Speakers Bureau
Want to learn more about Missouri's death penalty? Want an exciting way to get groups thinking about this important issue? A speaker from Missourians to Abolish the Death Penalty is the perfect way to educate, entertain, and enlighten groups of all types and sizes.
Find a Speaker Near You!
St. Louis Speakers
Kansas City Speakers
Springfield Speakers
Susie Rolings, Kansas City
Why are you Opposed to the death penalty? I am interested in abolishing the death penalty because I am 100% against state killings
How have you been involved with anti-death penalty work? I have been involved the Missouri Abolition movement since 2001. I am particularly interested in speaking about the injustice of the entire criminal justice system and how it relates to poverty and race. EDUCATION IS POWER!
Other interests: I am a social worker at Operation Breakthrough (a social service agency for low income families) and enjoy playing sports, being an advocate in the community, and spending time with friends and family in my free time.
Howard Lotven, Kansas City
Why are you Opposed to the death penalty? I am opposed to the death penalty because life is too precious to be arbitrarily destroyed.
How have you been involved with anti-death penalty work? Over a decade and longer than I can remember.
Other interests: I have been practicing law for 25 years and have seen as prosecutor, defense attorney and part-time judge when the system can be fair and when it is unfair. Eliminating a life eliminates the possibility of correcting injustice. Martin Luther King Jr. said, "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."
Debbie Reuscher, Kansas City
Why are you Opposed to the death penalty? I am opposed because the death penalty only creates more pain & heartache. It does nothing to address the real issue, nor is it effective in stopping crime, only promoting 'copy cat crimes'.
How have you been involved with anti-death penalty work? I’ve been involved for about 16 years, serving as past president and vice-president of the Kansas City chapter & as chair of family support groups from Kansas City & Jefferson City. I’m very involved in prison issues, as an active advocate for inmates and families as well as teaching inmates how to work effectively with the attorneys and lobby their legislators.
Other interests: I’m a mother of 4, one a former death row inmate for 6 years, grandmother to 8, & have been married to my 'grade school sweetheart’ for 38 years. For the last ten years, I’ve been an investigator for the Public Defenders office.
Neil Bull, Kansas City
Why are you Opposed to the death penalty? I am opposed because data tends to show that death penalty is not a deterrent and the cost of death penalty trials is just too expensive.
How have you been involved with anti-death penalty work? I have been working with Cathleen for about 10 years now.
Other interests: I like working on social issues that are less than "the in thing to do".
Cathleen Burnett, Kansas City
How have you been involved with anti-death penalty work? I founded the Western Missouri Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty and am a former chair of the Kansas City chapter.
Other interests: I am Associate Professor of Sociology and Criminal Justice at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. I’m also the editor of Older Offenders: Current Trends and the author of several articles on the death penalty.
Mary K. Poirer, Kansas City
Why are you Opposed to the death penalty? Until I began work as a a Mitigation Specialist at CLS Mitigation & Consulting Services I believed the judicial system to be unbias that had a fair application of the law. Through my work in a capital defense team to develop the life story of the person charged with a capital crime, I've learned this is not the case.
The current system fails in a multitude of ways: innocent people are put to death, the system is biased against the poor and minorities, jury selection in capital cases often results in prejudiced juries, and the death penalty does not act a deterrent. I believe restorative justice can bring healing where the death penalty gives us more victims.
How have you been involved with anti-death penalty work? Several years.
David McNeil, St. Louis
How have you been involved with anti-death penalty work? I’ve been involved in death penalty abolition for nearly a decade, beginning when I joined Oregonians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty after an unsuccessful initiative petition to replace the death penalty with life without possibility of parole. Currently, I am a MADP Board member and chair of the St. Louis chapter.
Other interests: I am a family law attorney and mediator in private practice in St. Louis.
Sr. Rose Rita Huelsmann, St. Louis
Why are you Opposed to the death penalty? Because I am
interested in the dignity of all humans.
How have you been involved with anti-death penalty work? I have been interested in this topic all my adult life.
Other interests: I am a teacher and have been for 40 years. Currently I teach various self improvement classes in prisons and jails. I have a masters in counseling and 30 years experience in elementary schools.
Diana Oleskevich, St. Louis
Why are you Opposed to the death penalty? Because I value LIFE; because killing people to show that killing is wrong doesn’t make a bit of sense; because the system is broken and unjust; because God says in the Christian Scriptures that we should choose LIFE; because my Catholic faith tradition is adamantly opposed to state sanctioned murder; because I am a woman of strong faith and justice beliefs.
How have you been involved with anti-death penalty work? Over 10 years. My major interests are how the system is unjust and broken, and also the intersection of Christian faith traditions. Scriptures so highly value life, forgiveness, restorative justice not punitive vengeance of the current prison/court system. I am also interested in listening to others in a participative, collaborative setting (rather than a lecture).
Other interests: I am the Justice Coordinator with the Catholic Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet – I love to garden and ride bicycles, spend time with grandchildren out in nature.
Margaret Phillips, St. Louis
Why are you Opposed to the death penalty? I'm convinced that when the state uses violence, killing to deal with what it claims are problem people, it sends a message that killing is an acceptable way to deal with problem people. That's not the sort of society I want to live in.
How have you been involved with anti-death penalty work? I became active right after the first Missouri execution, "Tiny" Mercer, January 1989. I was a co-founder of the former Eastern Missouri Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty and am the former Chair of MADP.
Other interests: My day job is as an associate teaching professor, UMSL, departments of Foreign Languages & Literatures/Anthropology, teaching Latin, Greek, Greek civilization, sometimes death penalty as an anthropology course.
Heidi Moore, St. Louis
Why are you Opposed to the death penalty? I am interested in the abolition of the death penalty for several reasons: innocent people are executed, it is not a deterrence, I do not believe in killing people to prove that killing people is wrong, the men and women under a death sentence have family, I could keep going....
How have you been involved with anti-death penalty work? I became involved while in graduate school in 2000.
Other interests: I coordinate a prison re-entry program. I have a MS in Criminal Justice. When I have free time I enjoy reading and watching TV. I am active in my church, Unity Church of Peace.
Donna Walmsley, Springfield
Why are you Opposed to the death penalty? There is ample evidence that the death penalty is poor public policy and unnecessary to protect Missouri residents in the 21st century.
In fact, it does more harm than good. I also emphasize that all human life is sacred and that the state should not be in the "killing business".
How have you been involved with anti-death penalty work? I am a member of the Springfield Chapter of the Missourians to Abolish the Death Penalty and have been associated with the group for approx. 8 years.
Other interests: I am a former high school teacher.
Paul, Pittsburg
Why are you Opposed to the death penalty? Because of the growing
violence in almost every arena of our society, I have become increasingly
non-violent in my approach to life. I was the spiritual director for a
person regarded by the Federal prison authorities as their most notorious
inmate, placing him for the rest of his life in solitary confinement.
There I witnessed for myself the ability of God to transform the most
hardened of criminals. As a Catholic priest and a monk, I believe that
no one is beyond the ability of God to change, and it is idolatrous for
us to kill anymore by believing that they are incorrigible. To follow
Jesus is to know that "an eye for an eye" solves nothing.
How have you been involved with anti-death penalty work? For over thirty years.
Other interests: Most of my life has been in education, having taught at Yale, Princeton, and St. Paul School of Theology in Kansas City. I hold in tension my social activism with a life of prayer, living part of my time in solitude in a hermitage and part of it at a Trappist monastery in the Ozark hills.