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Last revised: April 14, 1998

WELCOME TO HELL

SISTER HELEN AND THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE

by Steven King Ainsworth

Editor’s note: Sister Helen Prejean, CSJ, author of “Dead Man Walking”, has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. If she wins, the US government could be pressured and shamed into abolishing the death penalty. A movement has begun to get letters of support for her nomination sent to the committee in Norway. Letters should be short (one or two pages), and stress why the death penalty should be abolished in this country, and how awarding this prized to Sister Helen can help us in this effort. Letters should be extremely courteous, not angry. Prizes are awarded in October, so please send your letter as soon as possible. The following letter was written by Steven King Ainsworth, who is one of the condemned on Death Row in San Quentin, California. You can read more of his writings in the archives of this column.)

Francis Sejersted, Chairperson
The Norwegian Nobel Committee
Dammen 19
NO255 Oslo, Norway

5 April, 1998

Dear Committee~

I am a condemned man awaiting execution by the state of California at the infamous San Quentin State Prison, and after 18 years and 2 months of waiting, it now appears that I will be executed sometime within the next 24 months.

As a consequence of my long Death Row confinement I have educated myself quite a bit about capital punishment and its’ history in the United States, as well as other parts of the world. The one conclusion I have been able to clearly draw is:

The epitome of power is the right to kill, to kill under the color of law, and that the decisive means of politics is violence, and capital punishment is the graphic use of that violence!

In realizing this I have become a capital punishment abolitionist, which was not the case when I first arrived on Death Row two decades ago.

The abolitionist movement in America is very small and does not have any power. The pro-death advocates, most of them politicians clamoring for power, have steam rolled any opposition to capital punishment into subjugation or silence.

The one voice that has not been frightened into silence is that of Sister Helen Prejean, CSJ. I would like to express my gratitude to the Norwegian Nobel Committee for nominating Sister Prejean for the Nobel Peace Prize this year and urge you to award the prize to her as a symbol of recognition that capital punishment is wrong, and that all citizens of the earth should seek its’ abolishment, not only in the United States of America, but throughout the world.

Thank you for the nomination. Thank you for recognizing the issue of capital punishment. Thank you for the opportunity to write this letter in support of Sister Prejean, and thank you for your attention. Capital punishment is simply the powerful killing the indefensible.

Damned and condemned,
Steven King Ainsworth
Death Row, San Quentin