Summary: Chapter 10
After the execution, Vernon Harvey tells reporters that
Robert died too easily. Elizabeth Harvey says Robert was unrepentant,
and her fourteen-year-old daughter says that Robert’s execution
was the best Christmas present. Prejean tells the reporters that
Robert’s execution accomplished nothing, and that he did show remorse.
The next day, ABC Evening News interviews Prejean. Her
opinion about the death penalty is contrasted against the Harveys’
and that of syndicated columnist George Will. Vernon Harvey says
he wishes every victim could see his or her killer executed. Prejean
says she believes that if people could witness executions, they
would see what a horrible and brutal act it is. The death penalty
is surrounded with euphemisms that pretend torture and killing are
dignified, and that mob vengeance is noble, she says.
When public executions were public events, Prejean says,
the cruelty of the punishment was at least honest and apparent.
She references a study that was done in the United States that found twenty-three
people innocent after they were executed. In England, the hanging
of an innocent man led to a moratorium and eventual abolition of
the death penalty, but in the United States, the death penalty is
still accepted.
At Robert’s funeral, his mother and stepbrothers huddle
close together. His mother faints while staring into the casket.
After the burial, they return to Elizabeth’s house and look at old
pictures of Robert.
Summary: Chapter 11
Prejean says that after Robert’s execution, she decided
to avoid the Harveys, but two years later they attended a seminar
organized by Prejean’s abolition group and invited her over. The
Harveys help other victims’ families by informing them of their
rights, which they themselves never knew. They tell Prejean how
poorly the D.A. and the police treated them after their daughter’s
murder, and how their friends stayed away from them. Prejean tells
them that Robert’s last words were sincere. Vernon, unable to let
go of his grief, begins to cry.
After a weeklong abolition march, Prejean runs into the
Harveys, who are staging a counter demonstration. Elizabeth Harvey
speaks to the crowd, asking people to write letters protesting Congress’s plan
to cut victims’ assistance funds. They meet again outside of another
execution, where the Harveys defend Prejean against their pro death
penalty friends. Vernon invites Prejean to a Parents of Murdered
Children’s Meeting. She relays some of the tragic stories she hears
at the meeting. She is amazed by how many people feel victimized
by the D.A. and police. She organizes a victims’ families’ assistance
program in the inner city with the assistance of local churches
and federal funds and advocates for a reform that would allow for
victim restitution and addresses the rise of violent crime. In August
1988, the victim assistance group is established. Prejean takes
the new program director, Dianne Kidner, to visit the Harveys to
seek their assistance and opinions.
