On March a group of panelists will discuss death penalty alternatives at Liberty Park United Methodist Church. The forum is presented byThe Peace & Justice Action League of Spokane's Inland Northwest Death Penalty Group, which has been working toward the abolition of the death penalty in Washington.
Are you for or against the death penalty?
The panelists are abolitionist Nancy Nelson,former corrections officer Cly Evans, family member of an individual on death row Victoria Thorpe,former Deputy Prosecutor the Rev. Deb Conklin and rector ofSalem Lutheran Church the Rev. Liv Larson Andrews. Sara Schmidt, regional field organizer at Amnesty International USA, will serve as moderator.
The group will talk about the fiscal costs of the death penalty, why they feel it should be abolished, and how community members can get involved. A question and answer session will follow the panel discussion. For information visit the Safe and Just Alternatives website. Rev. Deb Conklin and Rev. Liv Larson are SpokaneFAVS contributors.

Tracy Simmons is an award-winning journalist specializing in religion reporting and digital entrepreneurship. In her approximate 20 years on the religion beat, Simmons has tucked a notepad in her pocket and found some of her favorite stories aboard cargo ships in New Jersey, on a police chase in Albuquerque, in dusty Texas church bell towers, on the streets of New York and in tent cities in Haiti. Simmons has worked as a multimedia journalist for newspapers across New Mexico, Texas, Connecticut and Washington. She is the executive director of SpokaneFāVS.com, a digital journalism start-up covering religion news and commentary in Spokane, Washington. She also writes for The Spokesman-Review and national publications. She is a Scholarly Assistant Professor of Journalism at Washington State University.