Gainesville, Fla. – The third annual Cities for Life, a worldwide initiative to abolish the death penalty is Thursday, Nov. 30, at St. Patrick Catholic Church, 500 NE 16th Ave., Gainesville. The event begins at 6:30 p.m. with a call for all churches in North Central Florida to ring their bells at 7:30 p.m. in solidarity to end the death penalty.
The Rome-based Sant’Egidio Community launched the first international “Cities for Life, Cities against the Death Penalty” in 2002. Since then more and more cities around the world have joined the cause to end capital punishment. The Diocese of St. Augustine has hosted Cities for Life for the last two years.
This year, the event will occur in two areas of the diocese: Gainesville and St. Augustine. The speakers for the Gainesville Cities for Life are:
- Kathy Dillon – The daughter of a murder victim, Emerson Dillon. Her father was shot and killed in the line of duty. He was a New York State Trooper. Ten years later her boyfriend, David Paul, was also shot and left to die on a roadside.
- Ron Wright, Jr. – The latest exoneree from Florida State Prison’s Death Row.
He is a former police officer and military veteran.
- Joseph Thornton, MD – A staff psychiatrist with the North Florida South Georgia Veterans Health System. Dr. Thornton served as a physician and psychiatrist on Florida’s Death Row and participated in executions. He says he has a specific responsibility to speak out against the death penalty and to put an end to medical killing.
- Sonya Rudenstine, J.D. – A sole practitioner in Gainesville, since 2006. She is devoted primarily to civil and criminal appeals, including the representation of death row inmates in state and federal post-conviction proceedings, and juvenile defendants facing life sentences.
For more information, call Deacon Lowell “Corky” Hecht, director of Prison Ministry for the Diocese of St. Augustine, at (727) 348-8794 or email checht@dosafl.com.