Speakers
Friday, June 10 7:00 p.m. Amnesty International Local Group 471
Seaside Church
1613 Lake Drive
Encinitas, CA
National Speakers to Highlight Informative Public Meeting on Abolition of The Death Penalty
NORTH COUNTY—The North County Chapter of Amnesty International invites the public to an informative evening: "An Eye for an Eye Makes the Whole World Blind" (Why the Death Penalty Must End) on Friday, June 10, at 7 p.m. at the Seaside Church at 1613 Lake Drive in Encinitas: I-5 to Santa Fe (East) to Lake Drive (South).
Compelling nationally-known speakers Rick Halperin from Dallas, Texas, and Bill Pelke from Anchorage, Alaska, will highlight the evening. Halperin is a human rights professor at Southern Methodist University who was a former chairman and is a current member of the Board of Directors of Amnesty International, USA. In Texas in 1998 he was asked to and, in fact, did witness the execution of a condemned inmate with whom he had been corresponding for six years.
Bill Pelke is the President and Co-Founder of "Journey of Hope…from Violence to Healing" and is a Founding Board Member of "Murder Victims Families for Reconciliation." Pelke’s own grandmother was stabbed to death in her home in Gary, Indiana by ninth grade girls. Paula Cooper, 15 years old at the time of the murder, became the youngest female on death row in America. Bill eventually forgave her, began corresponding and visiting with her, and worked to commute her death sentence. She is now serving 60 years in prison, which in Indiana, with good behavior, can be reduced to 30 years.
Pelke is the current Chair of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. Halperin is the President of the Texas Coaliton to Abolish the Death Penalty.
Live music by Steve Ducey will be featured at the June 10 event, and coffee and dessert will be available. A $10 donation (students $8) is requested at the door. For more information phone 760-731-9174.