Brother of last man executed by firing squad to participate in anti-death penalty conference
“It’s just torture what this does to a body. I’ve got pictures of what it did to my brothers’ body. It was just one more painful piece of the puzzle for our family.”
The Human Rights in Crisis conference is a direct response to Trump's execution spree.
The panel will also feature legal experts discussing context and nuances of current federal death penalty cases.
TERRE HAUTE, INDIANA, UNITED STATES, December 7, 2020 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Proposing alternatives to lethal injection like the firing squad and gas chamber was just one of the more egregious moves made by the Trump administration in recent weeks. Randy Gardner, whose brother was executed by the firing squad in Utah in 2010, will discuss the method’s cruel, unusual and brutal nature. Also featured on the opening panel of the day starting at 11 a.m. will be Richard Dieter, former executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, and Nancy Haydt, former federal public defender and current executive director of Death Penalty Focus, the organization working to end the death penalty in California. Death Penalty Action Director Abraham Bonowitz will detail the timeline of the Trump administration’s political use of capital punishment.The unprecedented federal execution spree continues with five more federal executions beginning on International Human Rights Day (Dec. 10). The final execution is currently set on the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr. (Jan 15), days before the inauguration of the next president. The Biden administration has pledged to abolish the federal death penalty.
Human Rights in Crisis: the U.S. Federal Execution Spree Virtual Conference opened yesterday with a panel of faith leaders and continues daily until Saturday.
What: A legal context panel featuring experts discussing legal concerns raised by the use of the federal death penalty in the past months, as well as concerns with the five remaining scheduled executions. Later panels feature the families of murder victims and the mother of one of the men executed in September by the federal government, and a panel of journalists currently covering and witnessing federal executions at Terre Haute.
Who: Richard Dieter, Nancy Haydt, Abraham Bonowitz, director of Death Penalty Action, and Randy Gardner, brother of Ronnie Lee Gardner
When: December 7 with panels at 11 a.m., 1 p.m., and 5 p.m.
Where: The Internet. Full details are here.
Conference speakers can be made available for comment.
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Allison Cohen
Death Penalty Action
+1 513-787-9399
allison@deathpenaltyaction.org
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