Bruce Lisker

Bruce is a wrongful conviction survivor and an anti-death penalty advocate. He served 26 and a half years for the murder of his mother, a crime he did not commit. In 2009 he was exonerated and released.
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Bruce Lisker, c.2018

In March 1983, when Bruce Lisker was 17 years old, he came home to find his mother beaten, stabbed, and left for dead. Although he’d called for help and administered first aid to his fallen mom, Bruce was arrested for the crime based on the incorrect testimony from the lead detective on the case. Bruce was then convicted of second degree murder in 1985, in part because of false information provided by a jailhouse snitch in the L.A. County Jail. He was sentenced to 16 years to life in prison and served more than 26 years for a crime he did not commit. Through the efforts of private investigators, attorneys, an LAPD officer who believed him, and a series of in-depth, investigative articles in The Los Angeles Times, his conviction was vacated in August 2009 by U.S. District Court Judge Virginia Phillips, who found he’d been convicted based on false evidence and ineffective assistance of counsel. One month later L.A. prosecutors moved to dismiss all charges in there matter, and Bruce was a free man at last.

Bruce now resides north of Los Angeles, and is available to speak in California and areas nearby.

As of December 2023, Bruce provides Website Maintenance for Death Penalty Focus, as well as continuing to volunteer lending his experience and voice to our common cause of seeking an absolute end to the barbarism of capital punishment, everywhere. Read more about Bruce’s case on his website, at Wikipedia, at the National Registry of Exonerations, on Vimeo, on IMDB, and connect with his art on Instagram.

Click here to request Bruce as a speaker for your group or event