Clergy association hosts forum on death penalty FREEHOLD - On the same day that the New Jersey Senate Judiciary Committee approved a bill to change the death penalty to life without the possibility of parole in New Jersey, the Freehold Clergy Association presented an update on New Jersey's death penalty by two men with direct experience with the issue. Held at the St. Rose of Lima Parish Center on May 10, the forum drew members of various Freehold congregations and featured a man who lost his daughter to murder and another man who was wrongly sent to death row, according to a press release from New Jerseyans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, a statewide group that helped organize the Freehold event. Lorry Post opened the discussion by sharing the story of how his daughter had been murdered and the reaction he and his family had to the horrible loss. "I miss my daughter so much," said Post, "but it was not until I got involved in the struggle to end the death penalty that I found a way to bring meaning to her life, and to mine." Post credits an observation that his wife, June, made that helped him see why it was so important to speak out as the parent of a murder victim. "The murderer in our case was sentenced to only 20 years," said Post, noting that the law was different at that time in Georgia, where his daughter was killed. "My wife saw an injustice in the fact that the vast majority of murderers who are caught do not get the death penalty. I had always been against the death penalty, but it was this fact that helped June change her mind." Earlier in the day Post was at the Statehouse in Trenton and was one of 52 New Jerseyans who lost a loved one to murder to present a letter calling on the Senate Judiciary Committee to pass legislation to change the death penalty to life without parole. The hearing ended with the bill passing by an 8-2 vote. "The hearing today was very exciting and is the beginning of the end of a long struggle for me," said Post, who helped start New Jerseyans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty. Following Post was Kirk Bloodsworth, who in 1984 was wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death for the rape and murder of a 9-year-old girl in Maryland. After years of fighting for DNA testing, state and federal labs concluded that Bloodsworth could not have committed the murder. Released in 1993, he had spent nearly nine years in prison, including two on death row. Almost a decade later, a DNA match was made in the nearly 20-year-old case. That person pleaded guilty on May 20, 2004, according to the press release. "Both of these presentations were very powerful," said Sister Claire McNichol of St. Rose of Lima Parish, who helped organize the event on behalf of the Freehold Clergy Association. "It's one thing to think about the death penalty in the abstract, but hearing these stories puts a face on the issue. And it's true when they say that the more you know about the death penalty, the less you like it." More information is available at www.NJADP.org