2007 Anti-Death Penalty Alternative Spring Break

Cross-posted on Campus Progress.

Looking for something to do during spring break this year? Here's an idea: come to Austin, Texas for a week of activism and education against the death penalty as part of the 2007 Anti-Death Penalty Alternative Spring Break. The event is open to both high school and college students. Register now.

The 2007 anti-death penalty spring break, organized by Texas Students Against the Death Penalty and co-sponsored by Campus Progress, Amnesty International, Texas Moratorium Network, NCADP and other groups, is designed to to give students something more meaningful to do during their week off, rather than just spending time at the beach or sitting at home catching up on school work. This is the place to be if you want to become a part of the next generation of human rights leaders. Go to the beach to change your state of mind for a week, come here to change the world forever.

Students will participate in workshops led by experienced, knowledgeable presenters who will teach them skills that they can use to go back home and set up new anti-death penalty student organizations or improve ones that may already exist. The skills participants will learn can also be used in other issues besides the death penalty. During the week, students will immediately put what they learn into action during activities such as a Death Penalty Issues Lobby Day and a Direct Action Day. There will be opportunities to write press releases, speak in public, meet with legislators or their aides, and conceive and carry out a direct action.

"This is an historical echo to what happened in the 1960s when people came down to the South during the Civil Rights Movement to help people register to vote, what they called freedom summers. This is very similar to what was going on back then, but here the issue is the death penalty." said Scott Cobb, president of Texas Moratorium Network.

Texas leads the nation by far in number of executions. Texas performed 45 percent of all the executions in the United States in 2006. Twenty-four people were executed in Texas in 2006. There were 53 executions in the U.S. in 2006. Since the U.S Supreme Court ruling in 1976 that allowed executions to resume after a four-year period during which they were considered unconstitutional, there have been 1060 executions in the United States. Texas has performed 381 of those executions, which amounts to about 35 percent of the national total. According to the 2000 census, Texas has only 7.4 percent of the nation's entire population.

This spring break was featured last year on mtvU, NPR and the front page of The Huntsville Item. MTV is planning to send their crew to Austin again this year to shoot the spring break for "The Amazing Break," an MTV show featuring alternatives to beer and beaches. Coverage by MTV and other media outlets ensures that the anti-death penalty message of the alternative spring break will reach thousands and thousands of people.

Throughout the week students will participate in workshops and have a chance to talk and eat with people that they probably never imagined they would encounter in their daily lives, such as Shujaa Graham, an African American man who spent 3 years of his life on California's death-row for a crime he did not commit or Renny Cushing, a former New Hampshire state legislator whose father was brutally murdered or Christina Lawson, whose husband was executed by the state of Texas in 2005.

Other speakers include Moresse Bickham, who was on death row when the Furman v Georgia decision was announced in 1972 abolishing the death penalty on grounds that it violated the U.S. constitution. Another ruling four years later allowed executions to resume. Bickham was released in 1996 and at 89 is now the oldest living survivor of the Furman v Georgia decision.

Participation in the Annual Anti-Death Penalty Alternative Spring Break is an invaluable experience. Participants will come away with firsthand knowledge of the anti-death penalty movement and a new understanding of how they can affect public policy. Plus, they will an opportunity to form new friendships that could last a lifetime. During the spring break students will have plenty of free time to enjoy Austin, the Live Music Capital of the World. The famous SXSW Festival is the same week as spring break, so if anyone is interested they can attend some of the films or music events during their free time.

Thanks to contributions from Campus Progress, Resist Foundation and other groups there is no participation fee for the Anti-Death Penalty Alternative Spring Break except for those people who need housing. If you do not need housing, because you live in Austin or you are making your own housing arrangements, then your participation is free, but please register so we know how many people to expect. Participants are expected to travel to Austin at their own expense and pay for their meals and incidental expenses while in Austin. We will provide some free pizza and snacks a couple of times. Housing is available for a fee of $25. That's right. $25 for all five days. That's $5 a night. Students will stay in rooms with one or two other people at a dormitory near the University of Texas at Austin.

See you in Austin!

Public Radio interview with Audrey Lamm

TSADP essay Contest

Nathan Hays of the Mansfield Timberview High School was winner of the Texas Students Against the Death Penalty's 2006 essay contest. He was ranked 1st place by our judges.

Deadline for entries is Feb 1st, 2007. The TSADP Essay Contest is open to all 11^th and 12^th grade Texas high school students. To participate, you must write an essay explaining why a moratorium on executions is necessary in Texas. Essays are judged on both style and content. The winning essay must demonstrate an outstanding grasp of the death penalty system in Texas. Complete contest guidelines are available on the Web site.

Texas Death Penalty Moratorium: The Time for Action is now

Early in the morning of December 2, 2005, Kenneth Boyd marched from his dimly lit cell in Raleigh, North Carolina, toward a small room dominated by a reclining table and an apparatus for delivering a lethal combination of various poisons. After lying down, a doctor inserted a tube into his arm and stepped back. His last words were to his wife, Kathy Smith, “Look after my son and my grandchildren. God bless everybody in here.” Shortly after that, at 2:15 a.m., he was dead. As the fatal dose of chemicals entered his bloodstream, Kenneth Boyd became the 1,000^th person to be executed in the United States since the death penalty’s reinstatement in 1976. With so many deaths over so many years, America has joined the company of China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Vietnam.[i] Even worse, the death penalty itself has multiple problems, including the ingraining of socially counterproductive values, its unfair application, and the risk of executing innocent people.

By far, the most common argument for the death penalty is that executing criminals deters future aggression. However, the overwhelming amount of evidence suggests just the opposite.[ii] For instance, California experienced a drastic drop in the murder rate while the death penalty was not carried out. From 1907 to 1963, New York encountered more homicides in the month immediately following an execution than before. In addition, the FBI Uniform Crime Report shows that police officers are most in danger in regions where executions are most common.[iii] Why do people commit more crimes in response to executions? The answer to that question lies in what the government communicates through executions. First, it sends the message that the most acceptable answer to offenses is by using violence. Second, the government communicates that vengeance is just. Finally, executions convince people that the government decides who lives and who dies. Inevitably, these three signals induce people to commit more crimes and detest authority. Therefore, not only does the death penalty fail to deter crime, but it actually brutalizes the population into acquiring socially counterproductive values.

In addition, the death penalty is applied unfairly. For instance, 202 African American defendants have been executed for the murders of white victims while only twelve white defendants have received a death sentence for the murder of African Americans.[iv] The logical conclusion from this is that the government values a white life over a black life. Furthermore, there is a significant economic bias. For example, almost all defendants facing the death penalty cannot afford their own legal fees. State-provided attorneys are often inexperienced, unpaid, and have absolutely no motivation to fight hard. As a result, the current death row population is comprised of a disproportionate number of economically disadvantaged people.[v] In 1972, the Supreme Court ruled that the system of executions was “arbitrary and capricious” in Furman v. Georgia.[vi] Although the court later reversed that view, the death penalty in America remains an enemy to unity and equality because it condemns humans to death based on economic status and race.

Finally, the risk of executing an innocent person far outweighs any benefits. Almost 125 people have been released from death row since 1976.[vii] This means that one inmate has been taken off death row for roughly every eight people executed. In addition, the government is often unwilling to review capital cases in order to save time and money, leaving the burden of proving innocence to those outside the system. For instance, journalism students in Illinois were recently assigned to investigate a person on death row. After doing some detective work, they discovered that one of the witnesses had lied at the trial and they uncovered the true killer, who confessed on videotape.[viii] The media has also convinced states to exonerate people on death row in several instances, such as the case of Walter McMillian, who was slated to be executed in Alabama.[ix] However, neither the media nor the informal efforts of concerned citizens can possibly review all of the death row cases. This means that the American public must simply have faith in the criminal justice system, which has already proven itself to be ineffective and prejudiced.

As Kenneth Boyd, closed his eyes for the final time, justice breathed its last breath alongside him. It died because the government sent a message of violence and hypocrisy to its citizens. It died because of the unfair, prejudiced judicial system. It died because the government risked killing an innocent person. Even more, it was all so unavoidable. It is time for our government, which claims to be “of the people, for the people, and by the people” to safeguard the lives of all its citizens and resurrect justice once and for all.

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[i] See “US Carries Out 1000^th Execution,” British Broadcasting Channel Website, 2 Dec. 2005

[ii] See the Michigan State University Comm Tech Lab’s Death Penalty Information Center for the High School Curriculum, “Deterrence,” 2004 http://deathpenaltyinfo.msu.edu/c/about/arguments/argument1b.htm. Note: Like the rest of the endnotes here, this is the specific source information. For the general reference to the source, see Works Cited.

[iii] For more general information, see “Facts about Deterrence and the Death Penalty,” Death Penalty Information Center, 2006, http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?scid=12&did=167. The two sources are cited on that page.

[iv] See the Michigan State University Comm Tech Lab’s Death Penalty Information Center for the High School Curriculum, “Arbitrariness and Discrimination,” 2004 http://deathpenaltyinfo.msu.edu/c/about/arguments/argument1b.htm

[v] See “The Death Penalty in Texas: Lethal Injustice,” Online Documentation Archive. 1 Mar. 1998. Amnesty International, http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/ENGAMR510101998. Note: See pages’ endnotes for original references.

[vi] See “ACLU Briefing Paper Number 8: Death Penalty.” Department of Public Education Archives, American Civil Liberties Union, http://www.eff.org/Censorship/Academic_edu/CAF/civil-liberty/death-penalty.aclu

[vii] For more general information, see “Innocence and the Death Penalty,” Death Penalty Information Center, 2006, http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?did=412&scid=6. The source is cited on the page.

[viii] See the Michigan State University Comm Tech Lab’s Death Penalty Information Center for the High School Curriculum, “Innocence (In Opposition),” 2004

[ix] See “News and Developments,” Death Penalty Information Center, 2006, http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/newsanddev.php?scid=6. Article originally appeared in National Geographic Magazine, January 2006 Edition.

Victim of the Nineties by David Maass

The Death Penalty

Any who commit murder, a punishment should receive,
But not the death penalty, for such is wrong, I believe.
Either killing’s right or wrong, and clearly it isn’t right,
Therefore, the death penalty, we all should dismiss outright.

It’s plain hypocritical, and behaviour that’s askew,
If we’re condemning killing, yet, are involved in killing too.
We’re simply sanctioned killers, who also don’t have the right
To kill another person; and an innocent one, we might.

Two wrongs don’t make a right; that simply, makes us more guilty,
For where is our example, as we know better, don’t we?
Folk can hardly be pro-life, and the sanctity of life sell,
If just like a murderer, they are taking life as well.

When we kill a murderer, they’re hardly punished at all,
For despite their loss of life, they’re outside the prison wall.
You see, it’s behind those walls, that real punishment takes place,
For behind them, just misery, twenty four seven, they face.

Imagine spending your life, locked inside a tiny cell,
However, such punishment, I’m not attempting to sell.
For locking them in a cell, where they will just vegetate,
Isn’t to our credit either, so, let’s rehabilitate.

How we treat the offender, says a lot about us too,
So, mind what you’re endorsing, be careful what you pursue.
Despite what they may have done, we still should act humanely,
Otherwise, we’re no better, we’re acting hypocritically.

But there is another thing, that we should consider too:
What if to the gallows, friend, a judge wrongfully sends you?
Yes, let the murderer live, lest an innocent man die,
And we become a party to, what one could never justify.

By Lance Landall

Quote of the week

According to the L.A. Times, Attorney General John Ashcroft wants to take "a harder stance" on the death penalty. What's a harder stance on the death penalty? We're already killing the guy? How do you take a harder stance on the death penalty? What, are you going to tickle him first? Give him itching powder? Put a thumbtack on the electric chair.
-- Jay Leno

DNA cartoon

Tough on Crime

There is a great editorial in today's Dallas Morning News about the tough on crime politicians in Texas and the so called Jessica's laws:

The worst idea floated in Austin would have Texas join five other states and
allow the death penalty for sex crimes against children. As unforgivable as that
crime is, it doesn't warrant a harsher penalty than simple murder, which brings
five years to life. Execution for sex crimes – the proposal applies to repeat
offenders – would badly warp the proportionality of the state's criminal-justice
code. It also would pose the dangerous possibility of offenders killing their
sexual prey to eliminate witnesses.

The editorial also talks about the problems with the minimum mandatory sentences:

Today's big push for even tougher laws is fraught with risks of unintended
consequences. One example is a proposed new layer of mandatory sentencing: 25
years on the first aggravated sex offense against a child, up from today's range
of two years to life. Experts warn that severe, inflexible sentences rob
prosecutors of the ability to plea bargain; that could result in lost
convictions in cases where prosecutors couldn't get useful testimony from child
victims but had no choice but to go to trial.

Justice for Rodney Reed Rally at the Texas Capitol

In 1998, Rodney Reed was convicted and sentenced to death for the 1996 murder of 19-year-old Stacy Stites in Bastrop, Texas. His habeas corpus appeal has been denied. But there is troubling evidence that Reed is innocent of this crime. And there was a pattern of police and prosecutorial misconduct that puts his conviction in doubt: * Although semen found in Stites’ body matched Reed’s DNA, witnesses were available to testify that Reed, a black man, was having an affair with Stites, a white woman. The jury never heard them. There is no evidence that he killed her. * The chain of evidence was broken for DNA evidence that could have bolstered Reed’s claim of innocence. Shipping labels that DPS says were used to ship evidence to California for DNA testing by defense experts do not match shipping company records. Stites’ body was missing for two hours on the night of the murder, showing up at the medical examiner’s office with new bruising. * DNA that incriminates other suspects never made it to the defense. DNA evidence on two beer cans found near Stites’ body match the DNA of Giddings Police officer David Hall (who had been Fennell’s partner) and Bastrop Police officer Ed Samela. The defense thinks that the police officers might have been involved in the murder with Stites’ fiancé, Jimmy Fennell, Jr., a former Giddings police officer. * Investigators never searched the Giddings apartment shared by Fennell and Stites, and returned Fennell’s pickup truck (which Stites had been driving the day of the murder) to him before doing a complete forensic analysis. * Reed had an incompetent defense lawyer who did not call witnesses who could testify as to his relationship with Stites or provide Reed with an alibi for the time of the murder. How you can help: Rodney Reed sits on Texas’ death row never having had a fair trial. He has a strong case for innocence, and strong evidence that police and prosecutors either bungled his case or framed him deliberately for the murder. Please consider supporting Reed’s demand for a new trial and get involved with the Campaign to End the Death Penalty.

WE MUST HURRY THERE IS ONLY 1 DAY LEFT!!!!

Thank you to all the wonderful people who have been signing the petition at www.helpnazanin.com and have been spreading the word about the injustice that Nazanin Fatehi is facing in Iran.

Many of you are asking what you can do further?

1. Learn about the case and watch a 30 min documentary called "The Tale of Two Nazanins" at www.bodog.tv

2. Sign the Petition at www.helpnazanin.com

3. Fax or Email a personal message to the Iranian heads of state and Head of the Judiciary pleading with them to release Nazanin. (try to be diplomatic and do not use any profane language) For an idea of what to say you can watch my plea at : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYOA9l5rPPc.

Send your messages to:

AYATOLLAH KHAMENEI
Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic
Email: info@leader.ir
Email: istiftaa@wilayah.org
Fax: 00 98 251 7 774 2228

************************************

PRESIDENT AHMADNEJAD
President of Islamic Republic
Email: dr-ahmadinejad@president.ir
Email through website: www.president.ir/email
Phone: 00 98 21 6 649 5880

************************************

4. Call your local Iranian Embassy To locate it go to www.irantravelingcenter.com/embassy.htm.

Iranian Embassy - United Kingdom
info@iran-embassy.org.uk
Iranian Embassy - Canada
ambassador@iranembassy.org

5. Tell your local media (Newspapers, TV, radio stations, magazines, on-line news)

6. Tell everyone you know (family, friends, schools, blogs, websites) and direct them to www.helpnazanin.com

WE MUST HURRY THERE IS ONLY 1 DAY LEFT!!!!

Peace and love,

Nazanin Afshin-Jam

TSADP Death Penalty Essay contest

Deadline for entries is Feb 1st, 2007

The TSADP Essay Contest is open to all 11^th and 12^th grade Texas high school students. To participate, you must write an essay explaining why a moratorium on executions is necessary in Texas. Essays are judged on both style and content. The winning essay must demonstrate an outstanding grasp of the death penalty system in Texas.

Awards: 12^th Grade Winner $200
12^th grade runner-up $50
11^th grade Winner $200
11^th grade runner-up $50


Complete contest guidelines are available on the Web site.

Happy New Year!

The Year in Death

Taken from Capital Defense Weekly:

WAPO offers “The Year in Death,” a brutal condemnation of the death penalty 2006.

THE YEAR 2006 saw the fewest executions in the United States in a decade, 53. The use of capital punishment has been dropping since 1999, when 98 people were executed. The number of new death sentences is also falling precipitously, according to data from the Death Penalty Information Center, and the number of people on death row is dropping off as well. At least for now, capital punishment remains in retreat.

Perhaps the most striking indicator of this retreat is the degree to which executions are becoming a local phenomenon. While the preponderance of states have a death penalty, very few use it as a routine feature of their criminal justice systems. This year, 14 states carried out executions, but only six of them — Texas, Ohio, North Carolina, Florida, Oklahoma and Virginia — carried out more than one. Together, these states accounted for 85 percent of executions this year. All by itself, Texas, which executed 24 people, accumulated 45 percent. Over the previous three years, the leading six states for executions accounted for between 70 and 83 percent of executions annually. The less the death penalty gets used, the more it becomes a creature of its heartland: the South, and Texas especially.

Although 38 states and the federal government have the death penalty on their books, only 18 states have executed more than 10 people since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976. Many states with laws that permit capital punishment use it only rarely — such as Maryland — and some don’t use it at all.

Note that we are expecting January 2006 to be just as eventful with the New Jersey Commission on Capital Punishment’s Report due any day & the SCOTUS’s action on the trio of Texas capital cases due as early as this week.

Ramsey Clark on planned execution of Saddam Hussein, other defendants in Iraq

"The sudden decision of the so-called appeals court in Iraq, which did
not take the time to examine the trial record and defense briefs, has
set the stage for the imminent execution of Saddam Hussein, two other
defendants and the surrender of four other defendants to the Iraqi
government, exposing them to summary executions, torture and cruel, inhumane and degrading punishment - all in violation of U.S. and international
law.

"The decision could take place at any moment. The Iraqi government and
the Bush administration apparently plan to carry out this execution
quickly.

"The great weight of international legal opinion has found the Iraqi
Special Tribunal subject to political pressures, lacking independence and
not impartial, and that the trial failed to provide due process of law
and was unfair. The Iraqi Study Group found political interference with
Iraqi courts 'ruthless.' Executions following such a notoriously unfair
trial will severely harm the rule of law.

"Executions, if they occur in the midst the present violence, are
expected to cause a long term increase in the level of violence causing more
U.S. and Iraqi casualties.

"Saddam Hussein and his co-defendants are in the custody of the U.S.
military in Iraq. They will be turned over to Iraq only on the order of
or with the approval of President Bush. His pending decision will have
long term consequences for the peace and stability of Iraq, and for the
rule of law as a means to peace."

Creating More Victims: How Executions Hurt the Families Left Behind

National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty has started a ten-part series based on the groundbreaking report, Creating More Victims: How Executions Hurt the Families Left Behind. This series was prepared with the assistance of Murder Victims' Families for Human Rights and is running in conjunction with the holiday season.

You can read the first five parts in the NCADP blog.

Florida and California suspend executions

Jeb Bush suspended all executions in Florida after a medical examiner said Friday that prison officials botched the insertion of the needles when a convicted killer was put to death earlier this week. Separately, a federal judge in California extended a moratorium on executions in the nation's most populous state, declaring that the state's method of lethal injection violates the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

In Florida, medical examiner Dr. William Hamilton said Wednesday's execution of Angel Nieves Diaz took 34 minutes — twice as long as usual — and required a rare second dose of lethal chemicals because the needles were inserted clear through his veins and into the flesh in his arms. The chemicals are supposed to go into the veins.

David Elliot, spokesman for the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, said experts his group had contacted suspected that liver disease was not the explanation for the problem.

"Florida has certainly deservedly earned a reputation for being a state that conducts botched executions, whether its electrocution or lethal injection," Elliot said. "We just think the Florida death penalty system is broken from start to finish."

Read the full article on Yahoo News.

Picture: The daughter of Angel Nieves Diaz, Debbie Nieves, left, and her aunt, Nena Nieves, right, cry outside the Florida State Correctional Facility in Starke, Fla. Wednesday, Dec. 13, 2006 before Diaz was executed in the prison. A man convicted of murdering the manager of a topless bar 27 years ago was executed by injection Wednesday despite his protests of innocence and requests for clemency made by the governor of his native Puerto Rico. (AP Photo/Phil Sandlin)

Families of homicide victims, executed face similar ef fects

By Kiah Collier
The Daily Texan

Surviving family members of homicide victims and of those who have been executed by the state suffer similar psychological consequences, according to a report released Sunday by Murder Victims' Families for Human Rights, an anti-death penalty group.

The report, titled "Creating More Victims: How Executions Hurt the Families Left Behind," is based on interviews with three dozen family members of people who have been executed across the nation and recommends that the 2005 United Nations Commission on Human Rights resolution condemning the death penalty be adopted in the United States. The report said this ruling should be the basis for giving family members of the executed the same rights as victims of violent crime.

"The report shows that the dramatic consequences suffered by family members of those executed are really more similar to than different from the traumatic experience of having a family member murdered," said Susannah Sheffer, a member of the human rights group.

Hooman Hedayati, Longhorns Against the Death Penalty president and pre-computer sciences sophomore, said the report shows that the death penalty perpetuates a cycle of violence.

"It also shows that the death penalty will not bring the healing and reconciliation that were promised to the murder victim family members," he said.

An organizing board member of the human rights group and contributor to the report Robert Meeropol, was 6 years old in 1953 when his parents Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed for "conspiracy to commit espionage." Meeropol contributed the issue of the impact of state execution on children.

"No one has studied how the execution of an immediate family member impacts children," Meeropol said in the report. "We don't know the effect that having a parent executed will have upon their impressionable lives and the cost society may pay for that impact."

Many see the death penalty as "collateral damage" to families of the executed.

The report offers a list of recommendations for reform including a suggestion to lawmakers to give legal rights to families of the executed in order to provide financial help with paying for medical care, mental health services and funerals after the execution of a family member.

"If our real concern is justice, then we should focus on building the kind of social support network that would give people the opportunity and resources they need to establish a life where they could contribute to society instead of committing these violent acts," said Stefanie Collins, a UT law student and member of the UT Campaign to End the Death Penalty.

The nation is divided on the issue of the death penalty, with about a 50-50 split among respondents when asked whether they generally prefer the death penalty or mandatory life imprisonment for murderers, according to a July ABC News/Washington Post poll.

Student Death Penalty Speech

Student play explores death penalty

By Vianna Davila
Express-News The last words on the convicted killer's lips were, "I love you."

A crowd hovered around him as he prepared to die by injection — the ghosts of the teenage couple he killed; the parents determined to avenge their deaths; and the nun who pledged to be with him as he was executed.

This scene from an execution chamber is being evoked at Providence High School, where, for the past two months, students have been preparing to perform "Dead Man Walking." The show, which also includes Central Catholic High School students, opens tonight.

The play tells the story of death-penalty opponent Sister Helen Prejean and the spiritual journey she takes with Matthew Poncelet, a Louisiana death row inmate convicted of murdering teenagers Walter Delacroix and Hope Percy the night they graduated from their Louisiana high school.

Prejean will be at Providence High School on Monday to speak about her work.

The play asks the audience to consider the ultimate act of violence and the price of the death penalty.

It's heavy stuff for the teenage cast members, half of whom performed in the school's production of the musical "The Wiz" last spring.

"At first it seemed really odd and like something we really shouldn't do in high school," said Adrian Bates, 15, the sophomore who plays Prejean. "We've felt some real emotions now that we have gotten into it."

Like the majority of her classmates, Adrian doesn't know anyone in prison, let alone on death row. She is among those who came to the play with strong opinions about the death penalty.

It's "wrong to kill no matter what," she said.

Others are struggling with what they think. That's what Tim Robbins, the actor and director who adapted Prejean's memoir for his movie — also called "Dead Man Walking" — intended when he adapted it again as a play for high school and college students around the country to perform.

Central High School junior Matthew Flores, who helped design the show's lighting, was against the death penalty until a friend's sister was murdered.

Now, he's struggling with the issue again.

"I'm so confused, I don't know which way is up," he said.

A tough issue

"I actually felt like it happened to me," said Jocelyn Stewart, the freshman playing Hope Percy. "I know it's not the actual feeling, but it's close."

The murders are based on those committed by two death-row inmates Prejean counseled in Louisiana, Elmo Patrick Sonnier and Robert Willie. The character Poncelet is a composite of both men.

In the play, Poncelet and an accomplice kidnap Delacroix and Percy from a darkened lover's lane. Delacroix is shot twice in the head. Percy is raped and stabbed 17 times.

Poncelet refuses to admit to the murders, demanding a lie detector test so he can prove to his mother that he's innocent. Only in one of the final scenes does Poncelet confess his role to Prejean.

Darrell Martin, technical director for the school, fired an e-mail to other faculty when he learned about the production.

"From an educational standpoint, it didn't bother me," Martin said. "But from a personal standpoint, I wanted them to see the victim's side of the story."

Victims' rights groups have protested against Prejean.

"She's been very compassionate with them," said Maureen Fenlon, national director for the Dead Man Walking School Theatre Project. "She can understand their pain."

To prepare for the role of Poncelet's mother, Lucille, sophomore Yasmin Abu-Al-Jaibat, watched programs about prison. She asked questions her mother never expected: Mom, if I go to prison will you come to visit me?

"This is not a conversation (Yasmin) and I would have had before," said Angela Rodriguez, Yasmin's mom.

The play doesn't require the audience to decide what it thinks of the death penalty, Fenlon said. It asks the question, why?

"In the story nobody is getting away without suffering with some aspect of what happened," Fenlon said.

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vdavila@express-news.net

Shrine For Luis

Art installation designed by Baroness Carrie von Reichardt as a tribute to Death Row victim Luis Ramirez.

Soundscape by Paul Blackwood incorporating some of Luis' favourite music and excerpts from KDOL radio's broadcast - the Luis Ramirez Show to mark his execution.