https://soundcloud.com/thepurplestatereport/28-sister-helen-prejean

The Purple State Report is back and we begin the new year with a series of podcast episodes analyzing Colorado’s death penalty. In this episode, our guest is Sister Helen Prejean, a prominent anti-death penalty activist and author of Dead Man Walking. Public Policy Director, Denise Maes and Public Policy Associate, Helen Griffiths interview.

Join ACLU of Colorado on January 14, 2020, for End the Death Penalty Lobby Day. More info at: https://bit.ly/2QzCueS  

The Purple State Report is brought to you by the ACLU of Colorado. Our show is produced by Vanessa Michel and Helen Griffiths with original theme music by Pablo Novelas. Additional music by Chilly Gonzalez and Jarvis Cocker. If you have feedback or suggestions for future episodes email us at [email protected].

2020 is here, and this will be a very important year for the ACLU, Colorado and our nation. Here are seven ACLU of Colorado resolutions for the New Year to help guide our work and yours:

1. Bring Our Neighbors Home. The majority of people in Colorado jails are not there because they have been convicted of a crime. The majority are legally innocent and only incarcerated because they can’t afford to pay a monetary bond. As the Colorado legislative session begins this week, the ACLU of Colorado has launched a Bring Our Neighbors Home campaign to take the next legislative steps in reforming pretrial detention. Our goals are to end wealth-based pretrial detention, to stop racial bias in pretrial detention, and to keep more people home while their cases are resolved.
2. End the Death Penalty in Colorado. Our death penalty system is extremely costly while doing nothing to prevent crime. Application of the death penalty is often arbitrary and systemically discriminatory. It is traumatizing to those who must carry it out, and it risks governmental processes making fatally irreversible mistakes. It is time for Colorado to end the death penalty for good.
3. Defend Reproductive Rights. The ACLU of Colorado will fight any form of abortion ban or restrictions on reproductive rights that may be proposed in the legislature or placed on the Colorado ballot in 2020.
4. Defend our Immigrant Neighbors. The ACLU will continue to defend the rights of immigrants in Colorado and to use the courts and the legislature to hold accountable immigrant detention facilities like the private GEO facility in Aurora contracted with ICE.
5. Get Out The Vote. The 2020 election will be a crucial one in Colorado and nationwide. Your vote will be needed in national, state and local races, and on state and local ballot measures. The ACLU of Colorado will defend voting rights and the integrity of our election while mobilizing civil liberties voters to be sure to vote this year.
6. Rights for All. The ACLU will continue to fight in every way possible to defend the rights of people experiencing homelessness, LGBTQ persons, people of color, people without money or facing life crises, and anyone else likely to be denied their rights, their privacy, or their civil liberties.
7. Build for the next 100 years. 2020 is our Centennial year, the 100^th anniversary of the founding of the ACLU. As long as this nation exists, we will need the ACLU to uphold democratic processes, fight for civil rights and civil liberties, and make our systems more genuinely inclusive and equitable for all people in this land. I hope you will join us not only in fighting the battles of 2020 but also in building for a better future ahead.

 
Nathan Woodliff-Stanley,
ACLU of Colorado Executive Director
 

It is with deep sadness that we received the news that Gwen Thomas passed away on December 26, 2019 at the age of 94. Gwen was a longtime leader at the ACLU of Colorado and at the national ACLU. She served on the Board of Directors of the ACLU of Colorado for almost three decades, ending her last term in 2008. She also served on the Board of the national ACLU for 25 years, where she served on multiple committees and as Vice Chair for several years. She was a professor of English at what was then Metro State College and served there as Dean and Assistant Vice President. She also served on the national Board of the Unitarian Universalist Association for ten years and was significantly involved in the Black Empowerment movement in the late 1960s. Her breadth of experience and commitment to civil liberties served the ACLU well for many years and she will be deeply missed by all.