Former death row inmate Shujaa Graham discusses his experience with ESADE Law School students

Shujaa Graham is one of 138 former U.S. death row inmates who have been legally exonerated. In 1973, Mr. Graham was framed for the murder of a prison guard and spent six years on death row in California for a crime he didn’t commit. Mr. Graham visited ESADE Law School to talk with Bachelor in Law students as part of the Criminal Law subject.

“This talk forms part of a space for reflection that links social, ethical and moral values in relation to the enforcement and application of criminal law,” commented Prof. Marc Garcia Solé. “We organise it every year to encourage students to develop this approach. When an individual is subjected to criminal proceedings that could end with either acquittal or conviction and, in this case, with the start of a life in prison, it stretches the relationship between the state, society and the individual to the limit.”

For more than 10 years, Mr. Graham has been collaborating with “Cities for Life – Cities Against the Death Penalty”, an initiative of the Community of Sant’Egidio. “I dream of a better future,” he commented. “I may not live to see the fruits of the work I’m doing now, but our children will see them.” Mr. Graham now travels the world giving talks on the death penalty, racism, the justice system and gangs.

Born in Louisiana, Mr. Graham grew up on a plantation in the segregated South of the 1950s. “He’s especially interested in talking to young people because two young men saved him from death row by insisting that his case be reviewed,” commented Maria del Mar Soriano, a student in the Bachelor in Law at ESADE. “With his sincere, inspiring, but also direct words, he made us reflect on the values of society with regard to inmates, on the way in which prison influences a person and, through his particular case, on the cruelty of racial discrimination within the system.”