Our esteemed Board of Directors is composed of leaders in the fields of death penalty law, criminal justice reform, racial and social justice, civil rights, and interfaith organizing.
Mike Farrell
President – Mike Farrell is a beloved actor and a committed advocate for human rights and social justice. For more than three decades he has traveled worldwide to speak, write, and lobby against the death penalty. He has graciously and generously served as President of the Board of Death Penalty Focus for over 20 years.
Sherry Frumkin
Chair – Sherry Frumkin has dedicated nearly three decades to merging her passion for art with social justice. As Director of Santa Monica Art Studios and Arena1 Gallery, she’s supported causes like environmental protection and reproductive rights. An ACLU board member, she also received the Rose Elizabeth Bird Commitment to Justice Award.
Lawanda Lyons-Pruitt
Vice-Chair of Outreach – Born in Bogue Chitto, Mississippi, Lawanda moved to California and became the first African American woman Chief Investigator in California’s Public Defender’s Office, serving until 2016. She co-founded the Defense Investigator Training Accreditation Academy, serves on the Democratic Club of Santa Maria Valley’s Executive Board, and leads the local NAACP chapter.
Ed Redlich
Vice-Chair of Development – Ed Redlich is a television writer and producer with Paramount Television. His career highlights include serving as Executive Producer on ‘Without a Trace’ and ‘Felicity’ and as a Producer on ‘The Practice’.
Linda Fox
Vice-Chair of Program – Linda Fox has championed death penalty abolition for over three decades. A retired Research Librarian from the California Appellate Project, she supported post-conviction appeals for individuals on death row. Beyond her work with Death Penalty Focus, Linda advocates for individuals imprisoned for crimes they did not commit, dedicating her efforts to cases of wrongful conviction and justice reform.
Reiss Clauson-Wolf
Treasurer – Reiss Clauson-Wolf is a writer and producer from Philadelphia with a background shaped by the Quaker tradition of practiced nonviolence, having attended Germantown Friends School. His writing credits include projects for CBS, MRC, and Hulu, among others, reflecting a career dedicated to impactful storytelling across major networks and streaming platforms.
Emily Caesar
Secretary – For over a decade at the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, Emily Caesar led impactful initiatives in program and policy development, addressing key issues such as obesity prevention, cannabis regulation, oil and gas policy, and substance use treatment. Since 2014, she’s been a core leader with Bend the Arc: Jewish Action, advancing meaningful criminal justice reform. Emily holds a BA in Psychology from UC Berkeley and dual Master’s degrees in Social Work and Public Health from Washington University in St. Louis.
Garland Allen
Garland Allen previously led PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP’s state and local tax consulting practice as the Chicago Market Leader. Before his tenure at PwC, he was a tax partner with the Chicago law firm Hopkins & Sutter, now known as Foley & Lardner, where he developed deep expertise in tax consulting and legal advisory services.
Philip Hansten
Philip Hansten is Professor Emeritus at the University of Washington, where he still teaches a philosophy of science class. He is also involved in drug interaction research with colleagues at other universities. He became involved in the death penalty after consulting on lethal injection issues with abolition groups. After realizing there were no rational arguments to support the death penalty, he wrote the book, “Death Penalty Bullshit: Fifteen Absurd Claims of Death Penalty Proponents.” Hansten tries to use reason and rational thought in his scientific and death penalty work, but he had a lapse in rationality when he did a sprint triathlon to celebrate his 80th birthday.
Drew Havens
Drew Havens is a Deputy Federal Public Defender in the Central District of California based in Los Angeles, where he represents indigent clients facing federal charges. He previously served as a Deputy Public Defender for Los Angeles County, and as a staff attorney for Los Angeles Dependency Lawyers. Drew graduated with honors from Boston College and Georgetown University Law Center. During his time at law school, he interned with the California Appellate Project and gained a deep awareness of the injustices inherent in the death penalty system. At Georgetown, he excelled in the Criminal Defense and Prisoner Advocacy Clinic, earning the Clara Shortridge Foltz Award for his dedication to indigent defense. Drew recently spearheaded the international campaign to secure the return of Eyvin Hernandez, of Venezuela.
Takehiko Kawame
Takehiko (Take) Kawame is one of Japan’s leading death penalty attorneys and represents a client on Japan’s death row pro bono. He is a member of the Death Penalty Abolition Committee and the Legal Counseling Committee of the Japan Federation of Bar Association. Take is very active in organizing symposia, writing op-eds, and researching the capital punishment systems in Japan and the United States. Take also founded an educational organization to hold public meetings, converse with correctional officers about regulations, and arrange international conventions for volunteers who help prisoners with information and visitations. He studied at Sophia University in Japan and was a visiting scholar at UC Berkeley in 2016.
Alex Ketley
Alex Ketley is an acclaimed choreographer, filmmaker, and director of The Foundry, a platform he founded to explore innovative approaches to performance. Known for projects like Syntax, Lost Line, and No Hero Trilogy, Ketley’s work spans theater, film, and site-specific experiences. A Guggenheim Fellow and educator at Stanford, he’s recognized for his contributions to dance and his collaborative, boundary-pushing creative practices.
Mark Kimber
Mark Kimber is the past-President of the Salinas Steinbeck Rotary Club, the founder of a travel agency in Salinas, a volunteer with the Marine Mammal Center, and a certified skydiving instructor.
Fred Luskin
Dr. Fred Luskin continues to serve as Director of the Stanford Forgiveness Projects, an ongoing series of workshops and research projects that investigate the effectiveness of his forgiveness methods on a variety of populations. He currently serves as a Senior Consultant in Health Promotion at Stanford University and is an Associate Professor at the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology. He presents lectures, workshops, seminars and trainings on the importance, health benefits and training of forgiveness, stress management and emotional competence throughout the United States. He offers presentations and classes that range from one hour to ongoing weekly trainings.
Stacy Mallicoat
Stacy L. Mallicoat is a Professor of Criminal Justice at California State University, Fullerton. Her research focuses on issues of public opinion and the death penalty.
Robert M. Myers
Robert M. Myers grew up in Northern Orange County when there were more orange trees than people. He graduated from Cal State Fullerton in 1972 and Loyola Law School in 1975. He wrote Santa Monica’s rent control law as staff attorney with the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles and served as Santa Monica City Attorney from 1981-1992. He is a founding board member of DPF and currently represents two men on California’s death row.
Father Chris Ponnet
Fr. Chris Ponnet is a pastor at the St. Camillus Center for Spiritual Care in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles. He also serves as the director of the Department of Spiritual Care at the LAC+USC Medical Center. As Host Pastor, he leads the grassroots abolition group Catholics Against the Death Penalty Southern California.
Tracy K. Rice
As Vice President, Development, for Public Counsel, Tracy Rice continues her long history of passionate work for civil rights and social justice. Prior to joining Public Counsel, Tracy served as Los Angeles Bureau Chief of the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition and before that was a staff attorney at the ACLU of Southern California for six years. There, she worked on a variety of civil rights cases, with a particular emphasis on criminal justice issues, including prison and jail conditions of confinement cases, police misconduct, and death penalty appeals.
Stephen F. Rohde
Stephen F. Rohde is a retired constitutional lawyer, lecturer, writer and political activist. He is chair emeritus of the ACLU Foundation of Southern California; immediate past chair of Bend the Arc, a Jewish Partnership for Justice; past president of the Beverly Hills Bar Association; and is a founder of Interfaith Communities United for Justice and Peace.
Robert Sanger
Robert Sanger has been a criminal defense lawyer in Santa Barbara for over 40 years and has defended people charged with capital offenses since the reinstitution of the death penalty in California. He is Past President of California Attorneys for Criminal Justice (CACJ) a member of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences, and teaches law school classes in Forensic Science.
Sarah Sanger
Sarah Sanger is an associate attorney with Sanger Swysen & Dunkle in Santa Barbara. She works on criminal defense matters in both the state and federal courts primarily involving capital cases. She graduated from the University of California, Berkeley School of Law where she did graduate work in philosophy while obtaining her law degree. She clerked for the Office of the State Public Defender in Oakland, working on capital cases, and for the Los Angeles County Public Defender’s Office.
Sarah Timberman
Timberman founded her Sony Pictures Television-based production company, 25C Productions (now Timberman/Beverly Productions) in 2003. Timberman (along with partner Carl Beverly) is currently in production on the A&E drama pilot ‘DANNY FRICKE’, written by Cynthia Cidre and directed by Michael Dinner. Timberman/Beverly recently produced the Fox comedy pilot ‘Hackett’ starring Donal Logue and directed by Barry Sonnenfeld. In 2006, 25C and Sony produced the critically acclaimed NBC series, ‘Kidnapped’.
Toni Trucks
Toni Trucks comes from a strong and varied acting background with roots in the theatre. Toni spent her early career in New York before making her television debut as the female lead on the SHOWTIME series ‘Barbershop’. Toni is currently starring on the CBS drama ‘SEAL Team’ as Ensign Lisa Davis. Other television credits include ‘NCIS: New Orleans, Corporate’, ‘Made in Jersey’, ‘Franklin and Bash’, and ‘Grimm’. Her film credits include ‘Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part 2’ and ‘Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day’. Trucks also starred in the short films ‘The Shift’, ‘Scars’, ‘Scare Package’ and ‘Good Eggs’. An alumnus of both Interlochen Arts Academy and the University of Michigan’s Musical Theatre Program, Trucks is a Michigan native with a vigorous family history of social justice activism.
Bethany Webb
Beth Webb is a member of California Crime Victims for Alternatives to the Death Penalty and a tireless advocate of abolition. In 2011, her sister, Laura, was killed, and her mother, Hattie, was wounded in the Salon Meritage Shooting in Seal Beach, CA. Beth worked with the other victims’ family members to oppose the death penalty in the resulting trial, based on her opposition to the practice and on the fact that it would cause the families to endure a painful and unending litigation process. Beth even spoke to the Orange County District Attorney to let him know her opposition to the death penalty – though the DA rebuffed her, continuing to tout his “victims’ rights” bona fides. In 2017, the defendant was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole because the judge presiding over the case found that the corruption of the OCDA’s office and OC Sheriff’s Department had been so pervasive that he could not guarantee a Constitutional sentencing hearing. In 2016, Beth was one of the most forceful campaigners for Prop. 62, a statewide ballot initiative that nearly abolished the death penalty in California. She continues to be active in the fight to end the death penalty and to challenge corrupt prosecutors at the local level.
Charles Windon
Most children dream of a profession. Few, unlike Charles Windon, however, actually realize that dream. On a routine day like any other, while in the 5th grade, he told himself that he would become an attorney. And through a lifetime of study and preparation, he did. Having a talented attorney at home for a father and a first-generation immigrant mother from Sweden, hard work and determination was instilled in Charles at a very young age. This was the perfect training ground for him to work toward that goal. “There was definitely exposure. I would go to court with him when I was little. It was more of like a field trip to me, rather than any work and I got so familiar with it. That passion developed over time,” Charles shared. The Los Angeles native enjoyed an adolescence filled with legal learning. Because the law, or lack thereof, had personally touched the Windon family. His father’s sister was hit and dragged by a bus in the 1950s, which severely injured her. Despite this, no attorney would represent a black plaintiff against the powerful bus company. “There are many inequities and inequalities in the legal system that we’re still trying to combat, especially in criminal defense and personal injury.” Although he was exposed to the law from an early age, Charles received his formal law training at Temple Law School in Philadelphia. While there, he was a member of the Black Law Students Association, or BLSA for two years. He obtained his Juris Doctor from this institution in May 2017 and passed the California Bar in early 2018. Before attending Temple Law School, Charles earned a BA degree in Ethics, History, and Public Policy from Carnegie Mellon University. Before joining Adamson Ahdoot, Charles worked as a deputy public defender at the Los Angeles County Public Defender’s Office. He is a member in good standing of the California Bar Association and licensed to practice before all state courts in California. An avid golfer since youth, when Charles isn’t working to help his clients, you can find him on the golf course. This love of golf, led him to multiple selections to the Tiger Woods Junior National team from 2004 to 2006. He is a fan of the LA Lakers and Pittsburgh Steelers.
Richard Wollack
Richard Wollack is a real estate investment manager for institutional and individual investors for over 35 years. He also founded Premier Pacific Vineyards, the largest developer of high-end vineyards in California and owns two wine brands: Expression and Tetra.
