Today's San Francisco Chronicle reports, "Michael Millman, Death Penalty Focus co-founder, dies at 74." It's by Bob Egelko.
Michael Millman devoted his legal career to fighting the death penalty, in individual cases and in state law. He had hoped to see capital punishment abolished in California in his lifetime - but after being diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer, he said at an awards dinner in April, he realized it probably wouldn't happen.
"I ask you to make it happen as quickly as you can," Mr. Millman told the advocacy group Death Penalty Focus, sitting among well-wishers while a friend read his speech. "Please be sure to send me an e-mail to let me know it is finally gone. I look forward to reading the good news."
Mr. Millman, a co-founder of Death Penalty Focus and executive director throughout the 30-year existence of the California Appellate Project, which assists lawyers in death penalty appeals and other criminal cases, died Saturday at his home in Oakland. He was 74.
He graduated from Harvard with a physics degree in 1960 but changed course after working in the civil rights movement and went to Yale Law School. He started practice as a public defender in California in 1970, then moved to the state public defender's office and became its death penalty coordinator after state lawmakers reinstated capital punishment in 1977.
"Michael Millman, champion of legal aid for the condemned, dies at 74," is by Maura Dolan of the Los Angeles Times.
Executive director of the San Francisco-based California Appellate Project for 30 years, Millman assisted death row lawyers with technical and legal advice and helped create a network of resources to ensure the condemned received professional legal help. "Michael Millman was a pillar of the capital defense bar, a hero to many, and a true gentleman," said California Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye.
The appellate project Millman headed was established by the state bar in 1983 as a nonprofit group to ensure poor people facing execution receive sound legal assistance in their appeals. Millman played a lead role in the group's creation and became its executive director in 1984.
"Michael was a profoundly kind and big-hearted man who dedicated his whole life to advancing social justice and, especially, to 'being the change we wish to see in the world' by daily acts of compassion and generosity," said Lance Lindsey, the project's administrative director.
Related posts are in the in memoriam category index.
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