With Gerry Spence, Judge Alex Kozinski and Moderated by Stuart Banner Monday, January 27 / 7:00-9:00 P.M./ Free UCSB Corwin Pavilion Part of the "Executing Justice" Series Gerry Spence, renowned attorney of Wyoming law firm Spence, Moriarty & Shockley LLC and Judge Alex Kozinski, United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit will debate "Executing Justice? America and the Death Penalty" from 7:00 to 9:00 P.M. on Monday, January 27 in the Corwin Pavilion at UCSB. The debate will be moderated by Professor Stuart Banner of UCLA Law School. GERRY SPENCE, a passionate opponent of the death penalty is a graduate of the University of Wyoming. A Santa Barbara resident, he has acted in a number of nationallly renowned cases including the Karen Silkwood Case, the defense of Randy Weaver of Ruby Ridge and of Imelda Marcos. He has never lost a criminal case and has not lost a civil case since 1969. He has won more multi-million dollar lawsuits without an intervening loss than any other lawyer in America. A familiar figure on national radio and TV, Spence is the founder of the Trial Lawyers' College, an institution dedicated to training lawyers and judges committed to the jury system and to representing "the poor, the injured, the forgotten...(and) the damned." In addition to the best selling How to Argue and Win Every Time, Spence is the author of eleven books: From Freedom to Slavery, O.J The Last Word, The Making of a Country Lawyer, Of Murder and Madness, A Boy's Summer, With Justice for None, Give me Liberty!, Gunning for Justice, Gerry Spence's Wyoming, Half-Moon and Empty Stars, and Seven Steps to Personal Freedom. JUDGE ALEX KOZINSKI, a vigorous supporter of the death penalty is a graduate of UCLA. Born in Bucharest in 1950, Kozinski emigrated to the USA aged 12 and was appointed by President Reagan to the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in 1985 which makes him the youngest federal appeals judge since William Howard Taft in 1892. Prior to this, Judge Kozinski served as Chief Judge of the US Claims Court, 1982-3; Assistant Counsel, Office of President Reagan, 1981; Deputy Legal Counsel, Office of President Reagan, 1980-1; Attorney, Evington and Burling, 1979-81; Attorney, Forry, Golbert Singer & Gelles, 1977-9; law clerk to Chief Justice Warren E. Burger, 1976-7 and law clerk to Circuit Judge Anthony M. Kennedy, 1975-6. A prolific journalist, broadcaster, public speaker and author of many articles for law journals, Judge Kozinski is also the author of numerous influential and controversial opinions most notably on free speech and search and seizure issues and , most recently, on internet surveillance and the eligibility of commercial speech for First Amendment protections. PROFESSOR STUART BANNER, a graduate of Yale and Stanford Law School teaches Property, American Legal History, Supreme Court and Capital Punishment Clinic at UCLA. He is the author of The Death Penalty: An American History, Anglo-American Securities Regulation: Cultural and Political Roots, 1690-1860 and Legal Systems in Conflict: Property and Sovereignty in Missouri, 1750-1860. Presented by the UCSB Interdisciplinary Humanities Center and the Law and Society Program with support from the Critical Issues in America Program as part of Executing Justice: America and the Death Penalty. Top of Page <<Back