What hideous company we keep -- Oregon should join the civilized world and abolish the death penalty

Death-penalty (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

    Oregonians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty will sponsor a free discussion and showing of the documentary film “Race to Execution,” beginning at 7 p.m. Wednesday, May 9, at Ike Box coffee house, 299 Cottage St., in downtown Salem.
   
    Despite Gov. John Kitzhaber's November moratorium on executions, Oregon taxpayers are still paying over $20 million annually to maintain a flawed death penalty system.  In these times of DNA evidence freeing more and more wrongly convicted inmates of crimes they did not commit and of fiscal austerity, a discussion is long overdue.

    Guest speaker will be Frank Thompson, former superintendent of the Oregon State Prison, who supervised the only executions in the state in the past 50 years.

    Rachel Lyon's film, “Race to Execution,” is an original and compelling exploration of the death penalty and of how race infects the nation's capital justice system. The film reveals potential racial biases of victims and perpetrators alike in the media, particularly as such depictions may bring out any prejudices in jurors' minds.

For details, see the website for Oregonians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, www.oadp.org or call (503) 990-7060