Who is Worth Fighting For?

Four leaders who have spent decades representing people condemned to die and changing North Carolina's criminal legal system discuss what justice demands and what it takes to keep fighting for it.

Featuring:

Henderson Hill
Co-Founder & Co-Director, RedressNC

Shelagh Kenney
Executive Director, Center for Death Penalty Litigation

Kristin Parks
Attorney & Criminal Justice Reform Advocate

Gerda Stein
Criminal Justice Reform Advocate & Former Mitigation Specialist

Law School Room 4047

Dinner provided

What does it take to pursue justice within a system that can inflict profound and irreversible harm—and how do you sustain that work over a lifetime?Join the Duke Justice Project and Wilson Center for Science and Justice for a conversation with four longtime leaders in North Carolina criminal justice reform. Drawing on decades of experience in capital defense, litigation, policymaking, advocacy, mitigation, and reentry, panelists will explore how lawyers and advocates have challenged the death penalty and other inequities within the criminal legal system while working to affirm the dignity and humanity of the people it affects.

The conversation will go beyond examining what is wrong with the criminal legal system to ask how change actually happens: How do litigation, legislation, research, storytelling, and coalition-building work together? How do advocates engage people who fundamentally disagree with them? What do policymakers misunderstand about the people affected by the policies they create? And how can people committed to difficult, emotionally demanding work sustain their sense of purpose without sacrificing their own wellbeing?

Designed for students interested in law, public policy, advocacy, public service, and social change, the evening will begin with a moderated conversation followed by audience Q&A.