Dead Man Walking (film) the same name, premiering in San Francisco. Yvonne Koslovsky-Golan, author of "The Death Penalty in American Cinema: Criminality and Retribution in Hollywood Film", stated that even though public debate on the death penalty increased for a period after the release of "Dead Man Walking", the film did not result in "real political or legal change" but that it did encourage additional academic study on the death penalty. Dead Man Walking (film) Dead Man Walking is a 1995 American crime drama film starring Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn, and co-produced and directed by Tim Robbins, who adapted the screenplay from the
Elmo Patrick Sonnier Eddie Sonnier was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole because he was a minor at the time of the crime. While on death row at Louisiana State Prison, Elmo Sonnier was contacted by an outreach effort setting up communication with inmates on Death Row. Sister Helen Prejean, a Catholic nun, was assigned to him. After they started a correspondence, she began to visit him and became his spiritual adviser. He was the first of many death row inmates whom she counseled. Sr. Prejean subsequently became a nationally prominent anti-death penalty activist. Sister Helen Prejean later said