OK-CADP 21st Annual Membership and Awards Dinner April 21, 2012

21st Annual OK-CADP Membership and Awards Dinner
Cathedral of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, Conner Center
3214 N. Lake Avenue (1 blk west of Western Ave)
Oklahoma City, OK 73118
Saturday, April 21, 2012
Buffet Dinner and Program at 6:30 p.m.
$40 Adults - Students $15

Death Penalty Information Center Director Richard Dieter
to speak at annual coalition dinner

The Oklahoma Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty (OK-CADP) will hold its 21st Annual Membership and Awards Dinner at the Conner Center of the Cathedral of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, 3214 N. Lake Avenue, (one block west of Western) on Saturday, April 21, in Oklahoma City The buffer dinner and program will begin at 6:30 p.m.

The Coalition is committed to the abolition of the death penalty in Oklahoma. The event will be hosted by OK-CADP Co-Chairs Lydia Polley and Kenny Fikes.

This year, Bishop-Elect Edward J. Weisenburger, recently appointed to the Diocese of Salina, Kansas, will be honored with the “Lifetime Abolitionist ” award for his outstanding support of work toward repealing the death penalty in Oklahoma. Weisenburger was the vicar general of the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City and rector of Our Lady of Perpetual Help Cathedral in Oklahoma City until February 2012. He has supported the OK-CADP work through presentations and hosting of the annual dinner.

The 2012 OK-CADP annual dinner keynote speaker is Richard C. Dieter, Executive Director of the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC), located in Washington, DC.

The Center is a non-profit organization serving the public and the media with analysis and information on issues concerning capital punishment. The organization prepares in-depth reports, issues press releases, and conducts briefings for journalists and others working on this issue.

An advocate for issues related to human rights and the death penalty, Dieter worked as the director of the Community for Creative Nonviolence’s pre-trial release program. He was the founder of the Alderson Hospitality House for visitors to the women’s federal prison in Alderson, West Virginia, and the founder of the Quixote Center’s death penalty project.

An attorney and native of New York City, Dieter received his undergraduate degree in mathematics from the University of Notre Dame and a master’s degree from the Ohio State University. He graduated cum laude from the Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, DC. At Georgetown, he was one of the University's first Public Interest Law Scholars and served as an editor of the Georgetown Journal of Legal Ethics. He is a member of the Maryland Bar, the Bar of the District of Columbia, and the Bar of the U. S. Supreme Court, and serves as an Adjunct Professor at the Catholic University School of Law, where he teaches a seminar on the death penalty.

Dieter received the Death Penalty Focus's 2010 Abolition Award “for exemplary leadership and unprecedented commitment to fostering human rights and advancing public awareness about the fundamental injustice of the death penalty.

Tickets for the event are $40 for adults, students are $15 and tables for eight guests are available. Reservation deadline is extended to Wednesday, April 18. To purchase tickets, call 405-948-1645 or email okcadp@gmail.com or register and pay securely online by visiting okcadp.org. Or you can send checks to P.O. Box 713, Oklahoma City, OK 73101.