Dead Man Walking Justice and Judgment Quotes

This is a pretty grim demonstration of the injustice of the prison system: some prisoners were so miserable that they actually mutilated themselves in protest. It's worth pointing out that Angola was a slave plantation before it was a prison, and that the majority of prisoners there were black. Justice, in this case, was in many ways a continuation of the violence of the slavery system. Um, not really justice at all, in other words.

Ha, ha, Constitutional rights! How silly you were, Sister Helen. In fact, as Prejean discovers, justice, like everything else, costs money. The Constitution can talk about rights all it wants, but if you can't pay for a lawyer, you can measure out the justice you'll get with the world's tiniest spoon.

Usually, racism in the justice system is thought about in terms of defendants—that is, black people are arrested and incarcerated at much higher rates than whites. But Prejean points out another aspect of racist justice, which is that white victims are more important than black ones. When black people are murdered, their killers are much less likely to get the death penalty than are the murderers (white or black) of white people.

Millard is explaining that the state doesn't really care how bad the defense counsel is. This seems obviously unfair and unjust—but nobody seems to care much about justice. Why even bother with a defense counsel at all, you wonder?

Patrick Quigley is the son of one of the attorneys working on Pat's case. His son is trying to figure out how it can be just to murder someone as a punishment for murder. If murder's wrong, it's wrong, right? A kid can understand that; as you get older, though, these things get less clear, for better or (probably) worse.

Pat tells Millard not to feel guilty; the justice system just stinks. Prejean pretty much agrees, and she makes a good case for that interpretation throughout the book. So there are some implications here beyond just the death penalty: if the justice system is rotten, isn't that a problem for the country as a whole? And what do you do about that? Abolishing the death penalty doesn't even seem like it's really enough. No wonder Millard is depressed.

Elizabeth explains that she and her husband didn't find out that their daughter's body had been found from the police: friends had to tell them. Um, what? Basically, the authorities don't really seem to care much about the victim's family; justice somehow doesn't have anything to do with the bereaved. If that seems wrong, think about how television cop shows or superhero shows handle justice: it's all about tracking down that villainous Lex Luthor, not about comforting whoever gets caught in the super-crossfire. People would rather punish than comfort.

Prejean, as a Christian, ideally wants no revenge. Still, she argues that society requires some kind of punishment of the guilty in order to function. Revenge is needed, even though it isn't exactly Christian. You could see Prejean as compromising her Christian values, or as thoughtfully adapting them. Either way, though, she seems to suggest that Christians ideally shouldn't seek retribution or revenge—which seems like a pretty hard standard to live up to.

Robert first accepts guilt for his crime, then makes a statement about justice: "Killing is wrong." This wouldn't be very effective if he just said, "Killing me is wrong." It's because he accepts the general law as applying to him, too, that his words have weight. That's how justice works: if it doesn't apply to all, it's not justice.

Again, the D.A. and the police don't really seem to care about victims' families at all. The people Prejean talks to are victimized by horrible crimes, and then the officials who are supposed to help them treat them like crap.