Human Rights and the U.S. Death Penalty Webinar Series — Faculty

Death Penalty Information Center 
Webinar Series on
Human Rights and the U.S. Death Penalty

Faculty

November 4 – December 2, 2022

Supported by the Foreign Office of the Federal Republic of Germany

Launch Event: A Panel on Human Rights & the U.S. Death Penalty

Diann Rust-Tierney

Diann Rust-Tierney is an Adjunct Professor of Law at the Georgetown University Law Center, where she teach­es a sem­i­nar on Human Rights Advocacy: Lessons Learned from the Campaign to End the Death Penalty. Professor Rust-Tierney served as the Georgetown Human Rights Institute Robert F. Drinan S.J. Visiting Professor for Human Rights for the aca­d­e­m­ic year 2021 – 2022.

Professor Rust-Tierney has more than 30 years of expe­ri­ence in fed­er­al leg­isla­tive and exec­u­tive branch advo­ca­cy on civ­il and human rights, includ­ing serv­ing for 16 years as Executive Director of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. Previously, she held sev­er­al roles at the American Civil Liberties Union, includ­ing Legislative Counsel, Chief Legislative Counsel/​Associate Director of the Washington Office, and the Director of the Capital Punishment Project. Professor Rust-Tierney also served as a staff attor­ney at the National Women’s Law Center, where she engaged in pol­i­cy advo­ca­cy and fed­er­al lit­i­ga­tion with a focus on Title IX and increas­ing edu­ca­tion­al equi­ty for women and nondis­crim­i­na­tion in employment.

Professor Rust-Tierney’s Drinan Chair Lecture on Human Rights focused on the rela­tion­ship between cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment and the lega­cy of the American racial caste sys­tem. Professor Rust-Tierney has tes­ti­fied before Congress and spo­ken exten­sive­ly on the death penal­ty, race, women’s rights, pol­i­cy advo­ca­cy and human and civ­il rights cam­paigns. She served for many years as a mem­ber of the Board of Directors of the Death Penalty Information Center.

John Bessler

Professor John Bessler has taught at the University of Baltimore School of Law and the Georgetown University Law Center since 2009. He has also taught at the University of Minnesota Law School, the George Washington University Law School, Rutgers School of Law, and the University of Aberdeen in Scotland. He clerked for U.S. Magistrate Judge John M. ​“Jack” Mason of the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota and prac­ticed law full-time for many years. In 2018, he was award­ed the University System of Maryland Board of Regents’ Faculty Award for Research, Scholarship or Creative Activity and was a vis­it­ing schol­ar at the Human Rights Center of the University of Minnesota Law School. 

Professor Bessler has an under­grad­u­ate degree from the University of Minnesota in polit­i­cal sci­ence, a J.D. from the Indiana University School of Law in Bloomington, an M.F.A. in Writing from Hamline University, and a master’s degree in inter­na­tion­al human rights law from Oxford University. His law review arti­cles have appeared in the American Criminal Law Review, the Arkansas Law Review, the Northeastern University Law Review, the Montana Law Review, and else­where, and his books have received numer­ous awards. His 2014 book, The Birth of American Law: An Italian Philosopher and the American Revolution (Carolina Academic Press) received the Scribes Book Award.

Among his notable pub­li­ca­tions on cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment are Cruel and Unusual: The American Death Penalty and the Founders’ Eighth Amendment (Northeastern University Press, 2012), The Death Penalty as Torture: From the Dark Ages to Abolition (Carolina Academic Press, 2017), The Celebrated Marquis: An Italian Noble and the Making of the Modern World (Carolina Academic Press, 2018), and The Baron and the Marquis: Liberty, Tyranny, and the Enlightenment Maxim That Can Remake American Criminal Justice (Carolina Academic Press, 2019). A forth­com­ing book, The Death Penalty’s Denial of Fundamental Human Rights: International Law, State Practice, and the Emerging Abolitionist Norm, will be pub­lished by Cambridge University Press in December 2022.

Nathalie Greenfield

Nathalie Greenfield is a human rights lawyer spe­cial­iz­ing in the cas­es of women sen­tenced to death. She has rep­re­sent­ed women on death row in the United States, Tanzania, and Malawi, con­tribut­ing to lit­i­ga­tion in domes­tic and inter­na­tion­al tri­bunals. Since 2019, Nathalie has worked on cas­es before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, and UN bod­ies. She con­ducts train­ings on rep­re­sent­ing women along with her col­leagues at the Cornell Center on the Death Penalty Worldwide and is a co-author of the Cornell Center’s recent man­u­al for cap­i­tal defend­ers: Defending Women and Transgender Persons Facing Extreme Sentences: A Practical Guide.

Webinar: Race & the U.S. Death Penalty

Kristina Roth

Prior to join­ing the Legal Defense Fund, Kristina led the Criminal Justice Program at Amnesty International USA (AIUSA) as Senior Advocate. At AIUSA, she worked reg­u­lar­ly with grass­roots activists, impact­ed com­mu­ni­ties, fel­low advo­cates, elect­ed offi­cials, and oth­er top stake­hold­ers at the state and fed­er­al lev­els to fur­ther human rights in domes­tic law. She focused on efforts to abol­ish the death penal­ty and advance polic­ing account­abil­i­ty leg­is­la­tion, with a focus on efforts to stop unlaw­ful use of force by law enforce­ment. Before AIUSA, Kristina worked as Washington Representative and Deputy Director of Domestic Policy at the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, where she col­lab­o­rat­ed with inter­faith and sec­u­lar part­ners advo­cat­ing on a slew of domes­tic issues at the fed­er­al lev­el from sen­tenc­ing reform to access to abor­tion. Kristina holds a Bachelor of Science from Ithaca College in Communications Management and Design with a minor in Politics. 

She rep­re­sent­ed AIUSA before the UN and oth­er inter­na­tion­al treaty mon­i­tor­ing bod­ies and tes­ti­fied before the Maryland leg­is­la­ture on a law enforce­ment use of force mea­sure, that became law. Her analy­sis has been fea­tured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, BBC, The Hill, and she has appeared live on Al Jazeera and MSNBC. 

Kristina serves as a co-chair of the Justice Roundtable’s fed­er­al Law Enforcement Reform Working Group, work­ing with part­ner orga­ni­za­tions to shape fed­er­al leg­is­la­tion and poli­cies to mean­ing­ful­ly address sys­temic fail­ures of policing. 

Olivia Ensign

Olivia Ensign is the Senior Advocate at Human Rights Watch US Program, with a focus on the crim­i­nal legal sys­tem and sys­temic inequal­i­ty. In this role she employs a mul­ti-faceted approach of col­lab­o­ra­tion, pub­lic edu­ca­tion, and fact-find­ing to move the nee­dle towards the pro­tec­tion of human rights in the United States at the fed­er­al and state levels. 

Prior to join­ing Human Rights Watch, Olivia was a Staff Attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union’s Capital Punishment Project where she rep­re­sent­ed clients in cap­i­tal pro­ceed­ings at the tri­al, direct appeal, and post-con­vic­tion lev­els across the south­ern United States and engaged in sys­temic efforts aimed at the abo­li­tion of the death penalty.

Olivia holds a bachelor’s degree in Political Science and Peace and Conflict Studies from Swarthmore College and received her law degree from New York University School of Law where she was a Root-Tilden-Kern Public Interest Scholar and Institute for International Law and Justice Scholar.

Webinar: Excessive Punishment & Conditions of Confinement

Amy Fettig

Amy Fettig is a human rights lawyer and lead­ing expert on crim­i­nal jus­tice reform who has gar­nered nation­al recog­ni­tion for her work on prison con­di­tions. Prior to join­ing The Sentencing Project, Fettig served as Deputy Director for the ACLU’s National Prison Project. At the ACLU, she lit­i­gat­ed fed­er­al class action prison con­di­tions cas­es under the Eighth Amendment. Her prac­tice focused on claims regard­ing med­ical and men­tal health care in prison, soli­tary con­fine­ment, sex­u­al assault in deten­tion set­tings, and com­pre­hen­sive reform in juve­nile facil­i­ties. Fettig also found­ed and direct­ed the ACLU’s Stop Solitary cam­paign seek­ing to end the prac­tice of long-term iso­la­tion in our nation’s pris­ons, jails and juve­nile deten­tion cen­ters through pub­lic pol­i­cy reform, leg­is­la­tion, lit­i­ga­tion and pub­lic edu­ca­tion. Fettig served as a lead­ing mem­ber of the nation­al coali­tion seek­ing to end the prac­tice of shack­ling incar­cer­at­ed preg­nant women. A nation­al expert on pris­on­er rights law and crim­i­nal jus­tice reform, Fettig has also pro­vid­ed tech­ni­cal assis­tance and advice to advo­cates around the coun­try and has served as an Adjunct Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law Center, where she taught cours­es on pub­lic inter­est advo­ca­cy. Prior to law school, Ms. Fettig worked with incar­cer­at­ed and for­mer­ly incar­cer­at­ed peo­ple and their fam­i­lies in New York City. She holds a B.A., with dis­tinc­tion, Carleton College; a Master’s from Columbia University, School of International and Public Affairs; and a J.D. from Georgetown University. Fettig is a mem­ber of the New York State Bar (2002) and the Bar for the District of Columbia (2006).

David Fathi

David C. Fathi is Director of the American Civil Liberties Union National Prison Project, which brings chal­lenges to con­di­tions of con­fine­ment in pris­ons, jails, and oth­er deten­tion facil­i­ties, and works to end the poli­cies that have giv­en the United States the high­est incar­cer­a­tion rate in the world. He worked as a staff lawyer at the Project for more than ten years before becom­ing direc­tor in 2010 and has lit­i­gat­ed numer­ous pris­on­er rights cas­es through­out the United States. From 2012 to 2015 he rep­re­sent­ed the ACLU in nego­ti­a­tions lead­ing to adop­tion of the United Nations Revised Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, known as the ​“Nelson Mandela Rules.”

From 2007 to 2010 Fathi was Director of the US Program at Human Rights Watch. The US Program works to defend the rights of par­tic­u­lar­ly vul­ner­a­ble groups in the United States, and has pub­lished ground­break­ing reports on the death penal­ty, prison con­di­tions, racial dis­crim­i­na­tion, the rights of immi­grants, and many oth­er human rights issues.

Fathi has lec­tured nation­al­ly and inter­na­tion­al­ly on crim­i­nal jus­tice issues. His op-eds have appeared in The Guardian, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Houston Chronicle, and oth­er major media out­lets. He is Chair of the Board of Penal Reform International, a London-based NGO that works for crim­i­nal jus­tice reform around the world. He is a grad­u­ate of the University of Washington and the University of California, Berkeley Law School. 

Webinar: Secrecy, Execution Methods & the International Response

Maya Foa

Maya Foa is the Joint Executive Director at Reprieve, where she leads a team of lawyers fight­ing against human rights abus­es. She was select­ed as a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader in 2019, and has received numer­ous oth­er dis­tinc­tions, includ­ing for her inno­v­a­tive work trac­ing phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal sup­ply chains and con­sult­ing with man­u­fac­tur­ers to help them pre­vent the use of their life-sav­ing drugs in executions.

Austin Sarat

Professor Sarat is a pio­neer­ing fig­ure in the devel­op­ment of legal study in the lib­er­al arts, of the human­is­tic study of law, and of the cul­tur­al study of law. He is also an inter­na­tion­al­ly renowned schol­ar of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, spe­cial­iz­ing in efforts to under­stand its social, polit­i­cal, and cul­tur­al sig­nif­i­cance in the United States. 

Professor Sarat found­ed both Amherst College’s Department of Law, Jurisprudence, and Social Thought and the nation­al schol­ar­ly asso­ci­a­tion, The Association for the Study of Law, Culture, and the Humanities. He is for­mer President of that Association and has also served as President of the Law and Society Association and of the Consortium of Undergraduate Law and Justice Programs. 

He is author or edi­tor of more than one hun­dred books includ­ing Lethal Injection and the False Promise of Humane Execution, The Death Penalty on the Ballot: American Democracy and the Fate of Capital Punishment, Gruesome Spectacles: Botched Executions and America’s Death Penalty, The Road to Abolition?: The Future of Capital Punishment in the United States, The Killing State: Capital Punishment in Law, Politics, and Culture, When the State Kills: Capital Punishment and the American Condition, The Cultural Lives of Capital Punishment: Comparative Perspectives, and Mercy on Trial: What It Means to Stop an Execution.

Other books include Something to Believe in: Politics, Professionalism, and Cause Lawyers (with Stuart Scheingold); Cultural Analysis, Cultural Studies and the Law: Moving Beyond Legal Realism (with Jonathan Simon); Looking Back at Law’s Century (with Robert Kagan and Bryant Garth); and The Blackwell Companion to Law and Society. 

He is edi­tor of the jour­nal Law, Culture and the Humanities and of Studies in Law, Politics, and Society. 

Professor Sarat has received numer­ous prizes and awards includ­ing the Jeffrey Ferguson Memorial Teaching Award giv­en by Amherst College for dis­tin­guished teach­ing and con­tri­bu­tions to the cur­ricu­lum and the intel­lec­tu­al life of the col­lege; The Harry Kalven Award giv­en by the Law Society Association for ​“dis­tin­guished research on law and soci­ety;” the Reginald Heber Smith Award giv­en bien­ni­al­ly to hon­or the best schol­ar­ship on ​“the sub­ject of equal access to jus­tice”; the James Boyd White Award, from the Association for the Study of Law, Culture, and the Humanities, giv­en for dis­tin­guished schol­ar­ly achieve­ment and ​“out­stand­ing and inno­v­a­tive” con­tri­bu­tions to the human­is­tic study of law; the Stan Wheeler Prize. award­ed by the Law & Society Association, for dis­tin­guished teach­ing and men­tor­ing of under­grad­u­ate, grad­u­ate, or pro­fes­sion­al stu­dents work­ing on issues of law and soci­ety; the Hugo Adam Bedau Award, giv­en to hon­or sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tions to death penal­ty schol­ar­ship by the Massachusetts Coalition Against the Death Penalty; and, in 2011, the Lasting Contribution Award by the American Political Science Association’s Section on Law and Courts ​“for a book or jour­nal arti­cle, 10 years or old­er, that has made a last­ing impres­sion on the field of law and courts” and the Ronald Pipkin Award, giv­en by the Law and Society Association for dis­tin­guished ser­vice to the field of law and society.

His book, When Government Breaks the Law: Prosecuting the Bush Administration, was rec­og­nized on one of the best books of 2010 by the Huffington Post.

In May, 2008 Providence College award­ed Prof. Sarat an hon­orary degree in recog­ni­tion of his pio­neer­ing work in the devel­op­ment of legal study in the lib­er­al arts and his dis­tin­guished schol­ar­ship on cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in the United States.

His pub­lic writ­ing has appeared in such places as The Washington Post, NBC. com, The New Republic, The Guardian, The Hill, The Boston Globe, The Cleveland Plain-Dealer, The San Francisco Chronicle, The National Law Journal, The Providence Journal, The Los Angeles Times, The American Prospect, Aljazeera America, Slate, Salon, USA Today, US News, CNN, Politico, and The Daily Beast.

He has been a com­men­ta­tor or guest on The Asleigh Banfield Show, HuffPost Live, Bloomberg Radio, National Public Radio, All Things Considered, Morning Edition, WGN NewsNation, Public Television’s The News Hour, Odyssey, The Why? On Newsy, Democracy Now, RT International, ABC World News Tonight, MSNBC, Aljazeera America TV, Sputnik News-Moscow, All In with Chris Hayes, The Point with Ari Melber, and The O’Reilly Factor. 

A pro­file of him in US News and World Report not­ed that he is ​“one of the best loved pro­fes­sors at Amherst College” and praised his teach­ing for com­bin­ing ​“inno­va­tion and inspi­ra­tion.” His teach­ing also has been fea­tured in The New York Times, on NPR’s Fresh Air, and NBC’s The Today Show.

DPIC Presenters & Moderators

Robert Dunham

Robert Dunham is Executive Director of the Death Penalty Information Center and a nation­al­ly rec­og­nized expert on the death penal­ty. Before join­ing DPIC in March 2015, he was one of the lead­ing cap­i­tal appeal lawyers in Pennsylvania, argu­ing on behalf of the Commonwealth’s death-row pris­on­ers in its state and fed­er­al courts and in the United States Supreme Court.

Mr. Dunham served as Executive Director of the for­mer Pennsylvania Capital Case Resource Center from 1994 to 1999; Director of Training of the Capital Habeas Unit of the Philadelphia fed­er­al defend­er’s office from 1999 to 2009; and as an assis­tant fed­er­al defend­er in the Harrisburg fed­er­al defender’s cap­i­tal habeas unit from 2009 until he joined DPIC. Collectively the offices over­turned more than 150 uncon­sti­tu­tion­al­ly imposed death sen­tences, against just three exe­cu­tions — all of men­tal­ly ill pris­on­ers who waived their appeals. Mr. Dunham start­ed his legal career as a lit­i­ga­tion asso­ciate at Schnader, Harrison, Segal & Lewis in Philadelphia, where he was a mem­ber of the First Amendment Practice Group and han­dled his first pro bono cap­i­tal case. He pre­vi­ous­ly served five years as a leg­isla­tive assis­tant to State Representative Robert W. O’Donnell, lat­er the Speaker of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives.

Mr. Dunham has taught in death penal­ty train­ing pro­grams in the United States for more than twen­ty-five years and pre­sent­ed in class­rooms and inter­na­tion­al con­fer­ences in Canada, Europe, and Asia. He was an adjunct pro­fes­sor of law at Villanova Law School for eleven years, teach­ing death penal­ty law, and has also taught death penal­ty at Temple Law School and as a vis­it­ing schol­ar at Oklahoma State University. He has served on the Steering Committee of the American Bar Association’s Death Penalty Representation Project and on the board of direc­tors of the Pennsylvania Innocence Project and the Pennsylvania Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, and was a board mem­ber and board pres­i­dent of the Philadelphia crime vic­tim assis­tance pro­gram, Northwest Victim Services.

Ngozi Ndulue

Ngozi Ndulue joined DPIC’s staff as Director of Research and Special Projects in September 2018 and became Deputy Director in November 2021. Ms. Ndulue’s career as a lawyer has focused on the inter­sec­tion of racial jus­tice and the crim­i­nal legal sys­tem. After grad­u­at­ing from Yale Law School, she clerked for Judge Eric L. Clay on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. She lit­i­gat­ed on behalf of death-sen­tenced indi­vid­u­als as an Assistant Federal Public Defender in Phoenix, Arizona and as a staff mem­ber of the Ohio Justice and Policy Center (OJPC) in Cincinnati, Ohio. At OJPC, Ngozi also engaged in pol­i­cy research, coali­tion build­ing, and advo­ca­cy on a vari­ety of state and local crim­i­nal jus­tice issues. Before com­ing to DPIC, Ngozi served as Senior Director of Criminal Justice Programs at the nation­al NAACP, where much of her work cen­tered on pro­vid­ing unit train­ing, strate­gic direc­tion, and research to sup­port the NAACP’s crim­i­nal justice agenda.