 "Photo: Shannon Sibayan")
About 80 students and anti-death penalty activists gathered in the Eastwoods Room of the Texas Union Wednesday to hear speakers share their personal experiences from death row.
The event, "Voices from Death Row," featured a former death row prisoner, relatives of current and executed prisoners and representatives from the national organization Campaign to End the Death Penalty. Speakers discussed their own experiences and the injustices of the U.S. criminal justice system and the death penalty. The event was part of a nine-city tour sponsored by the campaign.
Shujaa Graham, who spent four years on the California death row before being acquitted in 1981, spoke about his experiences.
"I have reached a point where I forgave our nation for what they did to me," Graham said, wiping his eyes. "We've all been affected by capital punishment, whether we realize it or not."
Hooman Hedayati, a representative for Texas Students Against the Death Penalty, called Graham "one of the best speakers I've ever heard" and said he thought speaking against the death penalty was important, especially at the University.
"A lot of people don't know anything about the death penalty, they don't know the facts or the innocent people who've been freed from death row," said Hedayati, a computer science freshman.
Sandra Reed, mother of the Texas death row inmate Rodney Reed, also spoke, urging attendees to write to legislators about abolishing capital punishment.
"Never in a million years did I think I'd be standing in front of you all, fighting for my son's life," Reed said. "What will be done about the mass murder of innocent people within our prison system?"
Other speakers included Marlene Martin, national director of the campaign group, and Monique Matthews, sister of former Louisiana death row prisoner Ryan Matthews. Ryan Matthews spent five years on death row before being exonerated in 2004.
Benjamin Fizzell, chairman of the UT chapter of Young Conservatives of Texas, said though the group's political stance was pro-death penalty, they were not planning to oppose the event.
"We don't have anything planned. I don't have any real issue with them having an event like that," said Fizzell, a history and government junior. "They have every right to do it."
Fizzell said YCT would consider a pro-death penalty event of their own.
Jordan Root, chairman of the College Republicans at Texas, said capital punishment is "just a part of the justice system in Texas that's not going to go away."
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