Death penalty talk on Tuesday

Family and Friends of Homicide Victims (FFHV), will present a panel talk on the death penalty at St. Thomas the Apostle Church, 35 Adams Place, Delmar on Tuesday, May 22 at 7 p.m.

Marie Verzulli, coordinator of FFHV, said, “The murderer leaves many victims, not just the person who is killed, but that person’s friends and family, as well as the friends and family of the murderer.”

Speakers at the presentation include Ms. Verzulli, whose sister was murdered by a serial killer; Anthony Aversano, whose father was killed in the World Trade Center on 9/11; Walter Ayres, whose cousin’s granddaughter was abducted and murdered by a college classmate; John Cutro, the friend of a murder victim and an investigator in death penalty cases; Sharon Whitbeck, whose nephew was murdered, and David Kaczynski, the brother of the Unabomber and head of New Yorkers Against the Death Penalty.

The event is free and open to the public. It is co-sponsored by the Commission on Peace and Justice for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany and the St. Thomas chapter of Pax Christi For more information, call the church at 439-4951. Albany Catholic hears that refreshments will be served afterward.

Death penalty talk on Thursday

Stewart F. Hancock, the eminent retired judge of the New York Court of Appeals and a long-time foe of the state's death penalty law, will speak about capital punishment at the annual membership meeting of the Capital Region Chapter of the New York Civil Liberties Union. The meeting will be held in the Dean Alexander Moot Courtroom at the Albany Law School on Thursday, May 3. The membership meeting begins at 5:45 p.m. Judge Hancock is slated to speak at 6:30. The event is open to the public.

In testimony before the state legislature, Hancock has urged his former colleagues on the state's highest court to void New York's death penalty as cruel and unusual punishment and as a violation of equal protection because it has been applied arbitrarily to members of minority groups.

He has argued that the state Constitution should be invoked to strike the death penalty and has filed amicus briefs in cases that have raised Constitutional challenges to the state's death penalty statute.

Hancock, counsel to the Syracuse law firm, Hancock & Estabrook (founded by his grandfather) , served as a judge for 23 years, eight of them as associate judge on the Court of Appeals. He currently specializes in appellate work and in national and international commercial arbitration.

Following Hancock's presentation, a reception will be held at 7:30 p.m.