Porter came within two days of death. In an interview, actor Mike Farrell told conference participants that churches and centers of faith can play an important role in abolishing the death penalty. Farrell is president of Death Penalty Focus, a co-sponsor of the event. Doing away with capital punishment would carry an economic benefit, he said. Another speaker at the conference was Sister Helen Prejean, author of Dead Man Walking .
People are good and decent.
They don't want to kill innocent people along with guilty people. Closing the conference, about 50 people chanted while they carried signs and banners several miles through the heart of San Francisco and then on a ferry across the bay to San Quentin Prison, home to California's death row. And Gayle was nearer the man she had forgiven for the murder of her daughter. Langdell recently served as interim editor of the California-Nevada Annual Conference edition of the United Methodist Review .