National Weekend of Faith in Action on the Death Penalty
John Lyons, Amnesty International Activist, Mokena, Illinois
I have been active in the death penalty issue since high school. A friend of mine had asked me to sign a petition of clemency for Andrew Kokoralies, a death row inmate in my home state of Illinois. Before adding my name, I did some research. As with most people who look into the realities of the capital punishment system, I was shocked by what I found -- my state had executed 11 people and exonerated nine. (Since that time, 8 more have been exonerated while one, Kokoralies, has been put to death).
I remember wondering if what I was reading was true. Not only were we sentencing innocent people to death but the ones we were sentencing were disproportionately poor and minorities.
I became active in Amnesty because the death penalty was being applied unfairly. Not long after, however, I began to ask deeper questions about the business of taking human life. I had never thought about the death penalty in terms of morality. Initially, I was more bothered with how we were applying the death penalty than whether we even have the right to apply it at all.
I have come to oppose the death penalty on moral grounds as well. I think the main reason I find a connection between this issue and religion is because all the great spiritual teachers have taught the importance of reaching out to people outside the box -- those that society ignores. One of the main tenets of any faith is to find the essence of God in everyone. A main theme I remember from my Catholic upbringing is the possibility of redemption. The death penalty eliminates that possibility from someone. By executing someone, guilty or not, society is denying their humanity and therefore taking on a God-like role.
I visit death row prisoners often. I don't pretend that all of them are innocent -- many of them don't either. What strikes me most is the overwhelming sense I get from seeing them that I'm not all that different from them. I had a safer community to grow up in, a better education in many instances, and generally more opportunities than they ever had, but at the end of the day we're basically the same.
Sr. Helen Prejean is fond of saying that people are better than the worst act of their lives. What if everyone were judged that way? I look at some of my friends in prison -guilty of unspeakable crimes but at the same time many are trying to redeem themselves through a variety of means. One of my friends in prison once said, "I can't resurrect my victim. I wish I could but I can't. What I can do is resurrect me."
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