Renny Cushing has always been against the death penalty. Then his father was murdered.
"If I changed my position on the death penalty, it would only give more power to the killer," Cushing said in an interview with the Billings Gazette. "Not only would they take away my father, they would take away my values."
Cushing, the founder and executive director of Murder Victims' Families for Human Rights, will speak in Billings on April 14 as part of the Montana Abolition Coalition's annual summit. The event is free and the public is invited to attend.
The other key speaker, Sabrina Butler Porter, is the only woman to be exonerated from death row in the United States.
Cushing told the Billings Gazette that the purpose of the organization Murder Victims' Families for Human Rights is to bridge the gap between death penalty abolitionists and crime victims.
The death penalty puts the focus on the wrong person he said, turning murderers into "rock stars."
That isn't justice.
And neither is sentencing innocent people to death. So far, 140 death row prisoners have been exonerated.
Please join us in Billings on April 14 for the Montana Abolition Coalition's annual summit.
