Two good events: Prison Reform Panel at UConn Law 11/30; Death Row discussion Trinity College 12/2

Prison Reform Panel in Hartford - The Central Connecticut Chapter will be joined by several experts for a panel discussion and Q&A on the issue of prison reform. Panelists include former Connecticut legislator Bill Dyson; ACLU-CT Staff Attorney David McGuire; Laresse Harvey, ex-offender and Policy Director of A Better Way Foundation; and Jim Amis, a 20-year employee of the Department of Corrections and former Prison Ombudsman. The panel will be moderated by Don Noel, journalist and a former editor of The Hartford Courant. The meeting will be held on Tuesday, November 30, from 7:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. in Janet M. Blumberg Hall, inside the Hosmer Hall building on the University of Connecticut Law School campus, 65 Elizabeth Street, Hartford. The event is free and open to the public.

Wrongly convicted man who spent 17 years on Death Row to speak at Trinity College - Juan Melendez is one of 138 people in the United States to have been wrongfully convicted for a crime, sentenced to death and later exonerated. He spent 17 years, 8 months and 1 day on death row in Florida for a crime he did not commit. Since his exoneration in 2002 Melendez has traveled the United States, Canada and Europe sharing his story and advocating abolition of the death penalty. Melendez will speak on Thursday, December 2 from 4:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. in the Washington Room in Mather Hall on the Trinity College campus, 300 Summit Street, Hartford. The event is free and open to the public.