Sister Helen Prejean will speak at Richmond School of Law's Moot Court Room on Monday, April 23. She will discuss her work, sign books, and answer questions from the audience.

Corinna Lain, professor at Richmond School of Law, said, "Sister Helen has been credited with playing an instrumental role in raising public awareness about flaws in the death penalty and in humanizing those who were sentenced to death."

For those of you who don’t know who Sister Helen Prejean is, I will fill you in. A Roman Catholic nun, Prejean became the correspondence and spiritual advisor for convicted murderer, Patrick Sonnier, in the months leading up to his death. Sonnier was sentenced to death by electrocution.

The experience touched a chord in Prejean.  Shortly afterwards, she founded Survive, an organization that provides counseling to families affected by violence.  Besides becoming a leading activist against capital punishment, she wrote Dead Man Walking; An Eyewitness Account of the Death Penalty, a non-fiction novel that would stay on the New York Times bestseller list for 31 weeks. The book, which was translated into ten languages and nominated for the 1993 Pulitzer Prize, catapulted Prejean’s reputation.

Prejean would reach a wider appeal when “Dead Man Walking” hit the Hollywood circuit in 1995. The movie garnered many Oscar nods. Susan Sarandon won Best Actress for her role. Sean Penn and Tim Robbins were nominated in the Best Actor and Best Director categories, respectively.

Her second book, The Death of Innocents: An Eyewitness Account of Wrongful Executions, was published in December 2004. In it, Prejean tackles the legal and religious arguments used to justify the death penalty.