reality. gentlemen, a court is only as good as every man of you sitting before me on this jury. a court is only as sound as its jury and a jury is only as sound as the men who make it up . i m confident that you will review without passion the evidence you have heard, come to a decision and restore this defendant to his family. in the name of god, do your duty. in the name of god, believe him. [applause] what you heard was a literal translation of the book word for word, and we have to remember that this book was written just at the onset of the civil rights movement. so we re going to talk about this book. we re also going to talk about the written word and how powerful it is in terms of our perceptions of the justice system. so i d like to now ask our first panel to come to the stage. how s that? [laughter] well hi, mary. how you doing? good. thanks. how are you? great. so we have here via skype, she s live from new york city. i always wanted to say that. [lau
of power, abuse of power and how it happens and why it happens and most importantly what we can do and need to do to prevent it. whether it s a prosecutor or a judge or a defender render ineffective assistance to counsel or a police officer violating constitutional rights. this is not something we can tolerate, yet it happens each and every day. and our panel is going to delve deep into the issues that we re seeing not only here in the bay area but throughout the country and throughout the world. our third panel after lunch will talk about the future of the death penalty and hopefully its demise. you might be surprised that we are having a conversation here in san francisco about the death penalty. as you know, our district attorney has indicated that he may seek the death penalty in appropriate cases in san francisco, and that has not been the case for the past decade. but he s coming today to talk about his views. we also have a former warden at san quentin who surprised th
read throughout the world. so we re going to start now with a clip, a video clip and then we re going to go to the panel. i think it is our national novel. if there was a national novel of week, this would be it for the united states. i think it s the favorite book of almost everybody you meet. the first time in my life that the book had sort of captured me. that was exciting. i didn t realize that literature could do that. i remember reading a copy of my aunt s in jamaica queens. it was the first book ever written by a white writer that discussed racism in ways that was complicate and sophisticated. complicated and sophisticated. a touchstone in american literary and social history. it s a story gently tugged at the issues of racism. she was a champion of people who helped us get liberated from racism in this country. harper lee s first and only novel. a masterpiece is masterpieces not because they re flawless but because they tap into something essential to
been shown and transcribed and read throughout the world. so we re going to start now with a clip, a video clip and then we re going to go to the panel. i think it is our national novel. if there was a national novel of week, this would be it for the united states. i think it s the favorite book of almost everybody you meet. the first time in my life that the book had sort of captured me. that was exciting. i didn t realize that literature could do that. i remember reading a copy of my aunt s in jamaica queens. it was the first book ever written by a white writer that discussed racism in ways that was complicate and sophisticated. complicated and sophisticated. a touchstone in american literary and social history. it s a story gently tugged at the issues of racism. she was a champion of people who helped us get liberated from racism in this country. harper lee s first and only novel. a masterpiece is masterpieces not because they re flawless but because they t
we have three action-packed panels. our first panel celebrates the 50th anniversary of a novel that really defined american justice in the 1960 s and that s to kill a mockingbird. and many a lawyer was motivated by atticus finch in his closing argument in that case which in many ways represented the civil rights movement that was to come and it already begun. we have best-selling authors. we have a real-life atticus finch, tony serra, who is here and has motivated so many of us to do what we do. our second panel looks at abuse of power, abuse of power and how it happens and why it happens and most importantly what we can do and need to do to prevent it. whether it s a prosecutor or a judge or a defender render ineffective assistance to counsel or a police officer violating constitutional rights. this is not something we can tolerate, yet it happens each and every day. and our panel is going to delve deep into the issues that we re seeing not only here in the bay area but th