Saturday May 5 9:49 PM ET

Author Suggests Penalty for McVeigh

 By REX W. HUPPKE, Associated Press Writer TERRE HAUTE, Ind. (AP) - The author of ``Dead Man Walking'' said Saturday a more fitting punishment for Timothy McVeigh than execution would be to keep him locked up for the rest of his life surrounded by pictures of Oklahoma City bombing victims.Sister Helen Prejean, whose book was made into an Academy Award-winning movie, said before an address to about 90 graduates at St. Mary-of-the-Woods College that it was hypocritical for the government to execute people.``The key moral question about Timothy McVeigh is if, in the book of justice, anybody deserves to die, it's Timothy McVeigh,'' Prejean said at a news conference Saturday. ``But the key question to us, as a society, is who deserves to kill him?''McVeigh is scheduled to die by lethal injection May 16 for bombing the Oklahoma City federal building in 1995, killing 168 people. The college is located just north of the federal prison where he is scheduled to die.Also Saturday, Episcopalian prison ministers from across the country said the execution made the time ripe for a moratorium on the death penalty. Sixty prison chaplains were in Indianapolis attending the sixth National Prison Ministry Conference of the Episcopal Church.Prejean, whose book was made into an Academy Award-winning movie, related anecdotes from her death row experiences during her address to graduates but never mentioned McVeigh.For years, Prejean has traveled the country, giving as many as 20 speeches a month in opposition to the death penalty. She's watched five death row inmates that she's counseled be executed, including Patrick Sonnier, who was featured in ``Dead Man Walking.''

   May 5 6:38 PM ET

'Dead Man Walking' Nun Condemns McVeigh Execution

By Nancy MayfieldTERRE HAUTE, Ind. (Reuters) - The nun who wrote the book ''Dead Man Walking'' about counseling a death row inmate said on Saturday the upcoming execution of Timothy McVeigh (news - web sites) would extend ''the cycle of violence,'' while author Gore Vidal confirmed he would attend the execution at McVeigh's request.The 75-year-old Vidal, whose novels including ``Burr'' and ''Lincoln,'' said in an interview published on Saturday in The Daily Oklahoman that he had agreed to attend as one of three witnesses allotted to McVeigh. He said McVeigh contacted him from prison in 1998 and the two had been corresponding since.McVeigh, 33, is scheduled to die by lethal injection at 7 a.m. CDT (8 a.m. EDT) on May 16 at a federal prison in Terre Haute for detonating a truck bomb outside the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995. The blast killed 168 people and injured hundreds more.McVeigh has said that he built the bomb, has expressed no remorse and has called the deaths of 19 children in the blast ''collateral damage.'' His execution will be the first carried out by the federal government since 1963.Roman Catholic Sister Helen Prejean, whose book ``Dead Man Walking'' was made into a 1995 movie starring Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn, condemned McVeigh's pending execution, but said she believed if the United States was going to impose capital punishment, it should do so publicly.``People who stand up for justice do it because of the integrity of it,'' she said, adding she had not had direct contact with McVeigh. ``Where are we as a people if we keep continuing the cycle of violence?''Prejean said she was glad McVeigh's execution would be televised to some of the victims' families on closed-circuit television. There are about 1,500 survivors and family members of the victims, while about 300 have asked to view the execution.But the 63-year-old nun told a news conference in Terre Haute she would like to see that action taken further.``I believe all executions should be public,'' Prejean said. As long as the public is shielded from the act, it will be harder to abolish the death penalty.Vidal told the Oklahoman he and McVeigh seemed to have similar views about the government's handling of the Branch Davidians near Waco, Texas, in 1993, and an earlier shooting incident involving the FBI (news - web sites) and the family of fugitive Randy Weaver at Ruby Ridge, Idaho.He expressed reservations about attending the execution, saying he was ``not morbid'' and did not ``want to watch an execution.'' The novelist, whose grandfather was one of Oklahoma's first two senators, also expressed horror at McVeigh's bombing of the Murrah building.``These are my people,'' he said, referring to his connections to Oklahoma through his grandfather, Thomas Gore. ''I'm not about to see my people murdered by anybody. They were random innocents.''(Additional reporting by Sue Schwendener, Marcus Kabel)