Yusef Salaam of the Central Park Five and author Sister Helen Prejean visited campus last week to speak at Notre Dame Law School's Death Penalty Abolition Week.
Prejean, the author of several books including the Pulitzer Prize winning "Dead Man Walking," and Salaam gave talks offering their perspectives on the necessity of eliminating the death penalty.
Jimmy Gurulé, the faculty director of Notre Dame Law School's Exoneration Justice Clinic, introduced the speakers.
“In 2018, Pope Francis issued a decree stating [the death penalty] was inadmissible, that under Catholic teaching [and] Catholic doctrine, there was no exception [and] no justification for the death penalty,” Gurulé said.
Gurulé reminded the audience that the death penalty remains in use around the United States. As of July 2024, Indiana reinstated the death penalty, executing their first person following this reinstating in Dec. 2024.
The purpose of the lectures, Gurulé shared, was to “focus on the death penalty from different perspectives.”
Salaam spoke on his experiences being wrongfully imprisoned. As one of the Central Park Five, Salaam was accused of raping a jogger in Central Park and leaving her for dead. Five children ranging between 13 and 17 years old of both Black and Latino backgrounds were wrongfully convicted and imprisoned for the crime.
Salaam was 15 years old when he was put on trial and 16 when he entered the prison system.
“They looked at the color of my skin and not the content of my character and deemed me guilty,” he said.
Salaam showed the room a newspaper clipping of Donald Trump calling for the death penalty to be reinstated in New York for this case. He went on to explain that acceptance of the dealth penalty is not the fault of just the current president, but that Trump was perpetuating it by “Whispering into the darkest enclaves of society, allowing for the sickness."
"It needs a cure, and that cure is us fighting against spiritual wickedness," Salaam said.
In his closing remarks, he left the audience with a call to action, urging them to take on a huge responsibility moving forward.
“We are playing chess, and I need you to be a master strategist in your approach, because this is not a short-term game,” Salaam said.
Syl Schieber, an additional guest whose daughter was killed by a serial rapist in 1998, came to speak in the Patrick F. McCartan courtroom in Eck Hall of Law. The leading prosecutor in the case wanted to seek the death penalty, but Schieber and his wife Vicki Schieber refused to back the prosecutor.
On the night of Shannon's murder, as explained by Vicki Schieber, her neighbor heard yelling and called the police. They arrived at the scene in five minutes but left six minutes later because they didn’t hear anything. During that time, Shannon was murdered.
“If the DA and the police were really worried about the safety of young women in Philadelphia, they would probably serve them better if they cleaned up the police department then, instead of killing somebody who’s going to be in prison for the rest of his life,” Syl Schieber said.
The Schiebers shared that they oppose the death penalty because of their deep beliefs as Christians and urged the audience to do the same.
“If you can’t stand by your principles when it's difficult, then they’re not your principles,” Schieber said.
As the author of a Pulitzer Prize winning book that was later turned into a movie, Prejean discussed the important aspects and details of her book, "Dead Man Walking," during her lecture.
While working at Hope House, a service organization, she was asked to correspond with an inmate on death row. When she went to visit him, on her entrance form, she checked the box 'spiritual advisor.' She shared that at the time, she was unaware that the only person who could go with the inmate to be executed was the spiritual advisor.
“You watch this killing, and it's all legal. This is where the law comes in. We make it legal, which means that we make it right, morally right,” Prejean said.
She explained that the death penalty falls under the category of torture, which she defined as “extreme mental or physical assault on someone who's been rendered defenseless.” She believes that the longevity of the execution process is a form of mental torture because of the toll waiting on death takes on a person.
After the speakers, Marcus Cole, dean of the Law School, explained that Death Penalty Abolition Week was held to give students an insight into not only the criminal justice system but also how these aspects of the criminal justice system and societal perspectives can impact faith and morals.
“As Catholics, Christians and human beings, we have an obligation to see each and every person as created in the likeness and image of God,” Cole said.
