

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"You must be an active participant in shaping social policy that does not give the government the right to kill people."

Prejean, who rose to fame after writing "Dead Man Walking" in 1993, handed out protest literature at the end of the lecture, asking the 150 students and community members in McCosh 10 to sign the sheets and send them to Gov. Jon Corzine and other state officials.

Interspersing humor with moral outrage, Prejean began her lecture by discussing her experiences writing "Dead Man Walking."

"I'm a storyteller more then a lecturer, so I'm going to take you on a journey," she said.

A sister in the Order of Saint Joseph de Medaille, Prejean first became aware of the issue in 1982, after becoming the spiritual advisor of death row inmate Elmo Patrick Sonnier, who was convicted of murder and rape. "Dead Man Walking" chronicles her correspondence with Sonnier.

After Sonnier's execution on April 5, 1984, Prejean said her "mission was born that night. I've seen it so I must tell the story."

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"In a way," she explained, " 'Dead Man Walking' got leached out of me. It was like the book said, 'Write me.' "

She has since become a leading international activist, traveling the world to convince political and spiritual leaders that the practice should be stopped.

In addition to discussing her experiences with the inmates she has spiritually advised, Prejean discussed the racial inequities inherent in the death penalty. Eight of 10 inmates on death row have killed white victims, she explained, and almost half of death row inmates are black.

Prejean also focused on the possibility of wrongful incrimination, noting that 123 death row convicts have been exonerated in recent years. In her 2004 book "The Death of Innocents," she argued that a lack of resources and competent lawyers can lead to false convictions of poor and uneducated suspects.

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"No one should be killed," she said, "but [if we do apply the death penalty] we doggone better well know what criteria to apply."