About our first author
Rachel King is a lawyer, writer, photographer, and activist who lives in Takoma Village Co-Housing, D.C.'s first co-housing community, with her husband and step-cat, and sometimes three step-daughters.
She moved to D.C. in 1998 to work as legislative counsel for the national office of the American Civil Liberties Union covering criminal justice issues. She became involved in the movement to abolish the death penalty while working as a public defender in rural Alaska representing mostly Native Alaskan clients.
She moved to D.C. in 1998 to work as legislative counsel for the national office of the American Civil Liberties Union covering criminal justice issues. She became involved in the movement to abolish the death penalty while working as a public defender in rural Alaska representing mostly Native Alaskan clients. There she saw the racial discrimination and unfairness in the criminal justice system, which led her to quit her job to work full-time against a legislative effort to bring the death penalty to Alaska. The campaign was successful– Alaska still does not have a death penalty.
In 1996, she began a 10-year project interviewing and photographing people across the country who were most deeply affected by the death penalty– family members of murder victims and family members of death row prisoners. She has written two books based on those interviews– "Don't Kill for Me: Families of Murder Victims Speak Out Against the Death Penalty" and "Capital Consequences: Families of the Condemned Tell Their Stories." She currently teaches at Howard Law School, but in April will begin working as a lawyer for the House of Representatives' Judiciary Committee for Congressman John Conyers, the first African American to Chair the Judiciary Committee.
Comments
Rachel King's esearch, photography and writing involving the lives of survivng family members of homicide victims has been truly groundbreaking. Her prose captures the journey of victims in the most authentic way---sharing their pain and their inspiration. As a legal practitioner Rachel has generated ideas and litigation and organizing strategies that impact on public policy and our criminal justice system. Readers of the Takoma Voice are fortunate: Rachel King is a national treasure.
Posted by: Renny Cushing | December 2, 2007 10:47 AM