Jeanne Bishop’s pregnant sister and brother-in-law were brutally murdered 10 years ago by a 16-year-old New Trier High School student. But she said she was relieved when the murderer was sentenced to life in prison instead of death.
“I can’t describe to you the grief that’s still so fresh,” she told Northwestern students Wednesday night. “I can’t imagine inflicting that grief on another family.”
Bishop, a Medill alumna and a Cook County public defender, was one of three speakers on Amnesty International’s anti-death penalty panel. About 80 students gathered in Norris University Center to hear their stories.
Former death row inmate Gary Gauger and Jeff Epton, executive director of the Illinois Death Penalty Moratorium Project, joined Bishop to discuss the political and emotional struggles surrounding the death penalty.
Epton explained the project’s aim to build a dialogue with Illinois state legislators about the death penalty.
“The anti-death penalty movement is not strong enough to win in the Illinois legislature,” he said. “The decision-making power lies in the hands of those that haven’t been moved.”
Gauger, 48, was set free in October 1996 after spending seven months on death row in an Illinois prison for the murder of his parents. Northwestern law Prof. Lawrence C. Marshall and a group of his students convinced courts that Gauger was arrested without probable cause and coerced by police into confessing a crime he did not commit. In June 1997 two members of a Wisconsin motorcycle gang, the Outlaws, confessed to their role in the murders.
On Wednesday night, Gauger described the April day in 1993 when his parents were murdered and he underwent an all-night interrogation.
“It is appalling what they do to get convictions and save face,” he said. “They do not investigate the crime. They investigate ways to pin the crime on (someone).”
Bishop talked about her involvement in Murder Victims’ Families for Reconciliation, a nationwide anti-death penalty organization.
“We try to be this small voice that says not every family member (of a murder victim) wants the death penalty,” she said.
Patrick Sisson, Amnesty treasurer and a Medill sophomore, organized the event. He said students who feel strongly about the issue can easily get involved.
David Schmitz, a Weinberg sophomore, said the speakers reinforced his opposition to the death penalty.
“Hearing speakers with real-life experience allows someone who already has strong opinions to crystallize their views, drawing (the death penalty) away from the realm of abstract ideological discussion and into the realm of real-world political functioning,” he said.
