KLAS-TV Channel 8 News Las VegasDeath Penalty Critics Staged Protest
(Mar. 24) -- The state is set to execute Lawrence Colwell, Jr. on Friday for the 1994 murder of a Florida tourist who was visiting Las Vegas. On Wednesday, death penalty critics hosted a vigil at Christ Episcopal Church in Las Vegas and later in the evening they held a forum at UNLV.
People were heard united in song: "Give peace to every heart. Give peace to every heart."
Mary Hart with the Nevada Coalition Against Death Penalty said, "We're here to express our outrage and dismay that Nevada is going to kill one of its citizens."
And no one had a closer look at death row than Juan Melendez. Melendez, who was exonerated from death row, said, "It's all revenge. I can honestly say me and my family were mentally tortured."
Melendez sat on Florida's death row for almost 18 years for a murder he didn't commit. "I'd be wasting my time if I'd stay angry." So Melendez is speaking out -- warning about the impact of the death penalty.
So is Bill Pelke whose grandmother was murdered by a teenaged girl. "I'm convinced she would have had compassion for this girl and her family," Pelke said.
Pelke once supported the death penalty, but has since changed his mind. "I realized through forgiveness I could have healing. And I wouldn't have to see someone die."
Still, support for the death penalty remains strong. Clark County D.A. David Roger says, "There are some murders so heinous, so despicable that the death penalty is the only appropriate punishment."
The District Attorney also says polls show Nevadans feel especially strong about the issue. "70 and 75-percent of people believe the death penalty should be an option."
But opponents counter that it's the easy way out for Colwell, and the others who have been put to death. Abe Bonowitz opposes death penalty and says, "The government doesn't do much for prisoners anyway, but why would they bend over backwards to give him (Colwell) what he wants."
Some of the people at the forum will head to Carson City for Friday's execution of Lawrence Colwell.
Everybody always thinks the Governor might step in at the last minute to stop an execution. But on Wednesday Governor Kenny Guinn said that he wouldn't do that. In fact he says under most conditions, he doesn't have the authority to stop one.
"I try to not go get myself personally involved in it because they are always difficult situations. But in the State of Nevada it is a law, unless someone says their DNA, or some other element here that would need to be prolonged for a period."
The Governor says -- in this case -- there's no real question about Colwell's guilt and that unless a court intervenes the execution won't be stopped.
