Veterans and the Death Penalty Webinar Series — Faculty

Death Penalty Information Center and Veteran Advocacy Project
Webinar Series on
Veterans and the Death Penalty

Faculty

November 9 – 19, 2020

Co-Sponsored by Advancing Real Change and Witness to Innocence

Kirk Bloodsworth

An hon­or­ably dis­charged Marine, Kirk Bloodsworth is the first per­son in the United States to be exon­er­at­ed from death row based on DNA test­ing. In 1984, he was arrest­ed for the rape and mur­der of nine-year-old Dawn Hamilton. He was sen­tenced to death in Baltimore County, Maryland in 1985. 

In 1989, Kirk read about a new foren­sic break­through called DNA fin­ger­print­ing and in 1992 lob­bied suc­cess­ful­ly for pros­e­cu­tors’ approval for its use on evi­dence col­lect­ed at the crime scene in 1985. The tests incon­tro­vert­ibly estab­lished Kirk’s inno­cence, and he was released in June 1993 after near­ly nine years in prison, two of which he spent on death row. In December 1994, Maryland Governor William Donald Schaefer grant­ed Kirk a full par­don based on inno­cence. In 2003, the real killer was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to life in prison.

Kirk cur­rent­ly lives in Philadelphia and is the Executive Director of Witness to Innocence.
Since his exon­er­a­tion, Kirk has devot­ed him­self to abol­ish­ing the death penal­ty and address­ing wrong­ful con­vic­tions. He has tes­ti­fied before the United States Congress as well as numer­ous state leg­is­la­tures, has authored numer­ous op-eds, and giv­en count­less oth­er media inter­views. In 2004, Congress passed the Innocence Protection Act, which estab­lished the Kirk Bloodsworth Post-Conviction DNA Testing Program to help states defray the costs of test­ing DNA evi­dence after con­vic­tion. Today, the Act pro­vides $10 mil­lion per year in fed­er­al grants for DNA testing.

Kirk has been a mem­ber of Witness to Innocence since its incep­tion. After teach­ing him­self the art of sil­ver­smithing, Kirk cre­at­ed sig­na­ture ​“exoneree” and ​“death row exoneree” 28g ster­ling sil­ver rings, which he has gift­ed to 235 exonerees to date.

CAPT Art Cody, USN (Ret.)

Captain Art Cody, U.S. Navy (Retired) is the Director of Criminal Programs at the Veteran Advocacy Project. His mil­i­tary career spans more than thir­ty years and he has served world­wide. Art began his career as an Army heli­copter pilot fol­lowed by a sim­i­lar role in the Navy Reserve fly­ing for a Strike Rescue/​Special Operations Squadron. He served aboard USS Enterprise (CVN-65) in the ini­tial response to the 9 – 11 attacks and was most recent­ly deployed to Afghanistan (2011 – 2012) as the Staff Director of the Rule of Law Section, U.S. Embassy Kabul. 

As a civil­ian lawyer, Art has rep­re­sent­ed cap­i­tal clients for more than twen­ty years. He is a for­mer chair of the Capital Punishment Committee of the New York City Bar Association, and cur­rent­ly co-chair of the New York State Bar Association’s Veterans Committee. He fre­quent­ly presents nation­al­ly on the defense of vet­er­ans, pro­vides coun­sel to lawyers for cap­i­tal­ly charged or sen­tenced vet­er­ans, and served as lead coun­sel in a vet­er­an cap­i­tal clemen­cy hear­ing. Most recent­ly (January 2020), he assist­ed Advancing Real Change and the Southern Center for Human Rights in obtain­ing clemen­cy for Jimmy Meders, an Army veteran. 

In addi­tion to an Aerospace Engineering degree from West Point, Art grad­u­at­ed magna cum laude from Notre Dame Law School where he was the Executive Editor of the Notre Dame Law Review and found­ed the Notre Dame Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. He is a recip­i­ent of the New York City Bar Association’s Thurgood Marshall Award for Capital Representation, the Four Chaplains Legion of Honor Humanitarian Award for Lifetime Service, and the New York State Bar Association’s 2019 David S. Michaels Award for his rep­re­sen­ta­tion of vet­er­ans in Criminal Courts. His mil­i­tary dec­o­ra­tions include the Navy Bronze Star Medal, Meritorious Service Medal, Naval Aviator Badge, Army Aviator Badge, Army Parachutist Badge and the German Armed Forces Parachutist Badge. Additionally, he received the State Department’s Meritorious Honor Award for his ser­vice in Kabul.

Richard C. Dieter

Richard Dieter served as Executive Director of the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington, D.C. from 1992 until 2015. He is the author of 40 reports on the death penal­ty that have been wide­ly cit­ed in the nation­al media and uti­lized at all lev­els of state and nation­al gov­ern­ment, includ­ing the U.S. Supreme Court. His 2015 DPIC report, Battle Scars: Veterans and the Death Penalty, received the Congressional Black Caucus’s Veterans Braintrust Award.

Dick has been a fre­quent guest on nation­al tele­vi­sion and radio news pro­grams and has been wide­ly quot­ed in the nation’s news­pa­pers. He is cur­rent­ly the Principal Consultant at RDieter Communications.

Dick served as an Adjunct Professor at the Catholic University School of Law for 14 years. He was a founder of the Pre-Trial Release Program at the Community for Creative Non-vio­lence in Washington and the co-founder of the Alderson Hospitality House for vis­i­tors to the country’s main fed­er­al women’s prison in West Virginia. He cur­rent­ly serves as Treasurer of the Board of Directors for Witness to Innocence, and as a Board Member of the Capital Punishment Research Initiative and the Catholic Mobilizing Network. Dick received the Frederick Douglass Human Rights Award from the Southern Center for Human Rights in 2016.

Dick received his law degree from the Georgetown University Law Center, where he was named a Public Interest Law Scholar.

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.

Rob 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. Rob start­ed his legal career as a lit­i­ga­tion asso­ciate at Schnader, Harrison, Segal & Lewis in Philadelphia, where he 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.

Rob has taught in death penal­ty train­ing pro­grams across the coun­try for more than twen­ty-five years. 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. Rob 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. He is the recip­i­ent of the Outstanding Legal Service Award from the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty; the Liberty Award for career achieve­ment from the Pennsylvania Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers; and the Andrew Hamilton career pub­lic ser­vice award from the Public Interest Section of the Philadelphia Bar Association. A University Scholar in Philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania, Rob received his law degree from the Georgetown University Law Center, where he was man­ag­ing edi­tor of the Georgetown Law Journal.

Dr. Jerid Fisher

Jerid M. Fisher, Ph.D. is a Board Certified Forensic Neuropsychologist with more than 30 years’ expe­ri­ence. He earned his Bachelor’s degree in Psychology from Duke University and his Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the University of Rochester. After work­ing at the University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC) as a Senior Instructor in Psychiatry and Neurology and the Director of the Cognitive Functions Laboratory, Fisher left acad­e­mia to devel­op brain injury reha­bil­i­ta­tion pro­grams across New York State. Fisher has spe­cial­ized in high pro­file lit­i­ga­tion as a crim­i­nal expert for both the pros­e­cu­tion and defense as well as work­ing as a plain­tiff and defense expert in civ­il litigation matters. 

In Fisher’s for­mer role as the Chairman of the National Academy of Neuropsychology Foundation (2016 – 2017), he was par­tic­u­lar­ly inter­est­ed in edu­cat­ing the chil­dren of our Wounded Warriors, edit­ing the book​“My Dad Got Hurt. What Can I Do?”, which was giv­en away to mil­i­tary fam­i­lies. The book was lat­er award­ed the Silver Seal by the Military Writers Society of America. Fisher is a fel­low of the American College of Professional Neuropsychology, Clinical Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the URMC, and Adjunct Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychology at SUNY Albany. He has pub­lished mul­ti­ple peer-reviewed arti­cles, book chap­ters, and books, includ­ing the true crime sto­ry, Upside Down: Madness, Murder, and the Perfect Marriage.

Brock Hunter

Brock Hunter is a crim­i­nal defense attor­ney who han­dles all types of crim­i­nal cas­es in the state and fed­er­al courts. Brock has served as the President and Legislative Chair for the Minnesota Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (MACDL) and received its Special Achievement Award in 2009. 

Brock is also a for­mer U.S. Army recon scout who focus­es his prac­tice on defend­ing psy­cho­log­i­cal­ly injured vet­er­ans in the crim­i­nal courts and advo­cat­ing for reforms in the way the jus­tice sys­tem deals with them. Brock helped draft and lead pas­sage of Minnesota’s Veterans Sentencing Mitigation Act, Minn. Stat. 609.115, subd. 10., which was sub­se­quent­ly cit­ed in the land­mark U.S. Supreme Court case, Porter v. McCollum, 130 S. Ct. 447, at 455, n.9 (2009), the Court’s first to address com­bat trau­ma in criminal sentencing. 

Brock has since helped pass sim­i­lar vet­er­an sen­tenc­ing leg­is­la­tion in oth­er states, has been called on to brief the Obama and Trump Administrations, and has spo­ken to lead­er­ship of the Department of Defense, and the Department of Veterans Affairs on more effec­tive ways to address trou­bled vet­er­ans who com­mit crimes. Brock has also trained thou­sands of attor­neys, judges, law enforce­ment offi­cers, and men­tal health pro­fes­sion­als across the coun­try on these same issues. 

Brock is the lead edi­tor and co-author of the book, The Attorney’s Guide to Defending Veterans in Criminal Court. He is also the co-founder and President of the Veterans Defense Project (VDP) – a non-prof­it ded­i­cat­ed to advo­cat­ing and edu­cat­ing for vet­er­ans in the jus­tice sys­tem (more infor­ma­tion on the Defending Veterans book and the VDP avail­able at http://​vet​er​ans​de​fense​pro​ject​.org/.)

Gilbert King

Gilbert King is the author of three books, most recent­ly, Beneath a Ruthless Sun. His pre­vi­ous book, Devil in the Grove, was award­ed the Pulitzer Prize for gen­er­al non­fic­tion in 2013. A New York Times best­seller, the book was also named run­ner-up for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize for non­fic­tion, and was a final­ist for both the Chautauqua Prize and the Edgar Award. 

Devil in the Grove details the case of the Groveland Four, who were false­ly accused of the rape of a white woman in Groveland, Florida. African American army vet­er­ans Samuel Shepherd and Walter Irvin were wrong­ly con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death in the case, 16-year-old Charles Greenlee was sen­tenced to life, and Ernest Thomas was shot to death by a lynch mob led by Lake County sher­iff Willis V. McCall. After Thurgood Marshall and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund became involved in the case, the U.S. Supreme Court over­turned Shepherd’s and Irvin’s death sen­tences. McCall lat­er shot Shepherd and Irvin, claim­ing they had tried to escape. Shepherd was mur­dered, but Irvin played dead and sur­vived the shoot­ing. Irvin was again tried and sen­tenced to death, receiv­ing a last-minute reprieve from exe­cu­tion before his sen­tence was ulti­mate­ly com­mut­ed by the governor.

King has writ­ten about race, civ­il rights, and the death penal­ty for the New York Times, the Washington Post, and The Atlantic, and he is a con­trib­u­tor to The Marshall Project, a non­prof­it news orga­ni­za­tion cov­er­ing the U.S. crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem. King’s ear­li­er book, The Execution of Willie Francis, was pub­lished in 2008. He lives in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Ray Krone

Ray Krone co-found­ed Witness to Innocence with Sister Helen Prejean in 2003. Before his exon­er­a­tion in 2002, Ray spent more than 10 years in Arizona pris­ons, includ­ing near­ly three years on death row, for a mur­der he did not commit. 

Honorably dis­charged from the U.S. Air Force and work­ing for the U.S. Postal Service, Ray’s world was turned upside down in 1991, when Kim Ancona was mur­dered in a Phoenix bar at which Ray was an occa­sion­al cus­tomer. The case against him was based large­ly on cir­cum­stan­tial evi­dence and the lat­er dis­cred­it­ed junk-sci­ence tes­ti­mo­ny of a pros­e­cu­tion ​“expert” who claimed bite marks found on the vic­tim matched Ray’s teeth. He was sen­tenced to death in 1992. In 2002, with the help of attor­ney Alan Simpson and DNA impli­cat­ing a recent­ly released sex offend­er who was liv­ing in the vicin­i­ty of the bar, he con­vinced an appeals court to over­turn his con­vic­tion. When pros­e­cu­tors dropped the charges that April, Ray became the 100^th per­son exon­er­at­ed from death row since the rein­state­ment of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in the United States in 1976.

Ray con­tin­ues to be an active mem­ber of Witness to Innocence, speak­ing across the nation and urg­ing states to abol­ish the death penal­ty. He now lives with his part­ner Cheryl Naill in Tennessee and devotes his life to improv­ing the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem that failed him. ​“I would not trust the state to exe­cute a per­son for com­mit­ting a crime against anoth­er per­son,” he says. ​“I know how the sys­tem works. It’s not about jus­tice or fair­ness or equal­i­ty. Any chance I can, whether I start with one or two peo­ple or a whole audi­to­ri­um filled with peo­ple, I’ll tell them what hap­pened to me. Because if it hap­pened to me, it can hap­pen to anyone.”

Ngozi Ndulue

Ngozi Ndulue is Senior Director of Research and Special Projects at the Death Penalty Information Center. Ngozi’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 in September 2018. 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.

Ngozi is the prin­ci­ple author of DPIC’s land­mark September 2020 report, Enduring Injustice: The Persistence of Racial Discrimination in the U.S. Death Penalty.

Teresa Norris

Teresa is Special Assistant Public Defender in the Ninth Judicial Circuit of South Carolina, pri­mar­i­ly assigned to aggra­vat­ed mur­der tri­al cas­es in both Charleston and Berkeley Counties. She has rep­re­sent­ed approx­i­mate­ly 45 – 50 cap­i­tal defen­dants through­out all stages of their cas­es, from pre­tri­al pro­ceed­ings through clemen­cy and has served as a con­sul­tant, both pro bono and retained, in numer­ous oth­er death penal­ty cas­es. Most of her work has been in South Carolina, but she has also rep­re­sent­ed death-sen­tenced pris­on­ers in Mississippi, North Carolina, Texas, Virginia, the mil­i­tary, and the federal system. 

Teresa served as Director of the Center for Capital Litigation, a pri­vate non-prof­it devot­ed to cap­i­tal defense, in Columbia, South Carolina from 1994 – 2006, after four years as an Army Officer in the United States Army Legal Services Agency, Defense Appellate Division in Falls Church, Virginia. From April 2006 until she joined the Public Defender office in November 2016, she was in pri­vate prac­tice in Columbia, South Carolina, pri­mar­i­ly doing cap­i­tal defense work.

Lt. Col. Jonathan Potter (Ret.)

Jonathan Potter is cur­rent­ly the Senior Appellate Capital Counsel in the United States Army Defense Appellate Division (DAD). He has been rep­re­sent­ing sol­diers on appeal since 1999, includ­ing the last four sen­tenced to death. He has also served as an Assistant United States Attorney in the Criminal Section, Northern District of Indiana; a Trial Attorney in the Office of Immigration Litigation at the Department of Justice, and a Trial Attorney in the Attorney General’s Office for the District of Columbia, Equity Section. During his mil­i­tary career, in addi­tion to work­ing at DAD, he served as the Chief of Military Justice, 101^st Airborne Division (Air Assault); Lead Litigation Attorney, Environmental Law Division-Rocky Mountain Arsenal; and Appellate Counsel, Government Appellate Division.

He has an L.L.M. in Environmental Law from George Washington University; an L.L.M. in Military Law from The Judge Advocates General’s School, United States Army; a J.D. from Valparaiso University School of Law; and is a grad­u­ate of the United States Army’s Command and General Staff College. Lt. Col. Potter retired from Active Duty in the Army in 2016.

Dr. Victoria Reynolds

Victoria Reynolds. Ph.D. is a clin­i­cal psy­chol­o­gist who spe­cial­izes in the assess­ment and treat­ment of the impact of trau­mat­ic life expe­ri­ences, includ­ing child­hood sex­u­al abuse, phys­i­cal abuse and neglect, adult rape, domes­tic vio­lence, mil­i­tary sex­u­al trau­ma, and expo­sure to com­bat. She is a nation­al­ly known foren­sic trau­ma con­sul­tant on cap­i­tal and oth­er mur­der cas­es, where she pro­vides expert assess­ment and tes­ti­mo­ny on the effects of child­hood mal­treat­ment, domes­tic vio­lence, and adult trau­ma expo­sure on devel­op­ment and behavior. 

Dr. Reynolds worked for Department of Veteran Affairs Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina until 2012, where she was the lead psy­chol­o­gist in the Women’s Comprehensive Health Center and the Male Military Sexual Trauma Program. In this capac­i­ty, she treat­ed male and female vet­er­ans who had expe­ri­enced child­hood trau­ma as well as expo­sure to com­bat and sex­u­al assault dur­ing their mil­i­tary ser­vice. She taught and trained staff, res­i­dents and post-doc­tor­al fel­lows in the assess­ment and diag­no­sis of trau­ma-relat­ed dis­or­ders such a PTSD and com­plex PTSD and in evi­dence-based treat­ment mod­els for trau­ma-relat­ed diag­noses. Before work­ing for the VA System, she did her post-doc­tor­al fel­low­ship and held a staff posi­tion at the Duke University’s Center for Child and Family Health, a foren­sic trau­ma and treat­ment cen­ter for chil­dren and families.

She has giv­en invit­ed lec­tures, nation­al­ly, on the devel­op­men­tal impacts of child­hood and adult trau­ma, and has pro­vid­ed con­sul­ta­tion across the coun­try with­in the VA sys­tem on the par­tic­u­lar effects of sex­u­al abuse on males. She has been an active mem­ber of the International Society For Traumatic Stress Studies for more than 20 years, where she has pre­sent­ed papers and chaired sym­posia on the effects of trau­mat­ic expe­ri­ences on children’s devel­op­ment and sub­se­quent adult behavior. 

Dr. Reynolds grad­u­at­ed magna cum laude from Brown University and received her Ph.D. from Duke University. 

Judge Robert Russell

Judge Robert Russell is an Associate Judge for Buffalo City Court and serves by appoint­ment as an Acting Erie County Court Judge. In January 2008, he cre­at­ed and began pre­sid­ing over this Country’s first ​“Veterans’ Treatment Court.” The National Vietnam Veterans of America has award­ed Russell with the Vietnam Veterans of America Achievement Medal and The National Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States has award­ed Russell with the James E. Dan Zandt Citizenship Award. Russell is also the recip­i­ent of the 2014 White House Advocates for Action Award, pre­sent­ed by the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) and the 2015 AMVETS- American Veterans (National) Silver Helmet Award. 

Russell cre­at­ed and pre­sides over Buffalo’s Drug Treatment Court since December 1995. His work in the treat­ment court field led to his induc­tion into the National Association of Drug Court Professionals’ Hall of Fame. He is also the recip­i­ent of the New York State Association of Drug Treatment Court Professionals’ Leadership Award. In addi­tion, he estab­lished and began pre­sid­ing over Buffalo’s Mental Health Treatment Court. The National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI), an advo­ca­cy orga­ni­za­tion for the men­tal­ly ill, has award­ed Russell with the Nancy D. Smith Memoriam Award. 

Russell is the Past Chairman of the Board of Directors of the National Association of Drug Court Professionals, Inc., and the Past President of the New York State Association of Drug Treatment Court Professionals, Inc. He also served on the National Advisory Board of the Judges’ Criminal Justice/​Mental Health Leadership Initiative (JLI). The JLI is co-coor­di­nat­ed by the Council of State Governments’ (CSG) and The National Gains Center. He is the recip­i­ent of sev­er­al Awards of Merit from the American Bar Association, New York State Bar Association, and the Erie County Bar Association. Community Awards include the Buffalo News 2009 Outstanding Citizen Award and the Leadership Buffalo 2010 Openness to Change Award. Russell is a grad­u­ate of Howard University Law School in Washington, DC

Col. Dwight H. Sullivan, USMC

Dwight Sullivan is the Senior Associate Deputy General Counsel for Military Justice and Personnel Policy in the Department of Defense Office of General Counsel. He is a retired colonel in the United States Marine Corps Reserve. His pre­vi­ous posi­tions include chief defense coun­sel of the mil­i­tary com­mis­sion sys­tem, senior lit­i­ga­tion coun­sel and act­ing chief of the Air Force Appellate Defense Division, and man­ag­ing attor­ney of the American Civil Liberties of Maryland’s Baltimore office. He spent the first 10 years of his legal career as an active duty Marine Corps judge advocate.

Dwight is an elect­ed mem­ber of the American Law Institute, the co-author of a mil­i­tary jus­tice case­book, and the author of numer­ous law review arti­cles on mil­i­tary and Maryland law. He holds a J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law, a B.A. and M.A. from the University of Maryland College Park, and an LL.M. from The Judge Advocate General’s School, U.S. Army. He lives in Arnold, Maryland, with his wife (Lynne), daugh­ter (Shannon), and dogs (Liberty and Sailor). 

Jennifer Taylor

Jennifer Taylor, Senior Attorney at the Equal Justice Initiative, has been liv­ing and work­ing in Montgomery, Alabama since her 2010 grad­u­a­tion from Yale Law School. At EJI, Jennifer has rep­re­sent­ed incar­cer­at­ed men and women chal­leng­ing their con­vic­tions, sen­tences, and inhu­mane con­di­tions of con­fine­ment — includ­ing men and women on death row, and clients sen­tenced to life with­out parole as chil­dren. Jennifer also research­es, writes, and speaks as part of EJI’s pub­lic edu­ca­tion project link­ing mass incar­cer­a­tion and American racial his­to­ry; and con­tributes con­tent and design to exhibits for The Legacy Museum: From Enslavement to Mass Incarceration and The National Memorial for Peace and Justice.

Jennifer has a B.A. in Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity from Stanford University and a Master’s in Journalism from Columbia University. She was edi­tor and a con­tribut­ing author of EJI’s 2019 report, Targeting Black Veterans: Lynching in America.

Edward J. Ungvarsky

Ed Ungvarsky is Principal with Ungvarsky Law, PLLC in Alexandria, Virginia, where he pro­vides crim­i­nal and cap­i­tal defense rep­re­sen­ta­tion and com­plex civ­il case rep­re­sen­ta­tion in Washington, DC, Northern Virginia, and in the fed­er­al courts with­in the District of Columbia, Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia. Prior to open­ing his own pri­vate prac­tice, Ed served as a pub­lic defend­er and cap­i­tal defend­er in Washington, D.C. and Northern Virginia. 

Ed and his teams have suc­cess­ful­ly avoid­ed the death penal­ty for all of their cap­i­tal clients. In 2018, Ed’s team obtained a life sen­tence after a jury tri­al for a U.S. Army Staff Sergeant tried for the mur­ders of his wife and a respond­ing police offi­cer in Prince William County, Virginia — the first time the local pros­e­cu­tor had failed to obtain a death sen­tence in 50 years in office. 

Ed fre­quent­ly lec­tures on issues relat­ed to the death penal­ty, tri­al advo­ca­cy, foren­sic sci­ence evi­dence and expert tes­ti­mo­ny, and ethics and pro­fes­sion­al­ism. He serves on the fac­ul­ties of Harvard Law School’s Trial Advocacy Workshop, the National College of Capital Voir Dire, and pro­vides train­ing at oth­er law schools and nation­al legal edu­ca­tion pro­grams. Ed received his B.A. from Wesleyan University and his J.D. from Yale Law School. After law school, Ed clerked in Montgomery, Alabama for the Honorable Frank M. Johnson, Jr., on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. Ed received the 2014 NLADA Kutak-Dodds Award for his extra­or­di­nary work for jus­tice over his career, the 2017 – 18 Bill Geimer Award from the Virginia Capital Case Clearinghouse, and has been list­ed as a top crim­i­nal defense in the DC/​VA area by The Washingtonian and Northern Virginia Magazine.

Ralph ​“Ron” Wright

Ralph ​“Ron” Wright Jr. was an Air Force Sergeant and Orange County Deputy Sheriff who spent three years on Florida’s death row, wrong­ful­ly incar­cer­at­ed for the mur­der of his for­mer girl­friend and her young son in 2007.

No foren­sic evi­dence, weapon, cell records, or any eye­wit­ness tes­ti­mo­ny incrim­i­nat­ed Ron. The prosecution’s key piece of evi­dence was a black glove of the same kind issued to Ron’s mil­i­tary unit; how­ev­er, ana­lysts were uncer­tain if it came from Ron’s mil­i­tary base. DNA tests on the glove run by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement showed no defin­i­tive match for Ron, and inde­pen­dent analy­ses by labs hired by both the defense and pros­e­cu­tion exclud­ed Ron. In August 2014, he was con­vict­ed sole­ly on the basis of poten­tial motive and oppor­tu­ni­ty; a jury vot­ed 7 – 5 to rec­om­mend the death penal­ty. The Florida Supreme Court unan­i­mous­ly over­turned Ron’s con­vic­tion and entered a judg­ment of acquit­tal in May 2017, find­ing that the evi­dence against him was ​“pure­ly cir­cum­stan­tial” and insuf­fi­cient to con­vict Ron on any charges. He became the 27^th per­son since 1973 to be exon­er­at­ed from Florida’s death row.

In October 2016, while Ron’s case was on appeal, the Florida Supreme Court declared death sen­tences based upon non-unan­i­mous jury rec­om­men­da­tions to be uncon­sti­tu­tion­al. Then, in January 2020, the court reversed course and said they were con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly per­mis­si­ble. In the inter­im, the Florida leg­is­la­ture repealed the por­tion of the state’s death-penal­ty statute that allowed judges to impose death sen­tences based on non-unan­i­mous jury recommendations.

Ron now lives in Florida, where along with many oth­er Florida exonerees, he fights for death penalty abolition.

Dr. Stephen N. Xenakis, Brigadier General (Ret.), U.S. Army

Dr. Xenakis is an adult, child, and ado­les­cent psy­chi­a­trist with many years of clin­i­cal, aca­d­e­m­ic, and man­age­ment expe­ri­ence. He retired from the U.S. Army in 1998 at the rank of brigadier gen­er­al and entered an active career in start-up med­ical tech­nolo­gies and clin­i­cal prac­tice. He has advised the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and oth­er senior Department of Defense offi­cials on psy­cho­log­i­cal health, the effects of blast con­cus­sion, and sui­cide. During his career in the Army, he pio­neered the intro­duc­tion of telemed­i­cine appli­ca­tions includ­ing the devel­op­ment of a device for elec­tron­ic house-call ser­vices. He has an active clin­i­cal and research inter­est in promis­ing med­ical tech­nol­o­gy, includ­ing quan­ti­ta­tive elec­troen­cephalog­ra­phy (qEEG). He found­ed of the Center for Translational Medicine to devel­op treat­ments and con­ducts tests on brain-relat­ed con­di­tions affect­ing sol­diers and veterans.

Dr. Xenakis has numer­ous med­ical pub­li­ca­tions and is an Adjunct Professor at the Uniformed Services of Health Sciences of the mil­i­tary med­ical depart­ment and on the Executive Board of the Center for Ethics and Rule of Law at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. He is a grad­u­ate of Princeton University and the University of Maryland School of Medicine.