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Published: 05/22/99 Kingston Daily Freeman Byline: By CYNTHIA WERTHAMER, Freeman staff - Copyright© 1999. All rights reserved. The following writing may not be republished or redistributed, in whole or in part, in any way including electronically, without the prior written consent of the author. |
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From Witness to
Crusader KINGSTON - When Jane
Davis was sent as an observer to a death row inmate's
execution six years ago, she had no idea the experience
would change her life. "I was not prepared," she
told a group of Kingston High School students on Friday. "I
wanted to jump up and yell, 'Stop!' but I was sent there to
witness, and I did. ... I did not witness a political issue.
I witnessed a human being, being fried before my eyes. It
broke my heart." Davis, a Kingston High
School graduate, now lives in Atlanta, Ga., not far from
where a student shot six schoolmates on Thursday. She is the
founder of a spiritually based non-profit organization
called HOPE-HOWSE, which stands for Help Other People Evolve
through Honest Open Willing Self-Evaluation. She was back in the
Kingston area to speak at today's anti-death penalty
conference at the Woodcrest Bruderhof in Rifton, which also
is to feature, among others, Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka;
paroled cop killer and former death row inmate Charles
Culhane, who was convicted in Ulster County; and a Japanese
photographer who focuses on juveniles on death row, and Sam
Shepherd, son of Dr. Shepherd known for the basis for "The
Fugitive." Davis' mission, however, is not specifically to
end the death penalty which was reinstituted in New York in
1995 - but to create a more humane society. "I'm not here to impose
my views on the death penalty," she told students in Donn
Avallone's criminal justice class. "I'm here to ask you to
please think. I don't care what you think, but I care that
you do." Her organization, she
said, "deals with human beings, not an issue." Some people
with whom she works are on death row; others are in gangs;
still others are clergy. "What I do is help people from all
walks and Ways of life to understand there is no 'them and
us,' it's just 'us.'" "Someone can do horrible
things, but there are other consequences," Davis said.
"Let's not even do away with the death penalty; let's have a
moratorium. Just let's think about it. For those who need to
hold onto the option of executing, let's just wait and
re-examine. We can always kill him next year." A former student of
Avallone's, Davis said she was honored to return to the high
school, "where we were all one community together." Since
her graduation, she has tried to connect people whose paths
might not otherwise cross. She wants to show inmates that
those on the outside are real people, and vice
versa. "I have as many friends
behind bars as out here," she said. "They (prisoners) want
the things they've done to have some effect, by having me
talk to people like you." She read part of a letter
from a 17-year-old gang leader serving time for rape and
kidnapping: "My only dream is to write poems and be somebody
special." As Davis put it later:
"I'm working with those at the end of the line and the
beginning of the line." KHS senior Chrissy
Lavezzo, 19, sat wide-eyed hearing Davis' description of the
execution of Chris Berger. "Wow," she said as class
let out. "I think there should be more people like her, and
in every high school. I know we have guidance counselors and
school psychologists, but we need someone like her to talk
to." |