Frontline Angel on Death Row

 ((Tues. (9), 9-10 p.m., PBS))

By SUE CUMMINGS

A PBS production in collaboration with the BBC. Executive producer, David Fanning; writer-producer-director, Ben Loeterman.
 

Narrator, Will Lyman.

Misleadingly titled "Angel on Death Row" reopens the capital punishment debate by examining the real-life events behind Sister Helen Prejean's "Dead Man Walking," the book on which the pic is based. Even those who have not seen Susan Sarandon's Oscar-winning performance in "Walking" will be glued to this docu about executed murderer Robert Lee Willie, his victims, community and Prejean, the anti-death-penalty activist nun who was Willie's spiritual adviser on death row.

The documentary's scoop is an interview with one of Willie's victims, Debbie Morris of Madisonville, La., who has never before been publicly identified.Morris, who was abducted, brutalized and raped by Willie and his conspirator, managed to escape and inform police, leading them to her

boyfriend, who had been shot, tied in the woods and left for dead.

Though Morris was never mentioned in the film or book, her testimony was essential to Willie's conviction. The focus of "Angel on Death Row" is not, as its title would suggest, on the

work of Prejean, but on the figure of Morris and her ambivalence over her role in Willie's execution.

The Tim Robbins-helmed "Dead Man Walking"-- with its account of the sympathetic, dedicated Prejean saving the souls of hardened criminals -- has inspired more anti-execution sentiments than this docu will. As Morris calmly describes the horrible ordeal that inspired her beliefs, what emerges is the profile of a woman who is Prejean's equal in strength and virtue, but whose different experiences have brought her to the opposite conclusion.

"I know for sure," Morris says, "that she (Prejean) did not know him (Willie) in the same way that I knew him."

Producer-director Ben Loeterman and editor Jon Neuburger concisely combine the effective dramatizations, reporting and interviews with the sensitive, articulate narration written by Loeterman. As Bob Perrin's camera vividly shoots prosecutors, convicts, investigators, families, Morris and Prejean, it also dramatically establishes the Southern context of the story.

"Angel on Death Row" takes "Dead Man Walking" one step further, both in time and ideology. Loeterman skillfully chronicles the ongoing recovery of Morris, and how her own conscience has developed so that she might consider changing her views. In so doing he successfully frames the death penalty debate, no mean feat considering its bewildering complexity.

Editor, Jon Neuburger; camera, Bob Perrin; sound, Kenny Delbert; exec producer for "Frontline," David Fanning.