Please join Dorsey & Whitney LLP and
The Advocates for Human Rights’ Death Penalty Project
for our lunchtime speaker series:

Advocating against the Death Penalty Using a Pro-Victim Approach

presented by

Jennifer Bishop Jenkins

Wednesday, September 10, 2008
12:00-1:00 P.M.

at

Dorsey & Whitney
Seattle Room, 15th Floor
50 South 6th Street
 Minneapolis, MN 55402

In recent years, the movement to abolish the death penalty has shifted from an offender-centered approach to one more focused on the victim. Jennifer Bishop-Jenkins will describe the importance of taking a victim-centered approach in advocacy against capital punishment. Jennifer will discuss the historical relationship between the victim and prosecutor and how it has proven sometimes problematic for victims. Finally, she will describe the importance of independent victim advocacy in criminal proceedings, using the example of Defense Initiated Victim Outreach (DIVO), and its ethical implications. This talk is a brown bag lunch. Beverages will be provided. Application will be made for one CLE credit.

Jennifer Bishop-Jenkins is the national Program Director for Victims and Survivors for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. She is also the sister of Nancy Bishop Langert, who was shot to death in 1990 along with her husband, Richard Langert and their unborn child, in Winnetka, Illinois, a prosperous suburb on Chicago’s North Shore. Since the murders of her family members, and inspired by Nancy’s last message, Jennifer has been a passionate advocate for victims’ rights, crime prevention, help for troubled youth, restorative justice, criminal justice reform and abolition of the death penalty, and is a leading proponent of gun violence prevention. Jennifer serves on the boards of the National Coalition of Victims in Action (NCVIA), the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, the Justice and Reconciliation Project, and Murder Victims Families for Human Rights (MVFHR). Jennifer has served on the boards of the Illinois Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty and of Murder Victims Families for Reconciliation (MVFR), including as its National Board Chair. She works with Fight Crime Invest in Kids and Parents of Murdered Children. Jennifer is a founding board member of the Abolition in Illinois Movement (AIM) and a co-founder of IllinoisVictims.org. In January 2008, the Governor of Illinois appointed Jennifer to serve on the state’s Capital Punishment Reform Study Committee.

Please R.S.V.P. to Rosalyn Park at The Advocates for Human Rights
by Tuesday, Sept. 9, 2008.
Phone: (612) 341-3302 ext. 106 • Email: [email protected]