"Making Communities Safer By Abolishing The Death Penalty: Live Internet Video Teleconference To Explore Views of Law Enforcement Professionals," is the news released issued by the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty announcing the webcast. It's via PR Newswire and the Sacramento Bee.
As Californians prepare to vote on a measure to repeal the death penalty, the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty will present a live online conference exploring how communities will be safer without the death penalty starting at 11 a.m. Pacific time on Thursday, October 25, 2012. The event will be moderated by Professor Charles Ogletree, founder of the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice at Harvard University.
"This is a conversation that all Californians need to be a part of," said Diann Rust-Tierney, Executive Director of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. "Especially with the election coming up, we want to help people look at the resources that go into maintaining capital punishment and explore how those resources can be better spent to make our communities safer."
Joining the conversation will be Kirk Bloodsworth, the first person exonerated from death row using DNA technology, Ron McAndrew, former warden of Florida State Prison who conducted that state's final electrocutions, and Jerry Givens, former corrections officer from Virginia who put 62 men to death during his 17 years as an executioner.
The interactive conference may be seen on the website http://abolition2012.ncadp.org/ and viewers are invited to submit questions to the panelists using the hashtag #abolition2012.
Givens and McAndrew are participating in the on-line conference as they traverse the Central Valley on a speaking tour in support of Proposition 34. The Proposition 34 ballot initiative will end the death penalty in California and redirect some of the savings to law enforcement efforts to solve unresolved homicides and rapes. The two are among eight former corrections officials who participated in executions across the country who have signed an open letter to the voters of California urging passage Proposition 34.
More on the former wardens at the link.
Earlier coverage from California begins at the link; also available, more on Prop. 34 at SAFE Caliornia.
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