Come Hear Two Amazing Speakers at MTSU

Monday July 16th will be an exciting day at the MTSU campus in Murfreesboro as two speakers, Juan Melendez and Celia McWee, will share their incredible stories. Juan Melendez was the 99th death row exoneree after spending 17 years, 8 months, and 1 day on death row for a crime he did not commit. Celia McWee's daughter was murdered and her son was executed--and she speaks strongly against the death penalty. The panel will be in LRC 221 (http://www.mtsu.edu/maps.shtml) with the first panel starting at 8:00 a.m. and running until 9:50 a.m. The second panel will begin at 12:50 p.m. and run until 2:45 p.m. More information on Juan and Celia can be found below. Bring and tell as many people as you can to take advantage of this opportunity!

On January 3, 2002, Juan Roberto Melendez was released from Florida’s death row after spending seventeen years, eight months, and one day under a death sentence for crime that he did not commit. Juan became the 99th death row inmate to be exonerated and freed from death row in the modern death penalty era. The number now stands at 124. Since that time, Juan has spoken across America and the world, telling his stories to audiences of all ages and walks of life.

Celia McWee was born and raised in El Paso, Texas. She has lost two children to two forms of killing. In 1979, her daughter, Joyce, was murdered in Florida. In 1991, her son, Jerry, was executed by the state of South Carolina. Celia has found strength to tell her story to fight against the death penalty in America. She is a founding member of the No Silence, No Shame project of Murder Victim’s Families for Human Rights and a member of the Journey of Hope. Celia has told her story to audiences across the country.

Keep up with TCASK organizing on the TCASK Blog - tcask: on the road to abolition - a typically good entry can be found at: http://tcask.blogspot.com/2007/07/another-way.html and starts out: More often than not, when our staff goes out to make a presentation in the community, we will get the comment, "You would feel differently about the death penalty if someone you loved was brutally murdered." Of course, I cannot pretend to know how that reality must feel for a loved one--the devastation, the rage, the pain that never goes away..... Check it out today!

Stacy Rector

Executive Director
Tennessee Coalition to Abolish State Killing
PO Box 120552
Nashville, TN 37212
615-256-3906

stacy@tcask.org

www.tcask.org

"The death penalty is a public policy that fails
victims, the accused and our core constitutional
value of fairness. The best solution is to use
alternatives and simply abolish the death penalty."