CIVIL RIGHTS CORPS - Key Persons
As an Attorney at CRC, Ale works on challenging wealth-based discrimination in the criminal legal system...
Job Titles:
- Founder
- Our Executive Director
Alec is the founder of Civil Rights Corps. Before founding Civil Rights Corps, Alec was a civil rights lawyer and public defender.
Before founding Civil Rights Corps, Alec was a civil rights lawyer and public defender with the Special Litigation Division of the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia; a federal public defender in Alabama...
Alfredo's work in Houston is focused on connecting victims of police abuse to civil rights attorneys and building towards a more free Houston through advocacy and organizing.
Bina Ahmad is a social justice attorney, making the choice to become a lawyer to help dismantle and push back against the crushing might of the government.
Bina Ahmad (she/her) is a senior attorney at Civil Rights Corps (CRC) where she works primarily on the criminalization of poverty, prosecutor accountability, and police abuse. She is a social justice attorney, making the choice to become a lawyer to help dismantle and push back against the crushing might of the government. Before coming to CRC, Bina practiced for eight years as a public defender. She tried several felony cases working in state criminal defense with the Legal Aid Society of New York City and federal criminal defense with The Office of the Federal Public Defender in Los Angeles. As a state public defender, Bina challenged New York State's heinous automatic remand detention of fugitive warrant cases, changing the state's practice to allow for both bail and release in these cases.
As part of her work supporting radical movements and state-targeted communities, she has provided legal advice and support to numerous organizations. Since graduating from Northeastern University School of Law in 2005, she has conducted hundreds of Know Your Rights trainings from a curriculum she created. Bina has spoken on panels across the country on animal liberation, police and prison abolition, and international human rights along with fellow activists and thinkers such as Angela Davis, Amy Goodman, Laura Whitehorn and Bill Quigley. As both a lawyer and an activist, she has worked with numerous animal rights and human rights organizations. Bina lived and worked in Palestine with Al-Haq, served on the legal team for the Russell Tribunal on Palestine with Noura Erakat and tribunal jurors such as Angela Davis, Alice Walker and Russell Banks, and was a legal consultant to Badil Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights as well as to the Norwegian Refugee Council's Palestine Division. She served on the Steering Committee of the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights, and is currently an advisory board member of Food Empowerment Project. She also recently served as Global Strategic Litigation Fellow with the International Legal Foundation. In addition, Bina worked as a volunteer attorney with the Center for Constitutional Rights, provided legal support and advice to the international human rights non profit WITNESS, and supported hundreds of activists in their legal cases during Occupy Wall Street.
Her writings include co-authoring the paper "Shrinking Space and the Movement for BDS", and articles such as "Criminal Defense for Political Activists: A Lawyer's Solidarity with the Movement" in the ABA's GPS Solo Magazine, and "Eric Garner's Public Defender Says Cop and Prosecutors ‘Are a Team in Every Case'" for Vanity Fair.
Job Titles:
- Administrative Assistant
- CRC As the Administrative Assistant
As the Administrative Assistant, Brianna plays a pivotal role in ensuring the smooth and efficient operations of the organization's day-to-day activities.
Brianna joined CRC as the Administrative Assistant, where she plays a pivotal role in ensuring the smooth and efficient operations of the organization's day-to-day activities.
Prior to joining CRC, Brianna dedicated her time and skills to serving various communities in need. She served as a member of Americorps National Civilian Community Corps, where she actively participated in projects aimed at supporting underfunded communities across the United States. This experience allowed her to develop a strong passion for assisting vulnerable populations.
Job Titles:
- Deputy Director of Litigation
Brittany leads the Police Abuse Project at Civil Rights Corps. Her work aims to hold police accountable for abusive conduct while building shared community and power among advocates and survivors. She understands that the criminal legal system is this country's primary means of rebranding systemic racial oppression as "personal accountability" and "justice." Her advocacy is built on this understanding and grounded in an abolitionist ethic.
Brittany joined CRC after seven years as an appellate public defender and supervising attorney at the Center for Appellate Litigation. At CAL, Brittany served people convicted of crimes in Manhattan and the Bronx, many of whom were caged in New York State prisons. Each of Brittany's clients are a testament that hope and humanity bloom in the darkest places. Advocating on her clients' behalf required mastery of complex direct criminal appellate practice, case reinvestigation and collateral attack strategies and-in the crimmigration context-mitigation development and negotiation. Alongside her client representation, Brittany served as CAL's first-ever Director of Holistic Defense. In this role, she significantly expanded the capacity and efficiency of CAL's numerous Client Support Service projects while advising staff on the complexities of the New York State prison system.
Brittany received her J.D. from New York University School of Law, where she was a Root-Tilden-Kern Public Interest Scholar and Community Service Chair for the Women of Color Collective and the Black Allied Law Students Association. Upon graduation, Brittany clerked for the Honorable Ronald L. Ellis in the Southern District of New York. She holds a B.A. with Highest Distinction in Criminal Justice, Sociology, and Communication and Culture from Indiana University.
Carson is a senior attorney at Civil Rights Corps where raises systemic challenges to the criminalization of poverty. She is currently challenging wealth-based pretrial detention in California and North Carolina.
Before joining Civil Rights Corps, Carson worked with the Santa Clara Public Defender's Office in San Jose, California, where she co-founded and co-operated its novel early-representation unit. In that role, she represented scores of presumptively innocent community members who were caged pretrial for no other reason than that they could not afford their bail, and raised successful challenges the county's pretrial detention schemes in California's appellate courts. Prior to this, Carson was awarded a Stanford Postgraduate Public Interest Fellowship with the Habeas Corpus Resource Center in San Francisco, California, where she represented indigent death-sentenced Californians in their federal habeas proceedings.
Carson is a graduate of Stanford Law School and the University of Texas at Austin. She lives in Texas with her dog, Bark Ruffalo, and an army of houseplants.
In her role as a Litigation Support Fellow, Cassidy works alongside attorneys to challenge police impunity and wealth-based detention.
Cheryl is the Director of Storytelling for Civil Rights Corps. In collaboration with all CRC departments, Cheryl and the Storytelling team guide the organization's narrative strategies and campaigns helping to highlight the human toll the criminal system takes on our communities.
Cheryl brings to CRC 21 years of systemic reform work in California. She served as a founding director of The Anti-Recidivism Coalition where she helped develop the organization's core programs and operational infrastructure before leading its communications efforts. Most recently, Cheryl served as Director of Communications for The National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform; a non-profit providing research, training, and technical assistance around areas of system reform, violence reduction/interruption, and youth development, and Co-Founder of Creative Acts; a non-profit seeking to transform social justice issues through the revolutionary power of the Arts. With broad areas of expertise, she has the distinctive ability to facilitate action-driven dialogues across government and community forums, promoting mutual understanding and sustainable change. Elevating the voices of those most impacted by the criminal system continues to be her motivation.
Her career journey includes direct service as a Catholic Chaplain working with children being convicted as adults, program development and implementation for people who have experienced incarceration and crafting narrative strategies on how we see and treat our most marginalized communities. Cheryl's expertise has been influential in shifting policy changes in the California criminal system, creating employment opportunities for people who have experienced incarceration in fields such as entertainment and construction, and perhaps most importantly, mentoring our next generation of leaders and change-makers; young men and women who have experienced incarceration.
"The ripple effect of our criminal system has destroyed individuals, families, and communities for generations. When we see each other in our humanity, we are invested in each other's safety and success. This is where change happens."
Job Titles:
- Chief Operating Officer
- COO for the NAACP
Claudia is the Chief Operating Officer for Civil Rights Corps. Prior to her arrival at CRC, she was the Chief Operating Officer for the NAACP.
As COO, Claudia works with an amazing team that is responsible for issues including human resources, finance, information technology, facilities management and resource development Claudia is also responsible for working with managers to implement CRC's strategic plan, and for ensuring that all staff have access to the necessary training and expertise.
An employment lawyer by training, Claudia has served as COO for the NAACP and the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, as a Deputy General Counsel at the US Department of Education, as a program officer at the DC Bar Foundation, as the Executive Director of the Fair Employment Council, and as the Director of Employment Programs for the National Partnership for Women and Families, where she helped lead the coalition advocating for the DC Family and Medical Leave Act.
Claudia clerked for Judge Richard C. Erwin of the Middle District of North Carolina. She is a graduate of UNC Chapel Hill School of Law and Duke University.
Claudia joined CRC because she wants to be in partnership with those who work to change the trajectory for Black and Brown young people who find themselves stymied by the criminal legal system.
Cody is an attorney with Civil Rights Corps, where his work focuses on litigation and advocacy challenging money bail, private probation, and police abuse.
Prior to joining CRC, Cody was an Equal Justice Works Fellow with the Southern Center for Human Rights (SCHR) in Atlanta, Georgia. At SCHR, Cody worked closely with communities and individuals impacted by the criminal legal system, centering their voices in federal litigation fighting inhumane and degrading jail conditions, long prison sentences, and oppressive wealth extraction practices in the Deep South.
Cody received his J.D. from New York University School of Law, where he represented children charged with crimes as a student-attorney in the Juvenile Defender Clinic, defended noncitizens facing deportation in the Immigrant Rights Clinic, and served as Senior Articles Editor of the Review of Law and Social Change. Cody holds a bachelor's degree from Brown University. He is licensed to practice law in New York and Georgia.
A native New Englander, Cody's interests outside of work include puttering around the garden, swimming, and trying in vain to fix his broken jump shot.
Cornelia joins Civil Rights Corps with twenty years of non-profit administrative and management experience.
Cornelia supports the work of Civil Rights Corps and her colleagues, managing the day to day operations of our office, finances, technology, human resources and serving as liaison to our Board.
Cornelia has over twenty years of non-profit administrative and management experience. Supporting CRC's growth, almost doubling in size since her arrival, and coordinating the renovation and move to a new office space to accommodate the organizations growing needs has been her primary focus. Cornelia values a collaborative work environment and enjoys coordinating across multiple program areas.
With so many years of experience in the non-profit world, Cornelia's experience at Civil Rights Corps, is a change that, for the first time, allows her to directly witness the impact of her organization's work within her community. Cornelia holds a Bachelors in Administration of Justice from the University of the District of Columbia. As a quilter, Cornelia loves discovering and sharing African American quilt history.
Danielle is the Chief Executive Officer of Civil Rights Corps. Prior to joining the CRC team, Danielle was the Executive Director of the Million Dollar Hoods project and the Director of Research and Programs at the Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies at UCLA.
Danielle's education and experience are at the intersection of health and justice and she centers abolitionist principles in her efforts. Since 2006 Danielle has facilitated community-driven processes to challenge U.S. systems of justice administration and healthcare delivery in order to address racial inequities and improve quality of life outcomes for directly impacted and marginalized communities. In Chicago, Danielle collaborated with hospital administrators, health care providers, policy makers and patients to drive down racial health disparities. She worked with the majority of hospital and healthcare systems in the city to develop training and adjust institutional processes that would improve the quality of care for Black women. She also worked with methadone programs providing re-entry healthcare for mothers suffering with addiction and their children as well as developed and evaluated youth violence prevention initiatives in collaboration with local alderman offices.
Danielle obtained her Ph.D. from UCLA in Community Health Sciences with a minor in Law and has applied her background in public health and data to addressing the Los Angeles system of mass incarceration. Since 2013 her efforts in Los Angeles have primarily focused on youth and violence. She worked with the Violence Prevention Coalition to conduct participatory research and education on the intersection between gang and domestic violence. She developed, raised funding for and ran after-school programming for incarcerated youth charged with serious and violent crimes and helped launch the UCLA prison education program, which provides UCLA college credit courses for incarcerated people.
Danielle had the fortune of joining the Million Dollar Hoods (MDH) team in 2017. She helped build out the MDH rapid response report process that drew attention to the fact that we spend the most money incarcerating Black and Brown people from a handful of communities for minor offenses. Through these reports and data analysis MDH was able to contribute to several major advocacy wins for the LA community including but not limited to putting a stop to the construction of a new women's jail, defunding the LA School Police Department, bail reform and drawing attention to the criminalization of poverty through the rapid increase in arrests of houseless individuals.
Between 2019 and 2022, Danielle served in a variety of capacities in Los Angeles, collaborating with government, organizers and institutional leaders. This includes as a probation oversight commissioner, as an advisor to the Alternatives To Incarceration work group and as a consultant on the establishment of the new LA County Department of Youth Development. She served as a university lecturer, teaching courses on law enforcement data, collateral consequences of incarceration and the carceral workforce. Most recently, Danielle has worked on two important projects. She is part of a team developing an implementation plan for LA County per a Board of Supervisors motion that aims to release all girls and gender expansive youth from incarceration and prevent any new detentions among this population. Danielle also co-leads efforts to address workforce challenges in LA that have arisen as the probation footprint shrinks and fewer youth are detained.
Danielle joined CRC because she wants to continue this important work on a national scale and partner with people invested in building holistic approaches to community wellbeing.
Job Titles:
- Director of Strategic Initiatives
As the Director of Strategic Initiatives Elizabeth Rossi investigates and litigates cases challenging money bail, debtors' prisons, and private probation.
Elizabeth Rossi investigates and litigates cases challenging money bail, debtors' prisons, and private probation. She was a central part of the teams that achieved landmark settlements ending the use of cash bail in the Harris County misdemeanor bail system and ending private probation in Rutherford County and Giles County, Tennessee. Elizabeth regularly advises and collaborates with local organizers, advocates, lawyers, and elected officials on initiatives to end pretrial incarceration.
Elizabeth is a member of Civil Rights Corps's founding staff. Before joining CRC, she was an attorney in the appellate division of the Maryland Office of the Public Defender and a Litigation Fellow with Equal Justice Under Law. She clerked on the federal District Court for New Hampshire and the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, and earned a law degree from the Boston University School of Law, a Master's degree from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, and a Bachelor's degree from the University of Pennsylvania. Her work has been published in the Berkeley Journal of International Law, the Columbia Human Rights Law Review, and Roger Williams University Law Review.
Erin is a Sr. Attorney focusing on litigation and advocacy challenging family separation by carceral systems.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board
- Assistant Professor at Berkeley Law School
Fred Smith, Jr. is an Assistant Professor at Berkeley Law School. In the fall of 2017, he will become an Associate Professor at Emory University School of Law. He is a scholar of the federal judiciary and constitutional law.
Smith clerked for Judge Myron Thompson of the Middle District of Alabama; Judge Barrington D. Parker, Jr. of the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit; and Justice Sonia Sotomayor of the United States Supreme Court. Prior to teaching, he also worked as a fellow for a litigation boutique, Bondurant, Mixson & Elmore LLP in Atlanta.
Smith's research focuses on state sovereignty and representative government. His work has appeared, or will appear, in Harvard Law Review, Stanford Law Review, Columbia Law Review, New York University Law Review, Vanderbilt Law Review, and Fordham Law Review. Notable articles include: "Abstention in the Time of Ferguson," 131 Harv. L. Rev. ___ (2018) (forthcoming); "Undemocratic Restraint," 69 Vand. L. Rev.___ (2017) (forthcoming); "Local Sovereign Immunity," 116 Colum. L. Rev. 409 (2016),"Due Process, Republicanism, and Direct Democracy," 89 New York University Law Review 582 (2014) and "Awakening the People's Giant: Sovereign Immunity and the Constitution's Republican Commitment," 80 Fordham Law Review 1941 (2012).
Smith earned his JD from Stanford Law School in 2007. At Stanford, he was a member of the Supreme Court Litigation Clinic; was a finalist in the annual Kirkwood Moot Court Competition; was a finalist in the American Constitution Society's national Moot Court Competition; served as President of the Black Law Students Association; and served as Articles Editor for the Stanford Law and Policy Review. In 2004, he received his BA with Honors from Harvard College; his thesis was awarded magna cum laude.
Education: JD, Stanford Law School; BA (with honors), Harvard College.
Alfredo's work in Houston for Civil Rights Corps is focused on connecting victims of police abuse to civil rights attorneys and building towards a more free Houston through advocacy and organizing.
Alfredo is interested in reimagining community safety so that people can live free of violence of any form, but especially violence from the State. He is committed to building local movements through his work at CRC that get us closer to freedom and away from caging.
Alfredo has spent time working as a Graduate Research Assistant at Georgetown University, an Outreach Associate at ActBlue, and a Lead for America Fellow at the Houston Mayor's Office of Education. He received his MPP from Georgetown University, his B.A. in Ethnicity and Race Studies from Columbia University, and his high school diploma from Pasadena High School.
"I close my eyes and dream of a world where Black, Brown, and Indigenous children laugh and play under the sun without the specter of state violence following close behind. I am committed to making this a reality in my lifetime."
Job Titles:
- Deputy Director of Litigation
Jeff joined Civil Rights Corps after eight years as a Trial Attorney and Supervising Attorney at the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia. While there, Jeff represented juveniles and adults charged with serious crimes, including complex homicides.
Jeff's work focuses on litigation challenging unjust practices by police, prosecutors, and court systems. He is part of the team that sued the Orleans Parish District Attorney's Office in Louisiana for its use of fake subpoenas and other abuses of power. He is also involved in combatting the wealth-based detention system in Harris County, Texas and police misconduct around the country.
He joined Civil Rights Corps after eight years as a Trial Attorney and Supervising Attorney at the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia. While there, Jeff represented people charged with serious crimes, supervised other attorneys, conducted trainings for the defense bar, and developed strategic litigation challenging police misconduct, forensics, and more. In 2017, Jeff was selected by the International Legal Foundation for a three-month fellowship in the West Bank, where he helped train and supervise four public defender offices.
Jeff received his J.D. cum laude from New York University School of Law, where he was an Arthur Garfield Hayes Civil Rights Fellow and Editor in Chief of the Journal of International Law and Politics. His writing has appeared in the Washington Post, Baltimore Sun, Georgetown Immigration Law Journal, and Journal of International Law and Politics. His article, Waging Waterfare: Israel, Palestinians, and the Need for a New Hydro-Logic to Govern Water Rights Under Occupation, was awarded the Oxford University Press Deak Award for the best student-written article on international law.
"There are few systems that more reliably or effectively inflict trauma on communities than the American criminal legal system. Redirecting the law to help build power in communities that are resisting that harm is the first step towards a more just, peaceful, and free society."
Job Titles:
- Deputy Director of Litigation
Katherine's work focuses on litigation challenging the criminalization of poverty, particularly debtor's prisons and wealth-based pretrial detention. Katherine coordinates CRC's bail reform efforts in several states across the country including California
Katherine's work focuses on challenging the criminalization of poverty, particularly wealth-based pretrial detention. Her work with the San Francisco Public Defender culminated in the landmark Humphrey decision, in which the California Supreme Court struck down the pervasive practice of courts setting money bail without considering an individual's ability to pay. Katherine's work in Alabama and North Carolina has resulted in injunctions against wealth-based bail schemes. She has also successfully litigated several cases against Washington, D.C.'s Metropolitan Police Department for executing illegal search warrants, resulting in damage awards totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars for her clients.
Katherine also collaborates with organizers, advocates, and legal system actors on bail reform initiatives, including working with a coalition to successfully lobby Google and Facebook to block advertisements from bail bond companies. Katherine is a founding member of the CRC staff.
An equal justice enthusiast, Katherine previously worked as a legal fellow at Equal Justice Initiative, where she represented people on Alabama's death row and children sentenced to die in prison, and Equal Justice Under Law, where she worked on lawsuits challenging money bail and police misconduct. Katherine is a graduate of Stanford Law School and the University of Wisconsin and a native of Iowa.
Kiah uses movement lawyering to challenge police abuse and the criminalization of poverty.
Kiah litigates against unconstitutional policing and money bail practices nationwide. Her 2021-2022 Law 4 Black Lives Fellowship encourages her to think critically about how to integrate abolitionist and movement lawyering practices into CRC's daily work. Before coming to CRC, Kiah worked with the ACLU of Northern California and Neufeld, Scheck and Brustin LLP to challenge police misconduct and other harms of the criminal legal system. Kiah's research and writing about Black liberation movements, such as "Abolition and International Human Rights: Taiwan's Affirmation of Black American Abolitionist Movements," has been published in the Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review and the Harvard BlackLetter Law Journal.
Kiah served as the president of the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau, a team leader in Harvard Defenders, and a Law and Social Change Fellow while earning her J.D. at Harvard Law School. Kiah graduated summa cum laude from Wichita State University and is a proud alumna of Wichita Public Schools.
She enjoys traveling to new countries, being an unapologetic Disney Adult, dancing, and asking about people's daily magical moments.
Job Titles:
- Operations Fellow ( He / Him )
Lamont is the Operations Fellow at Civil Rights Corps. Before joining CRC, Lamont completed the training program at BreakFree Education. Lamont comes to CRC to continue his pursuit of justice and equality for the marginalized, and underserved communities from which he comes. Lamont is invested in CRC's core values as he works with his colleagues across all CRC teams. Lamont is a DC native who is family oriented. Lamont loves music, reading, sports, and chess.
Leo is a Senior Attorney at Civil Rights Corps whose work focuses on dismantling systems that criminalize poverty and unjustly target people of color.
Prior to joining CRC Leo worked at the Southern Poverty Law Center in Florida, litigating class action cases aimed at shrinking the prison-industrial complex. He worked closely with impacted individuals in both the adult and juvenile legal systems, challenging the use of solitary confinement in Florida's juvenile detention centers and prisons. Additionally he worked on cases challenging Louisiana's severely underfunded indigent defense system and the Florida Department of Corrections refusal to fully release its COVID-19 policies at the outset of the pandemic. He has also worked as an assistant public defender in his home city of Miami, defending indigent clients across misdemeanor, juvenile, and felony court.
Leo holds bachelor degrees in Psychology and Political Science from the University of Florida. He is a graduate of NYU School of Law, where he served as Student Senator and was a student attorney in the Criminal and Community Defense Clinic. He enjoys playing video games, going to theme parks, and debating whether comic book movies should be considered cinema (they should).
Marco works to stop state and local governments (and the occasional private company) from jailing people for lack of money. He spends a lot of time trying to convince federal courts that they can do something about this. In New Orleans, for instance, he and others helped their clients win a federal judgment against local judges who jailed people for being unable to pay fines and fees and who used the money they collected on those debts to fund their own court budget.
Before helping to found CRC, Marco worked at Equal Justice Under Law, where he worked on lawsuits challenging debtors' prisons and unconstitutional bail systems around the country. He holds a bachelor's degree from Stanford University and a master's degree from Princeton University, both in Philosophy, as well as a JD from Harvard Law School, where he was an Articles Co-Chair of the Harvard Law Review and a reliable eater of junk food. A son of California, Marco enjoys swimming outdoors, studying large-scale catastrophes, making fun of cats in their presence, and other good or interesting things.
Job Titles:
- Litigation Support Fellow
Micah is a litigation support fellow at Civil Rights Corps where she works on projects challenging money bail and exposing police abuse.
Micah joined Civil Rights Corp after serving as a paralegal intern at Lawndale Christian Legal Center in Chicago where she investigated abusive police officers. As a paralegal, Micah also wrote mitigation letters asking prosecutors to drop charges by documenting the network of loving relationships around people being criminalized and supported legal defense by managing evidence. Micah also worked as an intern at the Legal Aid Society of Columbus Ohio and as a Pretrial Research intern at the Supreme Court of Ohio.
Micah graduated from University of Chicago with a Masters in Sociology. Her research focused on the abolition of money bail in Illinois, unintended consequences of policy changes, and the centrality of local organizing to implement reform. Micah graduated Magna Cum Laude from University of Chicago with an undergraduate degree in Critical Race and Ethnic Studies. Her thesis explored how high school students in a predominantly White suburb who participated in 2020 racial justice protests think about the police, legal system, and movement for Black lives. In her free time, Micah loves biking to local coffee shops and being on nature trails.
I believe everyone is beloved. Creating freedom, safety, and justice requires moving our resources from policing, hurting, and caging people to meeting people's needs.
Job Titles:
- Investigator With the Federal Public Defender for the Western District of Pennsylvania
Mister's goal is to leverage Civil Rights Corps' resources to challenge police violence and support on-the-ground abolitionist organizing in DC.
Peter is the Managing Attorney of the Prosecutorial Accountability Project. His work is focused on designing and implementing creative approaches to curb the problem of prosecutorial misconduct.
Prior to joining CRC, Peter was in private practice, working in both criminal legal system reform and criminal defense spaces. Prior to that, he served as an attorney for over a decade at the San Francisco Public Defender's Office, primarily as a trial attorney but also as a member of the Research Unit.
Peter is a graduate of UC Berkeley School of Law and Harvard University. In his free time, Peter enjoys time with his family, listening to podcasts, and watching sports.
"I do this work because I want to exist in a world where everyone can live with dignity."
Quinita is the Operations Manager for Civil Rights Corps. As an integral team member at CRC she plays a crucial role in managing the day-to-day operations,
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board
- Co - Founder of Silicon Valley De - Bug
Raj Jayadev is the co-founder of Silicon Valley De-Bug. De-Bug is an organization that focuses on community organizing, advocacy, and multimedia storytelling based out of San José, California. Through De-Bug's criminal justice community program, the Albert Cobarrubias Justice Project, they created "participatory defense." Participatory defense is a community model that was developed for families whose loved ones are facing the criminal court system. The model will help impact the outcome of the case and transform the landscape of power in the courts.
De-Bug has initiated campaigns around bail reform, police accountability, sentencing reform and more. De-Bug has worked with and trained community groups across the country to become participatory defense hubs. There is now a National Participatory Defense Network that De-Bug coordinates, which represents hubs in over 30 cities. Jayadev's community work and writings have been featured in the New York Times, The Atlantic, BBC, TIME Magazine and media outlets across the country. In 2018, he was selected as a MacArthur Fellow.
Reginald Dwayne Betts is a Ph. D. in Law candidate at Yale. His major research interests are administrative law, criminal law, empirical legal studies and law and literature. He holds a B.A. from the University of Maryland and a J.D. from Yale Law School, where he was awarded the Israel H. Perez Prize for best student note or comment appearing in the Yale Law Journal He spent his summers with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the District of Columbia's Public Defender Service. He is currently a Liman Fellow working in the New Haven Public Defender's Office.
Prior to law school, Dwayne was a Radcliffe Fellow at Harvard's Radcliffe Institute of Advanced Studies and a Soros Justice Fellow. In addition, he served by appointment of former President Barack Obama as a practitioner member of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. The author of three books, Betts' latest collection of poems, Bastards of the Reagan Era, has been named the winner of the Pen New England Poetry Prize. His first collection of poems, Shahid Reads His Own Palm, won the Beatrice Hawley Award. Betts' memoir, A Question of Freedom: A Memoir of Learning, Survival, and Coming of Age in Prison, was the recipient of the 2010 NAACP Image Award for non-fiction.
Job Titles:
- Litigation Support Fellow at CRC
Ruby Yearling is a Litigation Support Fellow at CRC where she works on issues involving bail, pretrial detention, probation, and policing. She focuses on challenging the ways in which the criminal legal system functions to control, surveille, and punish people. She works on cases throughout the country, including California, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Texas and D.C.
Ruby joins CRC with experience working as a law clerk at the Law Offices of John Burris, a nationally renowned civil rights law firm representing victims of police violence. Prior to this, she worked at the American Friends Service Committee on decarceration strategy projects and at the Supreme Court of Ohio on pretrial research. Ruby was also a teaching assistant for an upper-level sociology course at the University of Michigan about restorative justice, prison reform, and abolition.
Ruby attended the University of Michigan. Her thesis, Investing in Violence: A Quantitative Analysis of Police Reform in California, was recognized with high honors and found that investing money into policing in the name of "reform" does not correlate to a reduction in police violence. She is originally from Granville, Ohio.
"Communities deserve safety. The prison industrial complex, in all of its forms, is a generator of violence. I do this work because I know that incarceration and policing will never keep us safe. When communities have what they need to thrive-housing, food stability, healthcare, education, economic security-we are all better off."
Salil is an attorney at Civil Rights Corps who litigates money bail and other abuses in the criminal punishment system. His work includes challenging pretrial detention in California, where he is based.
Before joining CRC, Salil was a Trial Attorney at Federal Defenders of San Diego, where he represented individuals accused of federal "crimes" such as re-entering the United States in order to flee violence and poverty. Salil is a graduate of Yale Law School, where he co-founded Yale Defenders and served as an editor of the Yale Law Journal. In that role, he focused on publishing work by authors directly impacted by the criminal system. Before law school, he worked on a John Gardner Public Service Fellowship as an investigator at Equal Justice Under Law, developing and supporting constitutional challenges to wealth-based jailing.
Salil holds a bachelor's degree in Philosophy from Stanford University. His writing has been published in the Yale Law Journal and in Defending a Federal Criminal Case (forthcoming), a practice guide for federal criminal defense attorneys.
Shirley LaVarco is an attorney at Civil Rights Corps. Her work at CRC is currently focused on wealth-based detention and police-perpetrated violence.
Sumayya's work focuses on class action lawsuits that challenge the rampant criminalization of poverty, including wealth-based pretrial detention and predatory pretrial diversion programs.
Before she came to CRC, Sumayya worked at the Southern Poverty Law Center in her home state of Florida, where she investigated and litigated a statewide class action lawsuit challenging the use of solitary confinement in the Florida prison system. She collaborated closely with people incarcerated across the state and worked strategically to center their voices and experiences in her advocacy challenging state-sanctioned violence. Sumayya also served as an assistant public defender, where she primarily represented people accused of homicide as the government fought to strip them of their liberty. She was a co-founder and board member of Journey to Esquire, a Tampa Bay-based a scholarship and leadership pipeline program for law students historically underrepresented in the profession. There, she challenged assumptions about elitism and law school ranking, which she believes contribute to the violence of inequality and classism in the profession.
Outside of work, Sumayya enjoys spending her time immersed in nature. Since moving to D.C., she has enjoyed exploring different areas to run, bike, and hike. Sumayya is a graduate of WMU Cooley Law School in Tampa Bay.
"The criminal legal system is designed to dehumanize and subjugate the people it ensnares in virtually every respect. I do this work to amplify the voices and experiences of those most harmed by the system in our quest for collective liberation."
Sumayya joined Civil Rights Corps after working at the Southern Poverty Law Center in her home state of Florida.
Job Titles:
- Senior Investigator / Paralegal
Tashawn is a Senior Investigator/Paralegal at Civil Rights Corps, where she works on projects challenging money bail and policing.
Tashawn comes to CRC with prior experience at the Innocence Project, where she supported litigation that addressed the leading causes of wrongful conviction and prevented future injustice. More specifically, Tashawn worked on litigation that challenged the use of unvalidated forensic science with the goal to establish new legal precedents.
Tashawn currently studies Sociology and Criminology at Howard University. Her research focuses on the mental health experiences of Black lawyers in the U.S. within public interest lawyering organizations. Tashawn graduated with a B.A. from Skidmore College in 2016 with honors in Sociology and a minor in Intergroup Relations. Her studies, both inside and outside of the classroom, focused on the intersection of mass incarceration, race, and social identity development.
Raised in Brooklyn, New York, Tashawn's interests outside of work include reading, baking, dancing, and watching anything on Bravo.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board
- Senior Director for Criminal Justice Reform at FWD.Us
Zoë Towns is the Senior Director for Criminal Justice Reform at FWD.us, a political advocacy organization committed to safely and significantly driving down America's incarceration rate. Zoë and her team work in coalition with constituencies across ideological and political spectrums to advance sentencing, parole, and pretrial reforms that deliver more freedom, opportunity, and fairness.
Before joining FWD.us, Zoë was the Criminal Justice Project Director at the Pew Charitable Trusts where she collaborated with state leaders, administrators, practitioners and advocates on legislative reforms in Mississippi, Oregon, Utah, Louisiana, and elsewhere. Earlier in her career, Zoë was the inaugural director of The Bronx Freedom Fund, a bail fund in the South Bronx. Zoë has a B.A. in ethnic studies and creative writing from Columbia University and a masters in criminal justice policy from Kings College London where she was a Fulbright Scholar.