The Death Penalty Symposium on February 6th, 2004 at Dartmouth College brought Lauren Girard Adams from Northwestern University's School of Law, Diann Rust-Tierney from the ACLU's Capital Punishment Project, and Abigail Baird from Dartmouth College to speak on juvenile executions and the implementation of the death penalty in the United States. New Hampshire Senator Clifton Below, who has introduced a bill abolishing the death penalty for juveniles, provided in-depth insight as to how to lobby for the passage of this bill. Attendees from New Hampshire and Vermont came to hear these talks as well as participate in activist workshops organized on combatting denial and the normalization of the death penalty (led by Jennifer Carlson, NH State Death Penalty Abolish Coordinator) and pushing for legislative action on juvenile executions in the New Hampshire Senate ( led by Rebecca Perkins, NH State Legislative Coordinator). Overall, the Symposium outlined the state of executions in the United States, particularly with regards to juvenile executions, as well as discussed and outlined strategies for promoting total abolition.
Thanks first to the various sponsoring organizations at Dartmouth that made this event possible (Amnesty International at Dartmouth College, Dartmouth College Greens, Panarchy Residential Society, Rockefeller Center, The Dartmouth Free Press, the Tucker Foundation, and the Dartmouth Civil Liberties Union) and, of course, thanks to all who attended that made this event a success!!!!
We hope that everyone is now able to mobilize support for this issue in their own communities (and beyond) so that we can really enact change right here in New Hampshire!!
Jenny Carlson
NH State Death Penalty Abolition Coordinator
