Dead Man Walking Analysis

Dead Man Walking a movie of a man pleading for his life while on death row. Matthew Poncelet reaches out to a nun, Sister Helen Prejean, for help in his appeal. Sister Helen found an attorney, Hilton Barber, to fight for Matthew’s appeal. At the first appeal for a stay of execution Hilton makes a few very compelling points that make you question the death penalty and how humane it really is. As the movie goes on, it has more moments like that one where you question am I truly for or against the death penalty. The moment when Sister Helen is talking to Mary Beth and Clyde Percy about their daughter, whom was raped then stabbed seventeen times before finally being shot in the back of the head and left in the wood where she and the other victim
But that’s fine, everyone on death row is wealthy right? No, actually quite the opposite. The majority of death row inmates are where they are because they aren’t wealthy. The wealthier you are in a trial where the death penalty is “on the table” as they say, the better you can afford bail, a better attorney, private investigators, and expert testimony. All things that give you a substantially better change of not getting the death penalty. So, some of these privileges given to death row inmates aren’t things that would be so easy to get, but they are the ones that would help death row inmates keep their sanity best. Dead Man Walking shows how having more money can make a difference, Matthew Poncelet got the death penalty while Carl Vitello got life without parole because he hired an attorney while Matthew got a state appointed one that had never tried a capital case before. The way they portrayed Matthews first attorney is actually very close to how it really is, many public defenders are over worked, making preparing their defense much harder than a private hired attorney that has a low case load and much more time to plan and strategize their