ACLU's Rachel King to read from "Don't Kill in Our Names"
at Nashville's Davis-Kidd Booksellers

On Tuesday, May 20th, at 6 pm, Rachel King, State Strategies Coordinator for ACLU's Capital Punishment Project, will be at Davis-Kidd Booksellers in Nashville to read from and discuss her new book "Don't Kill in Our Names: Families of Murder Victims Speak Out Against the Death Penalty."

In the book, King weaves a third-person narrative with wrenching first-hand accounts, presenting the stories of ten family members of murder victims. All of the ten individuals profiled in this book are also members of Murder Victims' Families for Reconciliation (MVFR), a nationwide group whose mission is to end the use of the death penalty. King sets their stories in the context of the national discussion over the death penalty debate and restorative versus retributive justice.

In discussing her career of fighting the death penalty, King said, "I have worked within the criminal justice system throughout my legal career and have seen the many ways that it is unfair. The death penalty represents the worst aspects of the criminal justice system. Instead of punishing the people who commit the worse crimes, the death penalty is used against people who are the most vulnerable – the poor, mentally retarded, mentally ill, youths and people of color. Our society has tried to administer the system “fairly” and that experiment has failed. Ending the death penalty will mark an evolutionary change when we acknowledge that government sponsored killing is not the answer to violence. I want to be part of bringing about this change."

King is currently at work on a book about the families of death row inmates.

Royalties from the sale of "Don't Kill in Our Names," which was published by Rutgers University Press in March, will be donated to victims' organizations.

Davis-Kidd Booksellers is located at 4007 Hillsboro Road in Nashville. For more information on the event, contact ACLU-TN at (615) 320-7142 or Davis-Kidd Booksellers at (615) 385-2645.