Bishop criticizes execution

Art Nadler

Friday, June 12, 1998 | 11:24 a.m.

Church leaders around the state are unified in their opposition to the pending execution of convicted murderer Alvaro Calambro.

Calambro, 25, is facing death by lethal injection at 9 p.m. Saturday at the Nevada State Prison in Carson City. He was sentenced to death for murdering Peggy Crawford, 37, and Keith Christopher, 21, during a $2,400 robbery in January 1994 at a U-Haul business in Reno.

"A life sentence without the possibility of parole is a much better way to deal with criminals," Bishop Daniel Walsh of the Las Vegas Roman Catholic Diocese said Thursday. "This man has done some dastardly acts, and he should be punished. But it has been shown that the death penalty is not a deterrent to killing other people. We are the only industrialized society that allows this barbarism."

The Rev. Chuck Durante of the Saint Teresa of Avila Church in Carson City said a prayer meeting is planned for 6:30 p.m. Saturday in the church. He said those in attendance will pray for Crawford and Christopher, Calambro, the families of the murdered victims and Calambro and for an end to the death penalty.

"Our bottom line -- stop the killing," Durante said. "It's no way meant to diminish that this man committed these murders. But another killing doesn't do anything.

"The only way to get peace is through forgiveness. It's God's ultimate decision of how He will deal with them."

Durante said after the 45-minute church prayer, people will be encouraged to attend a vigil outside the prison gates. He expects several anti-death-penalty groups to be present at the prison.

When Richard Moran was executed in March 1996 for the murder of two people in a Las Vegas bar in 1984, about 50 people attended the vigil, Durante said.