A local news publication, The Fulton Sun, featured a piece on Derick Dailey ’17, assistant attorney of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Delaware, and a lecture he recently delivered on his struggle to reconcile his faith and injustice.
Dailey spoke about instances where his faith has come into play in his mind when looking at difficult legal situations. One example he shared was when his home state of Arkansas planned to execute eight inmates in 11 days in April 2017.
“(The inmate Ledell Lee’s final request before execution) was to receive communion as his last meal,” he said. “Strikingly, Ledell’s communion was on a Thursday and his death on a Friday — eerily similar to another state sanctioned execution alleged to have taken place some 2,000 years ago.”
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Dailey said: “There is perhaps nothing more hopeless than hearing a mother of a dead child say ‘I’m kind of happy he died. Hopelessness is pervasive in this country, in part because people have normalized injustice and anguish.”He said he has come to the conclusion theology is not about text within the Bible. But rather, it is concerned with practices and lifestyles, and the law of the country cannot remedy injustices simply on its own.
“The law needs help, and I argue that the theological reflection is that there is only one source,” Dailey concluded.