Lumumba Akinwole-Bandele | Senior Organizer, NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc.

Lumumba Akinwole-Bandele is the Senior Organizer at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund’s Criminal Justice Project.  He is a father, husband, DJ, community organizer and educator from Central Brooklyn.

Stacy Anderson | Executive Director, Nebraskans Against the Death Penalty

Stacy Anderson is Executive Director of Nebraskans Against the Death Penalty. She studied Political Science at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and worked for a State Senator in the Nebraska Legislature for five years before taking her current position. She is very involved with her church, enjoys studying Chinese language and culture, and spends time assisting refugees in her community.

Tarrah Callahan | Acting Executive Director, North Carolina Coalition for a Moratorium

Tarrah Callahan is the Acting Executive Director of the North Carolina Coalition for a Moratorium (NCCM), soon to be the North Carolina Coalition for Alternatives to the Death Penalty.  She has been with NCCM since August 2008 and has been serving as the Director since October 2008. She first became involved in issues surrounding capital punishment as a student at UNC-Asheville in 2004 where she had the opportunity to participate in an investigative team working on the case of now exonerated Glen Edward Chapman.

Lisa Cisneros | Executive Director, Coloradans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty

Lisa Cisneros is the Executive Director of Coloradans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (CADP).  Before joining CADP, Lisa worked as a paralegal for a criminal defense attorney for 11 years where she gained extensive experience working on a death penalty case.  This is where Lisa gets her passion to work toward repeal in Colorado.  Lisa studied psychology and criminal justice at Metro State College in Denver.

Karen Clifton | Executive Director, Catholic Mobilizing Network

Karen Clifton is the Executive Director of the Catholic Mobilizing Network to End the Use of the Death Penalty, headquartered in Washington, DC.  She has been an organizer since 1990 and her work has been associated with the Catholic Worker, Catholic Campaign for Human Development, San Jose Clinic, AIDS ministry, Ignatian Spirituality Project (Retreats for the Homeless) and parish ministry in Houston, TX and DC.  Karen holds a Masters in Divinity from University of St. Thomas, St Mary’s School of Theology and has been a spiritual director since 1996.

Sophie Cull | Executive Director, Louisiana Coalition for Alternatives to the Death Penalty

Sophie Cull founded the Louisiana Coalition for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (LCADP) in September 2010 after working in two Louisiana capital defense law offices as a research coordinator. Sophie originally came to the United States from Australia as an intern in 2008. LCADP now has five staff, including Sophie who serves as Executive Director.

Elaine de Leon |  Communications Coordinator, Death Penalty Information Center

Elaine de Leon is the Communications Coordinator at the Death Penalty Information Center.  Elaine earned a Master’s degree from Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, DC, and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Drew University in New Jersey.  She has worked with both faith-based and secular non-profit organizations on various issues related to the death penalty.

Stephen Dear | Executive Director, People of Faith Against the Death Penalty

Steve Dear has been Executive Director of People of Faith Against the Death Penalty since 1997 and before that was Executive Director of the NC Rural Communities Assistance Project for five years. Steve is married to Dr. Janet Dear and they have two college-age children. An empty nester, Steve plays drums and bass in three local bands and has performed standup and improv comedy in the US and UK.

Celeste Fitzgerald | Steering Committee Coordinator, Proteus Fund, Inc

Celeste Fitzgerald, of Chatham, New Jersey, is the coordinator of a steering committee of a national death penalty abolition campaign. Previously she was the Executive Director of New Jerseyans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, the organization that led the campaigns that resulted in passage of New Jersey’s historic death penalty moratorium (2005) and abolition (2007) bills. She has been married for thirty-three years to her husband Kelly, with whom she raised two wonderful children.

Kathryn Hamoudah | Public Policy Associate, Southern Center for Human Rights

Kathryn Hamoudah is Public Policy Associate at the Southern Center for Human Rights. She supports the efforts of the Center through media, legislative and community advocacy. Kathryn is the Chairperson of Georgians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, the statewide anti-death penalty coalition. She’s worked to promote GFADP as an expert on the death penalty in Georgia through strategic media and community education. Kathryn was instrumental in elevating Georgia’s voice as part of the national and international campaign to stop the execution of Troy Davis.

Kristin Houlé | Executive Director, Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty

Kristin Houlé has been involved with the anti-death penalty movement since 1997.  She currently serves as the Executive Director of the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, a statewide grassroots membership organization based in Austin, Texas. From 2002 to 2007, she served as the Program Associate for Amnesty International USA’s Program to Abolish the Death Penalty in Washington, DC.

Martha A. (Marti) Hunt | Board Member, New Hampshire Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty

Marti Hunt has been a member of the New Hampshire Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty for the past three years serving as the chair of the finance committee and on the Faith Initiative.  She is one of three Episcopal diocesan representatives to the Coalition responsible for raising awareness of death penalty issues amongst Episcopalians in the diocese.  She is a retired elementary school principal and teacher, who lives in the country with her husband and two standard poodles.

Ron  Kaz | Co-Chair, South Carolinians Abolishing the Death Penalty (SCADP)

Ron Kaz, a carpenter from Charleston, SC and a lifelong abolitionist, is a founding member and current Co-Chair of South Carolinians Abolishing the Death Penalty (SCADP). A member of Amnesty International since 1977, he is its State Death Penalty Abolition Coordinator for South Carolina. Ron has been a part of the annual Fast and Vigil to Abolish the Death Penalty in front of the United States Supreme Court every year since the 1990s, and he intends to continue attending and helping to organize the Fast and Vigil until the death penalty is abolished in the United States.

Andrea Konow | Trial Attorney, Homicide Unit, Defender Association of Philadelphia

Andrea Konow is a trial attorney in the Homicide Unit of the Defender Association of Philadelphia.  She handles a caseload that is all homicide, both capital and non-capital. She has been a public defender for almost 27 years. She lives just outside Philly with her partner and daughter (12 years old and being Bat Mitzvahed in May!) along with the dog, the cat and the fish.

Laura Moye | Death Penalty Abolition Campaign Director, Amnesty International USA

Laura Moye is the Director of Amnesty International USA’s Death Penalty Abolition Campaign, based in Washington, DC. She has been an active voice for human rights and abolition of the death penalty since her days as a student activist. Laura has worked in various capacities for AIUSA over the past 14 years. She started working for AIUSA in the Southern Regional Office in 1998. Her focus there was on building the human rights activist base in the South. She has organized scores of conferences and trainings and provided support to AI chapters and volunteer leaders and social justice coalitions in their human rights work. As part of her anti-death penalty work, Laura co-founded Georgians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty and served as its chair for six years. She has worked on state legislative and clemency campaigns, including a campaign for a moratorium and study of Georgia’s death penalty and to stop the executions of death row prisoners. Laura lead AI’s four-year campaign on behalf of Georgia prisoner Troy Davis and worked on other major clemency campaigns, including for Osvaldo Torres in Oklahoma.

Gráinne O’Neill | Director, MyGideon Project

Gráinne O’Neill is the Director of the MyGideon Project at the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice at Harvard Law School, where she works on a variety of interdisciplinary projects relating to capital defense and the criminal justice system. Prior to working at the Institute, Gráinne was a public defender in New Orleans. She has a B.A. in mathematics and computer science from Cornell University and a J.D from Columbia Law School. She is a board member of the National Lawyers Guild and the Foundation for Responsibility and Open Government and is a member of the Louisiana Bar and is awaiting admission in New York. Gráinne enjoys bicycle riding, traveling, finding ways to fuse technology and the law, and traveling to New York to spend time with her partner.

Bill Pelke | President, Journey of Hope…from Violence to Healing

Bill Pelke is the President of the Journey of Hope…from Violence to Healing, an organization that is led by murder victim family members who oppose the death penalty. Bill campaigned successfully to have the death sentence of Paula Cooper, who was 15 years old when she killed his grandmother, overturned. He speaks for abolition, forgiveness, restorative justice and abolishing Juvenile Life Without Parole sentences.

Christina Swarns | Director, Criminal Justice Project, NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, Inc.

Christina Swarns is the Director of the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, Inc.’s Criminal Justice Project. In that capacity, Christina represents death sentenced prisoners in state post-conviction and federal habeas corpus appeals; litigates, consults and advises on such non-capital cases and issues as juvenile life without parole sentencing, indigent defense reform, and police and prosecutorial misconduct; and lectures extensively on issues of race and criminal justice at attorney training conferences, law schools, colleges and other venues. Christina is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania Law School and Howard University.

Liezl  Tomas Rebugio | Field Director, ACLU of Washington

Liezl Tomas Rebugio is the Field Director with the ACLU of Washington where she oversees the management and direction of statewide mobilization on priority issues, guides and supports the network of activists, and develops links with other civil rights and community-based organizations across the state. Liezl sits on the Working Group of the Safe & Just Alternatives, Washington’s campaign to replace the death penalty with life without parole. She is committed to finding the interconnectedness of social justice issues to bring together different communities.