Speakers | Racial Justice Conference | National Association for Public Defense

Alan Dettlaff, a professor of social work and co-founder of the upEND Movement, leverages his background as a former child welfare investigator to advocate for abolishing the family policing system in favor of healing- and liberation-centered alternatives. For over two decades, his scholarship—including his 2023 book Confronting the Racist Legacy of the American Child Welfare System and his work co-founding the journal Abolitionist Perspectives in Social Work—has exposed how systemic racism drives the disproportionate removal of Black children from their families. Grounded in a deep commitment to social justice, Dettlaff actively works to dismantle punitive family regulation systems and build supportive, community-based solutions.

Alice Fontier has been a practicing criminal defense attorney for over twenty years after graduating from NYU School of Law. She is now a Legal and Management consultant. She currently serves as a Project Managing Attorney at the Legal Aid Society of New York. She has been the Managing Director of NDS Harlem, a holistic public defense office providing criminal, civil, and family defense; and the Managing Director of the Criminal Defense Practice at the Bronx Defenders. She has previously worked at the Federal Defenders of San Diego, and as a private attorney in both the federal and state courts of New York. She has handled several high-profile national security cases and other media cases. Alice is the Past President of the New York State Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, and a Board Member of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. She is an Adjunct Professor at NYU School of Law where she teaches the Police Misconduct Externship, and a Lecturer in Law at Columbia University Law School where she teaches Trial Skills. In addition, Alice regularly teaches CLE’s for NYSACDL, NACDL, and additional trial skills academies.

Anana Harris Parris is a visionary entrepreneur, author, and consultant who pioneered strategic self-care as a vital form of social justice through her roles as founder and CEO of the Self Care Agency, LLC, founder of the SisterCARE Alliance, and co-founder of the Wellness & Justice Group, LLC. Drawing on her extensive background in corporate and legal operations, including seven years as Director of Business Operations and Community Affairs for the Davis Bozeman Law Firm, she provides expert infrastructure development, leadership training, and operational guidance to organizations nationwide, including the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. Author of Self Care Matters: A Revolutionary's Approach and creator of the first official Self Care Day Proclamation recognized across the Southeast, Parris has earned prestigious accolades such as the Southern Center for Human Rights Gideon's Promise Award and a U.S. Attorney General’s Office Community Service Award for her transformative advocacy.

Anthony Graves was wrongfully convicted of multiple homicides in 1992 and spent nearly two decades behind bars, including twelve years on Texas’s death row, before his conviction was overturned in 2006 and he was fully exonerated in 2010. While imprisoned, he co-founded the global activist group Join Hands for Justice to fight for his freedom, an ordeal he later detailed as the author of the book Infinite Hope. Since his release, Graves has dedicated his life to criminal justice reform as a speaker, ACLU collaborator, board member for the Houston Forensic Science Center, founder of the Peer Navigator Project, and head of the Anthony Graves Foundation, which actively exposes flaws in the American justice system and advocates against harms like solitary confinement.

Dumaka Shabazz is the Federal Public Defender for the Middle District of Tennessee. With the mission to provide the highest level of defense for the indigent accused, he trains attorneys on storytelling, trauma informed advocacy, and client centered representation. An experienced educator, Shabazz teaches trial advocacy at Vanderbilt Law School and serves as faculty for the National Criminal Defense College and the Orientation for New Assistant Federal Public Defenders. He leads with a philosophy of inspiration, connection, and empowerment, bringing dynamic energy to both the courtroom and classroom.

Fareed Nassor Hayat is a Professor of Law at Seton Hall University School of Law, specializing in constitutional law, criminal law, criminal procedure, and trial advocacy. A former Maryland Assistant Public Defender with a 90% trial victory rate and experience in private civil rights litigation, Hayat previously served as an Associate Professor and Interim Associate Dean at CUNY School of Law, where he launched free bar prep and student equity initiatives. Nationally recognized for his expertise on gang prosecutions and Thirteenth Amendment jurisprudence, his widely published research appears in top journals including the UCLA Law Review and Rutgers Law Review. Hayat holds degrees from UCLA and Howard University School of Law, and he remains a devoted father of two and a lifelong community advocate.

Since becoming the Philadelphia Defender Association’s Chief Defender in November 2021, Keisha Hudson has drawn local and national attention to the critical role of public defenders while enhancing client services to build a more inclusive, people-focused organization. Her 22-year career spans extensive work as a trial and appellate lawyer, including serving as Director of Training for the Federal Defender’s Office (Capital Habeas Unit) representing clients on death row, and as Deputy Chief Defender for Montgomery County, where she co-led efforts to build one of Pennsylvania's strongest public defender offices. Before assuming her current leadership role, Hudson further advanced systemic criminal justice reform as a campaign leader at The Justice Collaborative and The Appeal, as well as a visiting professor at Temple University’s Beasley School of Law.

Kerwin Pittman is a nationally recognized social justice advocate, criminal justice reform policy expert, and 2022 Soros Justice Fellow who made history as the first formerly incarcerated person in the U.S. to purchase a prison, converting it into a groundbreaking reentry and workforce campus in Goldsboro, North Carolina. Driven by his lived experience of surviving 11½ years of incarceration, Pittman founded Recidivism Reduction Educational Program Services (RREPS) to reduce recidivism across North Carolina through housing, mobile services, and digital tools, while also serving as Director of Policy and Programs for Emancipate NC. He actively shapes state policy by serving on key North Carolina leadership bodies, including Governor Cooper’s Task Force for Racial Equity in Criminal Justice, the Joint Reentry Council 2030, the State Reentry Council Collaborative, the Statewide Office of Violence Prevention Advisory Board, and the Governor’s Crime Commission Victims of Crime Advisory Committee.

Jackie Wright is a Capital and Conflicts Attorney at the Arkansas Public Defender Commission (APDC), where she has served over a decade as lead counsel on death penalty cases while actively driving legal education, mentorship, and community leadership. For the past three years, she has organized and chaired the APDC’s Annual Conference, launched a Public Defender Externship Course in partnership with Arkansas’s law schools, and is currently spearheading the APDC Trial College to train incoming public defenders with a faculty of over forty top attorneys. An experienced adjunct professor and public speaker, Wright also engages deeply in local civic life through non-profit board leadership and active service in her church.

Jerilyn Bell is the Director of the Georgia Capital Defender’s Office in Atlanta, Georgia. She has handled over 25 capital cases while at the Capital Defenders Office. Prior to joining the Capital’s Defenders Office in 2011, she was a public defender for 13 years at the Legal Aid Society in Brooklyn, New York. The last four years, she was a supervisor as well. She has served on the training faculty for the Cardozo Intensive Trial Advocacy Program, Legal Aid Society Trial Advocacy Program, Wisconsin State Public Defender Training Program, NACDL Regional BYOC Capital Training and is on the Faculty on the National Criminal Defense College.

Lei Young is the Supervising Attorney with the Disproportionality Unit at the Washington State Office of Public Defense, where she works to develop strategies and trainings for challenging racial and economic disproportionality in the legal system. Prior to that position, she spent 17 years as an attorney with The Defender Association, which is now a division of the King County Department of Public Defense. As a public defender, she represented clients in a variety of practice areas, including felony, sexually violent predator, and dependency proceedings. Her teaching experience includes serving as an Adjunct Professor at Seattle University School of Law. She received her J.D. from Cornell Law School in 2006.

Lori James, Ph.D., MSW, LCSW-C, is a nationally recognized executive leader, scholar, ordained minister, and President and CEO of the consulting firm Expand-NOW, LLC, with over 30 years of experience advancing equity across social work, criminal legal reform, and faith-based advocacy. As the Executive Director of the National Association for Public Defense (NAPD), she leads an organization representing more than 27,000 public defense professionals across all 50 states and U.S. territories. Holding a Ph.D. in Biblical Studies focused on mass incarceration and reentry, as well as degrees from Morgan State University and the University of Maryland, Dr. James is a decorated educator and speaker whose honors include the Gideon Hero Award and recognition as one of Maryland’s Top 100 Women.

Mano Raju serves as San Francisco’s elected Public Defender, where the son of Indian immigrants leverages his Columbia University and UC Berkeley degrees to advance excellence in public defense, pilot innovative public safety approaches, and advocate for systemic legal reform. With an extensive background as a line attorney, Director of Training, and Felony Unit Manager across San Francisco and Contra Costa counties, Raju leads one of the nation's premier defense offices by blending zealous client representation with holistic community services. A national lecturer on race-conscious representation and a board member of the National Association for Public Defense, Raju has received widespread honors for his client-centered advocacy, including a 2026 California Public Defender’s Association Special Recognition Award for confronting excessive workloads and defending Sixth Amendment rights.

Porsha-Shaf’on Venable, Esq., is a licensed attorney, social worker, and Deputy Director of The Juror Project, where she leads strategy, programming, and partnerships to boost civic participation and eliminate exclusion in the jury system. Based in the Bronx with a J.D. from California Western School of Law and an M.S.W. from NYU, she leverages her deep public defense background with The Bronx Defenders and Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem to train advocates nationwide on jury selection, jury nullification, and trial strategy. Through organizations like the Black Public Defender Association and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, Venable works to build community power through legal access and advocate for accountability over punishment.

Robin Maher is a nationally and internationally recognized capital defense expert with extensive experience in direct representation, strategic training, and systemic reform. Throughout a distinguished career that includes serving as Senior Counsel at the U.S. Department of Justice Office for Access to Justice, an Assistant Federal Public Defender, and 13 years as Director of the ABA Death Penalty Representation Project—where she led the creation of national standards for capital defense—Maher has consistently worked to reduce wrongful convictions and improve capital case fairness. A Professorial Lecturer in Law at The George Washington University Law School since 2010 and an accomplished author, her global advocacy spans organizing judicial seminars across Asia, training defense lawyers in Africa, and consulting on Guantanamo detainee cases. She has earned honors from the American Bar Association, Witness to Innocence, and the National Alliance of Sentencing Advocates & Mitigation Specialists.

Stanford Hickman is a New York City-based criminal defense attorney and Howard University School of Law graduate who serves as a supervisor and senior trial attorney at New York County Defender Services (NYCDS), where he mentors attorneys, litigates high-profile cases, and helps formulate policy to combat implicit bias and advance racial justice. Having launched his career with the Legal Aid Society in Queens, Hickman is now a faculty member for the Black Defender Leadership Institute, an organization he graduated from in its inaugural class, and regularly trains public defenders nationwide through programs in Kentucky, Colorado, and New Jersey. Locally, he also shares his litigation expertise as an adjunct professor for Seton Hall School of Law’s intersession trial advocacy program.

William C. Snowden is a professor at Loyola University New Orleans College of Law and the Director of The Juror Project, where he leverages public education, legal scholarship, and grassroots organizing to challenge exclusion and build community power in the jury system. A former New Orleans public defender and former Executive Director of the Vera Institute of Justice in Louisiana, Snowden has a proven track record of advancing policies to eliminate money bail and reduce jail populations. Through his multifaceted work, he critically examines institutions of justice, calling for informed resistance, civic presence, and meaningful systemic reform.

In 1989, fifteen-year-old Dr. Yusef Salaam was wrongfully convicted alongside four other Black and Latinx youth in the "Central Park Jogger" case, serving between seven and 13 years in prison before their sentences were overturned in 2002—an injustice that led to a multi-million dollar settlement from New York City and inspired acclaimed documentaries and series like Ava DuVernay’s When They See Us. Over the past two decades, Salaam has transformed his experience into active advocacy as a poet, speaker, and criminal justice reformer fighting against police brutality, mass incarceration, juvenile solitary confinement, and capital punishment. Recognizing his dedicated efforts to restore humanity to the justice system, President Barack Obama honored Salaam with a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2016, and he continues to share his powerful story across major media platforms worldwide.

Alan Dettlaff

Co-Founder, upEND Movement

Alice Fontier

Deputy Director, NAPD

Anana Harris Parris

Founder and CEO, The Self Care Agency

Anthony Graves

Founder, Anthony Graves Foundation

Dumaka Shabazz

Federal Public Defender, Middle District of Tennessee

Fareed Hayat

Tenured Professor, Seton Hall University School of Law

Keisha Hudson

Chief Defender, Philadelphia Defender Association

Kerwin Pittman

Executive Director, RREPS

Jackie Wright

Capital and Conflicts Attorney, Arkansas Public Defender Commission

Jerilyn Bell

Director, Georgia Capital Defender’s Office

Lei Young

Supervising Attorney, Washington State Office of Public Defense

Lori James

Executive Director, NAPD

Mano Raju

Elected Public Defender, San Francisco Public Defender

Porsha Venable

Deputy Director, The Juror Project

Robin Maher

Executive Director, Death Penalty Information Center

Stan Hickman

Training Supervisor, New York County Defender Services

William Snowden

Director, The Juror Project

Yusef Salaam