“You take life for granted when you are incarcerated,” reflected Barry Williams, a California death row exoneree, during a recent panel discussion in Sacred Heart Chapel. “A flower means a lot to me — to smell a flower, to enjoy any part of Earth.” Having spent years facing a death sentence for a crime he didn’t commit before his conviction was overturned, Williams said that simple pleasures now carry deep meaning because of all he lost while behind bars.
The panel on Wednesday, March 25, 2026, brought together four voices with profound connections to the criminal legal system: Williams; Franky Carrillo, an LMU alumnus who was wrongfully incarcerated for murder; Joseph Trigillio, a LMU Law School professor; and Stephan Rochefort from the Catholic Mobilizing Network, a group that mobilizes Catholics to value life over death by opposing the death penalty. Junior business major Victor Caceres organized the evening following his summer internship at the network, noting that hearing stories of exoneration and advocacy “made me believe that human transformation is possible.”
Williams and Carrillo described their journeys from wrongful conviction to new lives focused on justice, healing and community. Both were sentenced as young men and later exonerated after serious flaws in their cases came to light. Their experiences reveal the human cost of error within the criminal legal system and the dignity of those who endure it.
Carrillo said attending LMU changed his life: “My best decision was to attend LMU. My faith and belief system helped me. What I am most happy about is to be a beacon of hope for other people who are experiencing suffering.” Their stories call listeners to reflect on mercy, accountability and the shared responsibility to uphold each person’s humanity, especially when the stakes are life and death.
Rochefort offered broader context for their experiences. He said that capital punishment remains law in 27 U.S. states, and that California holds the nation’s largest condemned population, with more than 580 people under death sentences as of April 2025. He called the death penalty a practice rooted in the country’s racist history and noted that it disproportionately affects society’s most vulnerable: those with serious mental illness or intellectual disabilities. National data underscore his point; for example, Mental Health America reports that individuals with serious mental illness are at a substantial disadvantage in capital cases and that 43% of inmates executed between 2000 and 2015 had a mental health diagnosis. “There is no way that violence can be solved with more violence,” Rochefort said.
Trigillio, who grew up in Texas hearing about executions and now represents people facing the death penalty, added that the practice often compounds trauma rather than heals it. He explained that victims’ families hope an execution will bring closure, but in his experience “the death penalty simply increases rage.” Compassion for both victims and the accused, he said, requires moving beyond retribution toward restorative justice.
Following the panel, participants joined in an interfaith prayer service for an end to the death penalty and for the men and women still on death row. The evening intertwined personal testimony, legal insight and moral reflection, inviting the LMU community to consider how faith and justice intersect — and how small acts of transformation, such as noticing a flower, can ripple outward into broader movements for mercy and reform.