‘Angel on Death Row’ Tells the Facts but Not the Ideas

There is the story of Sister Helen Prejean, author of “Dead Man Walking” and spiritual advisor to death row inmates. And then there are the ideas behind the story. “Frontline’s” report, “Angel on Death Row,” is so enthralled with the story that the ideas go nearly forgotten.

Prejean, whose shepherding of convicted killers Elmo Patrick Sonnier and Robert Lee Willie was artfully blended into one story by writer-director Tim Robbins for his film version, states her animating religious principle early on here. For her, the death penalty is wrong because “execution is the opposite of baptism into a community” and that “the key moral question is, ‘Do we deserve to kill?’ ” Later, she explains that she views Jesus Christ as the forgiver of sinners, not judge and punisher.

Producer Ben Loeterma, though, hardly allows time for these central notions to sink in; instead, we are served a blow-by-blow account of the Sonnier and Willie murders and crimes, the conflict between Prejean and her critics (parents of the murder victims and Sheriff Mike Varnado, who investigated the Willie murder), and Prejean’s media celebrity.

Indeed, the report’s juxtaposition of the grisly crimes and Prejean celebrating her best-selling tome in a New York publisher’s suite makes her out to be as mendacious as any of the O.J. trial quick-buck “authors.” This may be inadvertent, but it’s certainly a case of sloppy filmmaking sending confused signals.

Loeterman is deeply influenced by Robbins’ film and its supreme strength of capturing a spectrum of points of view; unlike Robbins, he doesn’t grant time to let those points of view command attention. This becomes especially obvious when he focuses on this report’s fresh angle--Debbie Morris, who managed to escape after being kidnapped by Willie and partner Joe Vacarro and turned key evidence in Willie’s trial. Morris, who has never gone public before with her harrowing story, now questions her former support of the death penalty, and regularly prays with Prejean.

Morris tells Loeterman that the book and particularly the movie caused her sea-change, but is this all? A similar change in one of Robbins’ fictionalized grieving parent characters was richly etched and researched; Morris’ stunning reversal remains mysterious and vague, but seems to go to the heart of Prejean’s brand of Christianity. “Angel on Death Row” leaves us only wondering.

* “Angel on Death Row” airs at 9 tonight on KCET-TV Channel 28.