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4. “I did these things,” he says. “I sat in judgment on these men like that—the guilty and the innocent. But who was I to sit in judgment? It still bothers me. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.

At the end of Chapter 8, Howard Marsellus, the former Pardon Board chairman, apologizes to Prejean for the role he played in helping the state enforce the death penalty. Marsellus, who was arrested and jailed for taking bribes while serving as the Pardon Board chairman, embodies the inevitable fallibility of the state. Throughout her narrative, Prejean asks how we can possibly trust governments with the right to decide who should live and die given their long history of abuse and errors. Marsellus’s description of the rampant abuses in the Pardon Board system is startling and disturbing evidence of just how fallible the justice system is. Marsellus, in his apology, acknowledges the extraordinary power granted to him and implies that power should not be entrusted to any one man or system.

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