ICADP Repeal Celebration, Chicago

A victory party 37 years in the making!

This is old news to all of our friends and family in Illinois and northwest Indiana, but: Illinois got rid of the death penalty! Huzzah!

In March, Gov. Quinn signed the legislation that would (finally) end Illinois' terrible practice of executing people. (Long story short: Illinois nearly killed 20 innocent guys that were sent to death row because of faulty evidence, witness misidentification, prosecutorial misconduct, or DNA evidence, or a combination of those... and it's incredibly expensive when we have an alternative that is life without the possibility of parole that costs less, keeps dangerous people behind bars and doesn't kill the wrong person.)

Getting the legislation to the Governor's desk was a long, arduous, sometimes painful, political process that began over 30 years ago when ICADP was founded. I only witnessed the last two years or so as a field organizer on the campaign.

The Repeal Celebration on Thursday, April 20th, at Architechtural Anarchy in Chicago was a spectacular tribute to the hundreds - maybe thousands - of people who worked for so long to expose the real problems with Illinois' death penalty system, who lobbied, wrote letters, called their legislators, helped with events, fought to free innocent men on death row, and made repeal happen. We shied away from calling it a victory party but that's what it was to me - a campaign that we won, which can be so rare in organizing and policy work for justice.

Sparing you all the gory details, the location was spectacular, the food was impeccable and the company was wonderful. I'm was so grateful and honored that my family came out to support us - my Mom, Dad, brothers John and Matt and Matt's wife Kristina - and of course, Dave, who I roped into running our "going out of business" merchandise table (He's been roped into helping ICADP on more then one occasion and has always done so willingly!).

It was great to have the whole ICADP crew together one last time - our fearless leader Jeremy (my boss), our staff members Beth, Katie and Mara; our PR guy and token Republican Ryan; our national team advisors Colleen, Shari and Abe; our whole board and volunteers (too many to name), and the legislators that pushed the bill in Springfield.

It was, I think, the perfect end for what will be a highlight of our careers of many of us.

After the party, we headed to nearby Skylark bar with a bunch of people from the party and to meet our friends Anna and Colin. We were psyched that our friend Paul was in town from Virginia and came out and Dave's cousin Tommy and aunt and uncle Caroline and Tom. We toasted our victory again and again until last call. Dave and I got back to my parent's house and in bed by about 4am in time to sleep for a couple hours before our morning flight back to Colorado.

It was great to be home for the whole week and see our families and friends one more time before the fall but we were more then ready to get back to our "home" in the Vouse (the van-house) in Colorado.