Sister Helen Prejean

Let's end the death penalty! I'm the author of Dead Man Walking. Read the book (graphic version out in 2025), see the movie and the opera, and take action!

[Sister Helen Prejean @helenprejean]

Three more executions are scheduled in Tennessee before the end of the year. State officials have yet to respond.

[Sister Helen Prejean @helenprejean]

Two months after Tennessee’s botched execution of Tony Carruthers, the fallout is still growing. His sister — a physician — has filed a formal complaint against the doctor involved, alleging medical malpractice and torture. https://t.co/UOlVGU8H69

[Sister Helen Prejean @helenprejean]

Nine Republican state senators have written to Governor Lee demanding an independent review. They support the death penalty — but wrote that they “cannot accept its incompetent administration.”

[Sister Helen Prejean @helenprejean]

Justice Thurgood Marshall wrote 50 years ago that if Americans knew the truth about capital punishment, opinion would shift. The jury numbers suggest he was right. The secrecy suggests some government officials know it too.

[Sister Helen Prejean @helenprejean]

The @DPInfoCtr DPIC released its mid-year report today. The picture it paints is striking. https://t.co/04x4IxmH0e

[Sister Helen Prejean @helenprejean]

The death penalty system is responding by making it harder to see what’s happening. DPIC documented media witnesses banned from executions, new laws shielding execution procedures from judicial review, and false statements by officials about how specific executions happened.

[Death Penalty Action @DeathPenaltyAct]

@helenprejean describes the US Supreme Court's decision in Gregg v. Georgia as one of the worst the Court has ever made. Today (July 2, 2026) is the 50th anniversary of the decision, which allowed a resumption of executions in the United States. Today marks 50 years of the spectacular failure of public policy that is capital punishment. Please share this video.

[Sister Helen Prejean @helenprejean]

Just four years later, the Supreme Court reinstituted the death penalty in Gregg v. Georgia. The Court has been tinkering with the machinery of death ever since. The arbitrary system Furman condemned is still with us today.

[Sister Helen Prejean @helenprejean]

Today marks 54 years since the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Furman v. Georgia, which ruled the death penalty unconstitutionally arbitrary. All nine justices wrote their own opinions: five concurring, four dissenting.

[Sister Helen Prejean @helenprejean]

Furman resulted in a de facto nationwide moratorium on capital punishment and reduced the sentences of hundreds of people on death row. The human rights victory was short-lived.

[Sister Helen Prejean @helenprejean]

Governor Mike DeWine: “I believe Ohio should abolish the death penalty.” https://t.co/apzhiXu5fZ

[Sister Helen Prejean @helenprejean]

Globally, 113 countries have now abolished the death penalty, up from just 16 when Amnesty started this work in 1977.

[Sister Helen Prejean @helenprejean]

A report released last month by Amnesty International found that 2025 had the highest number of executions worldwide since 1981. 2,707 people were executed across 17 countries. https://t.co/zPgg2NOHVu

[Sister Helen Prejean @helenprejean]

In Alabama, Governor Kay Ivey granted clemency to Rocky Myers, the first time a Black person on that state’s death row has received clemency.