Stories » Former Death Row Inmate to Speak, 8:00pm Tuesday
Former Death Row Inmate to Speak, 8:00pm Tuesday
submitted by angel02 on Sunday, September 5 2004 at 3:09 AM
What: Exonerated From Death Row - Alan Gell Tells His Story
When: 8:00pm Tuesday September 7th, 2004
Where: Witherspoon Campus Cinema
Who: Alan Gell, a man who spent almost 5 years on death row and was exonerated this year.
After spending almost five years on death row in North Carolina, Mr. Gell was released in February after a judge allowed the defense lawyer to present new evidence that was barred from the previous trial. Ever since his release Alan has been touring North Carolina and speaking about his experiences on death row thus contributing to the ever growing Moratorium movement in North Carolina. The movement began quite a long time ago but has never been as strong as it is today. In a historic victory Alan Gell and Darryl Hunt were both acquitted within two weeks of each other. On the same day as Mr. Hunts acquittal the NC Supreme Court overturned two death sentences and ordered new trials.
This event is being sponsored by the UAB and the ACLU at NCSU. See the ACLU at NCSU webpage for directions and more info.
posted by mdbncsu on Sunday, September 5 2004 at 3:10 AM
"contributing to the ever growing Moratorium movement in North "
In light of recent events I wonder if its going to diminish the movement for a moratorium locally, and if this event will have as great of an effect as hoped.
There is a difference between asking for the end of death penalty all together and asking for a halt in executions due to an enormous amount of evidence indicating that the SYSTEM is flawed and it’s sends the WRONG people to death row. If there is a moratorium, people can still be executed except their executions will be on hold. Once the system is fixed then the executions can continue so long as the trials that took place before the fixing of the judicial system are in sync with the new system and adhere to all its new standards. Trials that do not match those standards will obviously have to be retried.
^^ I obviously know that the murder of a marine and friend are not related to this specifically and that need not be pointed out. I was just saying the principles and emotion behind calling for an immediate death sentence in this case might effect the way people think about putting off death sentences why the system is re-evaluated.
(personally i'm all for the system being updated/fixed)
but i wont comment any more on the front page thread, since this other thread about the same thing is where the discussion is going on