We have been very busy at the capitol this week. KUT has an audio report on the death penalty panel discussion at the Texas Capitol on Wednesday, March 15. The clip features George White, an innocent man who was wrongfully convicted of murdering his wife, and later exonerated. And Christina Lawson, whose father was murdered when she was nine years old.
As the Texas Legislature considers expanding the death penalty, anti-death penalty advocates were at the Capitol for an event highlighting their personal experiences with the death penalty.
— Emily Babcock
Other panelists at the event in the Capitol auditorium were Bill Pelke, whose grandmother was murdered. Pops Bickham, who at 89 is the oldest living person whose sentence was commuted from death to life as a result of the Furman v Georgia decision in 1972; Joan Cheever, who wrote the book “Back from the Dead” about the people whose sentences were commuted in 1972; and Shujaa Graham, who spent years on death row in California before being exoerated and released.
