Come hear abolitionist Joan Cheever speak

Author of  Back from the Dead: One Woman’s Search for the Men Who Walked off America’s Death Row

7:00 pm Thursday, 7 December

Room 210 GCB (the General Classroom Building)

(across from Brady Commons, on Rollins Rd east of intersection with Maryland Ave.)

University of Missouri- Columbia campus

*Free and open to the public*

 

Supporters of the death penalty are prone to say, “states need to kill those people who kill because they WILL kill again.” Such an assumption gets dashed in a recently published book, Back from the Dead: One Woman’s Search for the Men Who Walked off America’s Death Row. We invite you to hear a talk by Joan Cheever, author of this most illuminating book on December 7 in on the UMC campus.

 

Cheever’s book focuses on the 589 former death row inmates who, through a lottery of fate, were given a second chance at life in 1972 when the death penalty was abolished, being ruled unconstitutional by the Furman U.S. Supreme Court decision—only to be resurrected in the United States four years later with the Gregg decision. Joan Cheever represented Walter Williams on Texas’ Death Row as his attorney for several years, and ultimately, helplessley witnessed his execution. Cheever always wondered what would have happened if his death sentence had been reversed and he was eventually released from prison? Would he have killed again?  (log onto http://www.backfromthedeadusa.com/  for more information, reviews, etc.)

 

Two years after Williams’ 1994 execution, Cheever was determined to approach the question more broadly and journalistically (she has additionally had a distinguished career as a legal-affairs journalist, including working as an editor with the National Law Journal). She traveled across the U.S. and into the lives and homes of former Death Row inmates to reveal these tales of second chances-- of tragedy, failure, racism, injustice, redemption and rehabilitation.  A review in the San Antonio News-Express notes:
 
“…Of the “lottery” winners, 322 had been released from prison by the time Cheever finished her book. Of those, about one-third — 111 in all — ended up either back in prison or eligible to be returned to prison. Of the 111, 33 men committed trivial violations of their probation (for example, accumulating unpaid parking tickets, or being at an establishment where alcohol was sold). Of the remaining 78, more than half (42) committed nonviolent crimes, like robbery. The remaining 36 went back to prison for violent offenses, in which 29 committed armed robbery or aggravated assault. Of the remaining seven, two were convicted of attempted murder, two for manslaughter and three for murder. Most people, I suspect, tend to think murderers will surely murder again. Cheever’s story demonstrates the contrary....There is, in this report, an implicit rebuke of our contemporary approach to punishment, which has largely abandoned the idea of rehabilitation, and replaced it with the idea that we should give up on tens of thousands of inmates and just make sure that we keep them incarcerated in an institution from which they cannot escape.”
 
If you will be unable to attend her talk on the UMC campus (or if you want to simply hear more from her), Joan Cheever will also be a guest on three talk/news radio programs while she is mid-Missouri:

 

Thursday, 7 December

5:30 pm.-6:00 pm  KSSZ 93.9 FM Talk show with host Derek Gilbert

 

Friday, 8 December

8:25 am-8:40 am  KFRU 1400 AM Talk show with host David Lyle

5:00 pm- 5:20 pm KOPN 89.5 FM Interview during the News Hour with host Frank Shulse

 

Cheever will additionally be speaking at 7:00 p.m. on 6 December in Room 1075 of McDonnell Douglas Hall on the St. Louis University campus. Her Missouri visit is co-sponsored by the Mid-MO Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR), St. Louis University’s Criminal Justice Program/School for Professional Studies, UMC Students for Progressive Action, UMC Peace Studies Program and the Justice for Reggie Campaign (other groups may be joining as co-sponsors in the coming week as well). 

 

We hope you will take time and be able to hear the informative and important words of Joan Cheever while she visits Missouri. Call 573-449-4585 or 314-977-2330 for more information.