Death penalty opponents circled their wagons Wednesday night at Swen Parson Hall.

A four-member panel “discussed” the criminal justice system and the death penalty.

The program coordinators did their audience a grave disservice by inviting panelists who only represented one view point: anti-death penalty.

Melanie Stibick, a two-year law student and president of the NIU law school chapter of Amnesty International, co-organized the program with fellow law student Yvonne Cryns.

Stibick said programs like theirs are important because “students are usually given the same facts again and again” in the classroom.

Is that not a little like the pot calling the kettle black, Stibick?

And what makes Stibick so sure that every NIU professor is advocating the death penalty in every class?

Even if that scenario were true, how does Stibick hold herself to any higher standard when she and Cryns have surrounded themselves solely with people who think and feel the same way they do?

Audience members missed out on the benefit of hearing panelists justify their emotional appeals against the arguments of even one death penalty advocate.

To present only one view point at such a discussion panel is to arrogantly assume that perspective is based on faultless logic.

The world has never known meaningful progress in embracing one view without subjecting it to opposition.

Stibick and Cryns have perpetuated an opinion monopoly — a concept the U.S. government has outlawed as it relates to business practices.

Cryns seemed incredulous at the suggestion the panel have at least one death penalty advocate and said it would not serve the group’s purpose.

Cryns and Stibick diminished the credibility of their own program by failing to present a well-rounded panel. Whatever their purpose was becomes a moot point without any credibility.