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August 23, 2018
Joe Hallisy
San Francisco
Billy Ray Irick was put to death in Tennessee this week, the first execution in that state in nine years.
Noted death row inmate advocate, Sister Helen Prejean was quoted in the last edition of Catholic San Francisco (“Catholic death penalty opponents praise pope’s catechism revision,” Aug. 9) that there is “nothing dignified about rendering a person defenseless, strapping them down to a gurney and killing them.”
I wish Sister Helen would step down from her soapbox and tell me where the dignity is in the rape and strangulation of 7-year-old Paula Dyer, for which Billy Ray received the death penalty in 1985.
Sadly, he was allowed to live and breathe for another 33 years, while Paula and her family were denied the joy of graduations, proms, a wedding, and possible children of her own.
So, Sister – would you classify Billy Ray as a victim?
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