Larson, mother of death row inmate Keith Doolin, was just one of several death row inmate family members and lawyers that gathered on Friday to address UC Berkeley students and local residents. They said the line between "good" and "bad" is not easily defined in the case of the death penalty.
Believing in her son's innocence, Larson said she tried to learn more about the legal system before her son's trial. The Fresno district attorney has referred to her as the "mother from hell," she said.
Larson said there is a severe lack of affordable legal representation for death row inmates, which prompted her to take matters into her own hands.
"The case becomes a part of you," she said. "A finger can be pointed in the wrong place at the wrong time."
Charles Weisselberg, a Boalt Hall Law School professor, said he formed a clinic to combat the economically stratified criminal justice system.
A UC Berkeley alumni donated over one million dollars to fund the clinic for about five years, Weisselberg said.
Unlike "innocence projects" at other universities, which represent only inmates who maintain innocence, Weisselberg said students at the Boalt Hall clinic will represent death row inmates whether or not they claim innocence.
"(We need to) accept them as human beings worthy of hard work and respect," he said.
Under close observation of law professors, the students will handle death row cases during the appellate process, mainly during the reinvestigation portion.
Weisselberg said other university departments have also offered their services and expertise to the clinic.
"(At UC Berkeley) we have the resources that private lawyers and appointed lawyers don't have," Weisselberg said. "We are at a university that has forced us to address some of the deepest and most difficult issues of our time raised by the criminal justice system."
Another speaker, Amy Romero, wife of death row inmate Duane Holloway, said her husband's case has shifted her views about the subject.
"Most of my life I believed in the death penalty," Romero said. "They were the bad guy, and I always believed in good and bad. Well, it's not so simple."
Romero, who believes her husband is innocent, talked about society's dehumanization of death row inmates.
"Most of the inmates are nicer than the people you meet on the street," she said.
Elizabeth Terzakis, regional organizer for the Campaign to End the Death Penalty, said 73 percent of Californians are currently against capital punishment.
"People used to tell me that historically people were so pro-death penalty that that would never change," she said. "That is not the case. People are not comfortable with the death penalty anymore."
Based on the disproportionate amount of minorities on death row, she criticized the judicial system as racially and financially biased.
"The death penalty is racist-so much so that the attorney general had to do an investigation on it." Terzakis said.
She also said there is a lack of quality representation, especially within the appellate process, for poor inmates.
"The death penalty kills the poor," she added.
The anti-death penalty forum was sponsored by the Campaign to End the Death Penalty, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the Cal Human Rights Campaign.