Founded in 1988, Death Penalty Focus is a non-profit organization dedicated to the abolition of capital punishment through grassroots organizing, research, and the dissemination of information about the death penalty and its alternatives.
With over 35,000 members nationwide, Death Penalty Focus is governed by a volunteer Board of Directors composed of renowned political, religious, and civic leaders, along with legal scholars and attorneys involved in death penalty litigation. The President of Death Penalty Focus is actor and activist Mike Farrell. In addition, DPF has an Advisory Board composed of community and religious leaders, celebrities, writers, and representatives of labor and human rights organizations who support anti-death penalty work. DPF conducts research on behalf of lawyers, educators, and the general public, and sponsors a variety of public education and media campaigns. DPF also serves as a support network for its ten chapters throughout California and as a liaison among anti-death penalty groups nationwide. The organization played a leading role in organizing opposition protests to the execution of Stanley Tookie Williams and was described as "the strongest voice in California’s abolition movement" by San Francisco Magazine.
Read more about Death Penalty Focus: Mission
Famous quotes containing the words death, penalty and/or focus:
“Within the hollow crown
That rounds the mortal temples of a king
Keeps Death his court, and there the antic sits,
Scoffing his state and mocking at his pomp,
Allowing him a breath, a little scene,
To monarchize, be feared, and kill with looks.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“Plato says that the punishment which the wise suffer who refuse to take part in the government, is, to live under the government of worse men; and the like regret is suggested to all the auditors, as the penalty of abstaining to speak,—that they shall hear worse orators than themselves.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Carlyle is not a seer, but a brave looker-on and reviewer; not the most free and catholic observer of men and events, for they are likely to find him preoccupied, but unexpectedly free and catholic when they fall within the focus of his lens.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)