
Gateway Event Features Death Row Speaker Who Was Exonerated in Retrial
Gary Drinkard, an Alabama man who spent nearly six years on death row, is the featured
speaker Wednesday, Sept. 24, at 7 p.m. at Gateway Community & Technical College.
Drinkards presentation is sponsored by the colleges Gateway to Justice student organization
and will take place in Room E101 at the Student Services Center on the Edgewood Campus,
790 Thomas More Parkway, Edgewood.
Drinkard was sentenced to death in 1995 for the robbery and murder of a 65-year-old
automobile junk dealer in Decatur, Ala. Unable to afford
an attorney, Drinkard was assigned two lawyers with no experience trying criminal
cases. Despite being at home at the time of the murders, and suffering from a debilitating
back injury, Drinkard was convicted and sentenced to death.
In 2000, the Alabama Supreme Court ordered a new trial because of prosecutorial misconduct,
and with the help of the Southern Center for
Human Rights, he won an acquittal in 2001.
Gateway to Justice seeks to inform students and the public about issues involving
injustice, domestic violence, hate crimes, cyber predators and similar issues that
affect human rights, said Amy Carrino, assistant professor of criminal justice and
division chair of the Personal and Protective Services Division. She also advises
the Gateway to Justice organization.
Drinkards appearance is part of an outreach program of Witness to Innocence, a national
organization made up of and led by exonerated death row survivors and their family
members. WTI was founded in 2003 by Sister Helen Prejean, internationally renowned
anti-death penalty activist, and Ray Krone, the 100th person exonerated from death
row in the United States.
Drinkards presentation is open to the public. For more information, contact Carrino
at amy.carrino@kctcs.edu.