Dead Man Walking Compassion and Forgiveness Quotes

The chief of corrections is acknowledging that scheduled death, in which the condemned man knows the hour of his death, is essentially torture. He argues that this is what people want: they want the condemned man to suffer for his crimes. There's maybe some truth to that… but it's also the case that people don't necessarily think of execution as torture. They don't put themselves in the position of the condemned man; they have no compassion for him. Lack of compassion and lack of forgiveness go together.

This is one of the letters sent to Prejean after Pat's death. It's not exactly true that she offered no gesture of compassion to the victims' families, but she does feel like she could have done better. The letter-writer isn't so compassionate; in fact, the letter-writer sounds like a jerk, the sort of troll you'd want to avoid online. But the troll does make Prejean think that she should have been more compassionate towards victims' families. Prejean takes troll lemons and makes compassion lemonade.

Millard argues that Robert Lee Willie is childlike and therefore worthy of compassion. It's really never exactly clear that this is the case. Robert cares about his family, and has some insecurities—he's human. And he seems to crave acceptance, which could be seen as childlike. But if he's childlike, it's a pretty unpleasant child. In any case, does someone have to be vulnerable and sympathetic to deserve compassion? Robert is an awful person in most respects. Does that mean his life has no dignity or meaning? Do you have to pretend he's more sympathetic than he is in order to make him deserving of compassion?