Is Capital Punishment Color Blind?

Is Capital Punishment Color Blind?
The New Yorker - Directors Guild Theatre
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT
Is the death penalty dying?

With Marc Klaas, Joshua Marquis, Danalynn Recer, and Barry Scheck. Moderated by Jeffrey Toobin.

Marc Klaas is the head of the KlaasKids Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to preventing crimes against children. It was founded in 1994, after the kidnapping and murder of his twelve year-old daughter, Polly. In 2001, he co-founded BeyondMissing, which helps law enforcement distribute missing-child flyers.

Joshua Marquis has been the district attorney in Astoria, Oregon, since 1994. A member of the board of directors of the National District Attorneys Association for the past fourteen years, he was the chair of its Capital Litigation Committee. His essay “Truth and Consequences” is included in the collection Debating the Death Penalty.

Danalynn Recer is the founder and executive director of the Gulf Region Advocacy Center, a Houston-based organization that represents defendants in death-penalty cases. Previously, she worked as an attorney with the Texas Resource Center and with the Louisiana Crisis Assistance Center. She has represented more than a hundred capital clients over the past two decades.

Barry Scheck is a founding director of the Innocence Project, whose mission is to use DNA testing to exonerate people who have been wrongly convicted of crimes. To date, more than two hundred and seventy people have been exonerated, including seventeen on death row. He is the co-author of Actual Innocence: When Justice Goes Wrong and How to Make it Right.

Jeffrey Toobin is a staff writer at The New Yorker and a senior analyst for CNN. The Mitigator, his piece about capital punishment and Danalynn Recer, appeared in the May 9th issue.