TCADP is pleased to offer virtual events and programs. See below for details on our monthly webinars, our book group, and other upcoming and past events.
TCADP Webinar Series: Seeking Justice in Texas
The regular session of the 87th Texas Legislature concluded May 31, 2021. For the second consecutive session, abolition bills were not granted a committee hearing in either chamber, despite support from multiple cosponsors. Although bills that address serious flaws in the Texas death penalty system were listed among the House’s bipartisan criminal justice reform priorities and passed that chamber with overwhelming support, they did not advance in the Senate.
Learn more about the recent legislative session and what comes next during our monthly webinar, which will take place on Zoom on Tuesday, June 15, 2021 from 12:00 to 1:00 PM Central Time. Register here.
TCADP Book Group
The TCADP Book Group meets every six weeks on Zoom and reads a mix of fiction, non-fiction, and memoirs (see below for a list of everything we’ve read to date). When possible, we invite the authors to join us. Our next book selection is River of Fire: My Spiritual Journey by Sister Helen Prejean. We will discuss this book on Wednesday, July 7, 2021 at 7:30 PM Central Time. Register here. You will receive a link for the Zoom meeting that morning.
Past events
On May 12, 2021, EPF Media, TCADP, and Witness to Innocence hosted a special panel discussion related to the documentary film, “The Years of Fierro,” and the case of César Fierro, who spent four decades on Texas’s death row before he was paroled one year ago. Throughout his ordeal, César maintained his innocence of the crime for which he was convicted in El Paso in 1980. The panel was conducted in English and Spanish and featured the filmmaker, Santiago Esteinou, two of César’s attorneys, Sandra Babcock and Dick Burr, and César himself. Watch and share the recording.
TCADP Book Group Selections (in reverse order of when we read them)
Let the Lord Sort Them: The Rise and Fall of the Death Penalty by Maurice Chammah
Punching the Air by Ibi Zoboi and Yusef Salaam
End of Its Rope: How Killing the Death Penalty Can Revive Criminal Justice by Brandon Garrett
Infinite Hope: How Wrongful Conviction, Solitary Confinement, and 12 Years on Death Row Failed to Kill My Soul by Anthony Graves
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander
A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest J. Gaines
Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson
The Guardians by John Grisham