Amnesty International will challenge myths regarding the death penalty, as AI representative Debbie Heyward discusses “The Death Penalty: Punishment or Crime?” at 9:00 p.m. Wednesday in Holmes Student Center room 305.

Heyward, from AI’s Chicago regional office, will present Amnesty’s reasons to abolish the penalty, which is the group’s focus this year. Arguments against the penalty include costs, safety of society, sentence determination, minority discrimination and criminal deterrence.

“An innocent person who has been mistakenly executed can never be brought back to life,” an AI pamphlet states. Since 1900, 349 cases in the United States have involved persons “wrongly convicted of crimes punishable by death,” adding 23 of these people were executed.

The death penalty “is a crime where people are executed and then found innocent,” said Donna Lundstrom, NIU president of AI. In addition to sentencing innocent people, courts discriminate against minorities, she said.

“A disproportionate amount of minorities, people who can’t afford a lawyer, are put on death row,” she said. A letter from AI states, “Minorities are more likely than white defendants to be sentenced to death for the same crimes.”

Proponents of the death penalty claim execution—as opposed to life imprisonment—saves money. Lundstrom said due to numerous appeals, court costs, maintenance of death row security and execution costs, the death penalty “is not cheaper.”

“There are much less drastic measures than the death penalty,” Lundstrom said. Amnesty opposes the eye-for-an-eye, tooth-for-a-tooth concept of punishment because “justice does not mean punishment that imitates the crime,” the pamphlet states, adding the Supreme Court in 1976 found no evidence the penalty deters violent crime.

“The question to ask is ‘Why do people do things to put them on death row?'” said Lundstrom, who believes the person does consider the consequences at the time of the criminal act.

The death penalty is not seen as a solution to stopping crime in Amnesty’s view. “Getting to (individuals) before they’re driven to crime” is an educational preventive measure that Amnesty advocates, Lundstrom said.

“The facts behind the issue have to be brought forward,” Lundstrom said, encouraging all interested students to attend. “Everyone has a stand on the issue. Some AI members support the penalty.”

Amnesty has held rallies in the Chicago area and produced a book on the subject to increase public awareness about the death penalty, Lundstrom said.