'It was a privilege to know Sunny as my friend'

A FOUNDER of Death Penalty Action has paid tribute to Florida death row survivor Sonia 'Sunny' Jacobs who tragically lost her life in a house fire in Galway.

- BY NICOLA DONNELLY

In 1976 Sunny and her then partner were wrongfully sentenced to death by the Florida courts for the murder of two policemen. Sunny was only 28 years of age and the mother of two young children.

Now, in a statement issued to The Star by Abraham J Bonowitz, a founder of Death Penalty Action in the US, he said he first met Sunny in 1993 - just months after she was freed from 17 years of wrongful incarceration in Florida.