Gainesville, Fla. – The fourth annual Cities for Life, a worldwide initiative to abolish the death penalty is Thursday, Nov. 30, at St. Patrick Catholic Church, 500 NE 16th Avenue in Gainesville. The event begins at 6:30 p.m. with a call for all churches in North 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 2,100 cities worldwide have joined the cause to end capital punishment. The Diocese of St. Augustine has hosted Cities for Life for the last three years.
Bishop Felipe Estévez released a statement on the Death Penalty this week. In it, he says he is committed to encouraging the new governor and political leadership of Florida to reduce the death sentence to a lesser sentence for all persons who are on death row in Florida or, if innocent, to grant them exoneration, and to submit and support legislation to repeal the Death Penalty.
This year, the event will occur in three areas of the diocese: St. Augustine, Gainesville, and Jacksonville. The speakers for the Gainesville Cities for Life are:
- Sonya Rudenstein, J.D. – An attorney with a criminal appellate practice in Gainesville. She has devoted her practice 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. She recently appeared as co-counsel in the United States Supreme Court in Hurst v. Florida, appearing on behalf of several former Florida trial judges who filed an amicus brief in support of death row inmate Timothy Hurst.
- Christine Henderson – A national organizer for Equal Justice USA (EJUSA) and a member of Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (FADP).
- Herb Donaldson – A playwright of a series of plays dealing directly with Wakulla County’s history (his hometown). He is a freelance writer for the Wakulla News, and host of the Wakulla Sunday Radio Program. His first book, Southern SHOCK Americana, is the true-life account of his uncle’s life on Florida’s Death Row. John Mills, Jr. was executed by the state on Dec. 6, 1996, for a murder in the county that many believe he was innocent.
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.