Brian Roberts personally knows both the reality of murder and the reality of the death penalty. His son Mark Williams, then 18 years old, was killed during a drive-by shooting in Washington D.C. on Christmas Night, 2001.
And as a lawyer with more than a decade experience in criminal defense and capital litigation, Brian has witnessed one of his client’s executions.
“I have basically seen it full circle,” he says.
His son’s murder only buttressed his opposition to the death penalty. He strongly believes society needs to focus more on preventing violence and less on retribution. “We need to ask what caused this crime,” he says. The aura of violence that permeates many inner city lives, in particular, is toxic. “Too many young black men already feel that their lives are expendable and that they won’t live past their early 20s,” he says.
Brian emphasizes that the death penalty is possible only when a society de-humanizes a person. He says it is imperative that citizens of the U.S. and around the world view death row inmates as individual human beings and not automatic outcasts.
It is also necessary to remember that an execution makes a society a killer, too. “Killing is wrong no matter who kills,” he says.
He believes in MVFHR because “the only way we can get to the point in our world of peace, healing and reconciliation is if victims throughout the world come together and have a dialogue.”
Brian recently served as the interim director of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. He has worked as a staff attorney with the Texas Resource Center, the New York Capital Defender, and the D.C. Public Defender. He has also been the State Legislative Liaison and Program Director for the NCADP.
He is currently the coordinator of the Institutional Services Program for the D.C. Public Defender’s office
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Links to Brian’s Journey:
