In its last days of Death Penalty Awareness Week, the SMU chapter of Amnesty International will sponsor two events in an effort to inform students about the atrocities of capital punishment and the death row inmates who have suffered because of it.
Thursday evening’s event, “The Truth about the Death Penalty,” will feature a question and answer panel and an art exhibit of photographs of Texas death row inmates taken by private investigator and photographer John Holbrook. It will also include work from artist Delia Meyer, as well as works by some of the inmates.
On Friday night a film screening of “The Exonerated” will precede a question and answer session from a man on which one of the movie’s characters was based: Kerry Max Cook, an innocent man convicted of capital murder in 1977. After spending 22 years on death row, DNA testing exonerated him from the crime.
Rick Halperin, director of the SMU Human Rights Education Program, hopes that the two events – both Holbrook’s photographs and Cook’s presentation – will “rehumanize” inmates to the public eye.
“Cook spent as much time on death row as the average college student has been alive,” Halperin said.
Today Cook is an anti-death penalty activist and author of his memoir “Chasing Justice,” of which he will be signing copies and selling for $15 during the film screening. Senior Savannah Engel, Human Rights Chairman for Students for a Better Society, said that Cook’s case is one of hundreds.
“120 people so far have been declared innocent through DNA exoneration and there are many more in prison,” she said. “The issue we’re looking at is our court system.”
Halperin said that Cook’s legal case might be “the worst case of prosecutorial misconduct in U.S. history.” The human rights advocate and SMU professor will also be a panelist at Thursday’s “Truth” discussion, where he hopes to educate the audience about injustices in the legal system and mistreatment of inmates.
Holbrook, who used to agree with capital punishment and sarcastically advocated the invention of “electric bleachers” for criminals, now aims to promote ideas similar to Halperin’s. The inspiration for his work displayed at the exhibit was developed from his own experiences as a private investigator for capital murder cases. Holbrook acquired post-traumatic stress disorder from a case involving the rape and murder of a teenage girl.
The crime scene photographer saw a psychologist who helped him realize that he needed to forgive the person who committed the crime in order to be cured of the disorder. Holbrook achieved forgiveness through photographing the offender, and has done so now for several men and women on death row.
“I’m trying to teach what I’ve learned, and communicate that truth to the victims’ families,” Holbrook said.
The photographs have brought tears to inmates’ eyes.
“His photos really get to the heart of what the death penalty is all about,” Halperin said. “Prosecutors and state officials want citizens to believe that these individuals – because of what they did – became something less than humans: monsters, garbage, disposable people. And they’re not.”
In addition to Holbrook’s work, “The Truth about the Death Penalty” will also display a mock electric chair constructed by Amnesty International’s chapter president, junior Brooks Oliver.
“The Truth about the Death Penalty,” co-sponsored by SBS and the Dallas Peace Center, occurs Thursday from 7 p.m. – 9 p.m. in McCord Auditorium at 306 Dallas Hall.
The film “The Exonerated” and Cook’s book signing is a part of the SMU Leadership and Community Involvement Social Justice Film Screening and Central University Libraries. It will take place Friday from 6:30 p.m. – 9:30 p.m. in the Hughes-Trigg Commons.
For questions about the upcoming events, contact Tiana Lightfoot at [email protected].
