10 Questions For Helen Prejean

Monday, Feb. 14, 2005 By AMANDA RIPLEY
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YOU ALSO WRITE THAT WE EXECUTE INNOCENT PEOPLE "ALL THE TIME." Who says that? I BELIEVE YOU DO. Nuh-uh. I'M ON PAGE 10. Oh yeah, I do say it. Well, everything points to it. I mean, the 118 death- row exonerees. ARE YOU OVERSTATING IT, THOUGH? I might be. But conversely, can someone say with assurance that we have not executed an innocent person? Especially when you see how they're saved by flukes. It's hit or miss.

IF WE COULD TELL FOR SURE WHO WAS GUILTY, WOULD IT BE O.K.? It isn't and never will be because of what it does to us. There's a death of innocence in all of us. Look what happens to Supreme Court Justices who do these nuanced constitutional arguments and send people to their deaths and never touch the human cheek, the suffering. So I say, for our own sake as a society, let's take death off the table. We can't handle it.