Helping others

Every once in a while you work on something that really moves you.  This recently happened to me during what I thought would be another routine shoot at the Downtown Aquarium for the American Bar Association.  I thought it would be a corporate event with speakers and a dinner and just mingling.  Well, the event was actually an awards ceremony recognizing two law firms for their continued pro bono work representing inmates on Death Row.  The organization within the American Bar Association was called The Death Penalty Representation Project.
It is a project that recruits lawyers to provide legal council for inmates on death row that would otherwise not receive fair legal representation.  Apparently the court is supposed to provide a lawyer to represent you if you cannot afford one, but the ones you are assigned apparently don't do a very good job because there are many innocent people that have been wrongly jailed. Many are sitting on death row having never committed a crime. The project is to recruit lawyers to provide these inmate with legal council that can actually represent them properly.  Two former death row inmates that have been helped by this project were there that night.  Their touching and really sad story of how the legal system failed them and they were condemned to death row to wait for execution. The first picture is of Bo and he was on death row for 19 YEARS!! Can you believe that!??  The second gentlemen was on it for 9 years.  It was really moving hearing their stories and really scary that this could happen in our supposedly fair justice system.  At the same time, it was awesome to hear that there was this organization and people there that night that help people when everyone else has given up on them.  That night really opened my eyes and made me thankful for having my freedom. It so awesome the work they are doing!!





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