Senator Christopher “Kip” Bateman

First Year Senator Christopher “Kip” Bateman is the Deputy Conference Leader in the New Jersey Legislature. He received his B.A. from Ithaca College (Political Science and History) and his J.D. from Seton Hall University School of Law. Senator Bateman is Attorney and Partner at DiFrancesco, Bateman, Coley, Yospin, Kunzman, Davis & Lehrer. He was a member of the Somerset County Board of Freeholders from 1988-94, serving as Director in 1992, and was a member of the Township of Branchburg Committee 1983-88, serving as Mayor in 1986. Mr. Bateman was a member of the General Assembly from 1994-2007; the Assistant Republican Leader (2004-05), Assistant Republican Whip (2002-03), Majority Whip in 1996, and the Assistant Majority Whip (1994-95).
Source

Prof. Wilfredo Caraballo, Assembly Sponsor, Professor, Seton Hall Law School

Professor Caraballo received his B.A. from St. Joseph's College and J.D. from New York University. He previously was with legal aid in New York City and has published in the area of commercial law. He was a Distinguished Visiting Professor at New York University School of Law in 1986. He served as associate dean from 1988 through March 1990. He took leave to serve as the Public Advocate of New Jersey from 1990 to 1992. He came to Seton Hall in 1975. He served as a member of the State Assembly representing the 28th Legislative District (1996-2008), He was Speaker Pro Tempore 2006-2008 , Parliamentarian from 2002-2006, and Associate Minority Leader from 1998-2001
Source

Kathy Barrett Carter, Editorial Board Member, The Star Ledger

Kathy Barrett Carter is an editorial writer for The Star Ledger. Prior to joining the editorial board in September 2004, she worked in the State House Bureau of the newspaper in Trenton, covering legal affairs and law-related legislative issues. Among other things, she covered the New Jersey Supreme Court, the Appellate Division of Superior Court and the federal court in Trenton for more than 20 years. She has written extensively about racial profiling, school funding, the death penalty, family law issues, sexual harassment, Megan’s Law and much more. Before she came to The Star Ledger, she was a reporter for The Courier News in Bridgewater. She also wrote a column for the New Jersey Law Journal for many years. Carter is a graduate of Howard University School of Journalism in Washington, D.C. She also has a master’s degree in political science from Brown University in Providence, R.I. She is a frequent commentator on Public Radio.
Source

Hon. James H. Coleman, Associate Justice, Supreme Court of New Jersey (Ret.)

James H. Coleman, Jr. is Of Counsel to Porzio, Bromberg & Newman, P.C. He joined Porzio, Bromberg & Newman following a long judicial career, in which he was an Associate Justice on the New Jersey Supreme Court from 1994-2003. Prior to this, Justice Coleman spent 16 years on the bench of the New Jersey Superior Court. He graduated cum laude from Virginia State University in 1956, and the Howard University School of Law in 1959. He is an Honorary Doctor of Laws at Virginia State University (1995), Widener University (1995), and Essex County College (2000). Justice Coleman is also the Chairman of the Board of Trustees at Legal Services of New Jersey. He currently focuses his practice on advising attorneys and clients on appellate strategy and on acting as a mediator or arbitrator of complex, private and public disputes.
Source

George W. Conk, Fordham Law School – the Stein Center for Law & Ethics , Conference Co-chairman

Professor George W. Conk is of Counsel at Tulipan & Conk, P.C., North Bergen. He is a Certified Civil Trial Attorney. He received his A. B. from the College of the Holy Cross, his M.A. from Boston University, and his J.D. from Rutgers- Newark School of Law. Mr. Conk taught at Seton Hall Law School from 1995-2001. An Adjunct Professor at Fordham University School of Law since 2002, he teaches products liability, remedies, and professional responsibility. A leading scholar on torts and product liability law, his work has appeared in the Yale Law Journal, the UCLA Law Review, and Penn State Law Review, among others. He has twice received Fulbright grants to lecture in China. His translation from Chinese to English of the basic principles of tort law in the draft Civil Code of China was published by Peking University Press in 2005. His essay A New Tort Code Emerges in China appeared in the Fordham International Law Journal in 2007

An elected member of the American Law Institute, he was recognized as one of the Top 100 Lawyers in New Jersey by the Rutgers Newark Law School Alumni Association.
Source

Governor Jon S. Corzine

Jon S. Corzine on December 17, 2007 signed the bill repealing the death penalty in New Jersey. He was the first Governor ever to sign such a measure. He was sworn in as New Jersey’s 54th Governor on January 17, 2006. Governor Corzine graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1969 and enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserves, remaining until 1975. He received his MBA from the University of Chicago in 1973, and first went to work at Bank Ohio, then at Goldman Sachs, where he was named partner in 1980, and chairman and CEO in 1994. He left Goldman Sachs in May 1999 after a highly successful tenure. Jon Corzine was elected to the United States Senate in November 2000, where he sought new federal investments in New Jersey’s transportation network, pursued new safeguards to protect chemical facilities against terrorist attack, introduced legislation to improve access to education and healthcare, fought for stronger environmental policies, and was a leader of the effort in Congress to crack down on corporate abuse.
Source

Celeste Fitzgerald, Director, New Jerseyans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty

Celeste Fitzgerald, program director of NJADP, has extensive experience in the death penalty abolition/moratorium movement. Ms. Fitzgerald was NJADP’s chairperson from its founding in 1999 until 2001, when she joined the staff of Equal Justice USA, a national organization that assists state moratorium campaigns. While with Equal Justice USA, Ms. Fitzgerald coordinated NJADP’s 2002-2003 study bill campaign. NJADP’s full time program director since January 2004, she coordinates a team of organizers, interns, and media, legal, and political professionals who join the committed network of NJADP volunteers and allied organizations in this campaign. Under Ms. Fitzgerald's leadership, NJADP successfully lobbied for passage of the nation's first legislatively imposed moratorium on executions. The legislation, which also created a study commission to examine all aspect of New Jersey's death penalty, was signed into law by Governor Richard Codey on January 12, 2006.
Source

Hon. Alan B. Handler, Associate Justice, Supreme Court of New Jersey (Ret.)

Associate Justice Alan B. Handler has long opposed capital punishment. He was a member of the Supreme Court for more than twenty-two years, retiring on September 1, 1999. First appointed to the Superior Court in 1968 by then-Governor Richard J. Hughes, Justice Handler was assigned to the Appellate Division in 1973. He resigned from the bench in 1976 to serve as counsel to Governor Brendan Byrne. In March 1977, he joined then-Chief Justice Richard J. Hughes on the State's highest court. He was the longest-serving member of the current Court at the time he retired. Justice Handler served as deputy attorney general from 1961 to 1964 and as first assistant attorney general from 1964 to 1968. He attended Newark Academy and Princeton University, where he was a member of Phi Beta Kappa, and graduated magna cum laude in 1953 from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. He received his law degree from Harvard Law School in 1956 and was admitted to the New Jersey bar the same year.
Source

Patrick E. Hobbs, Dean, Seton Hall Law School

Patrick E. Hobbs was named the dean of Seton Hall Law School in 1999. He previously served as a professor of law at the Law School as well as associate dean of finance from 1996 to 1999. Dean Hobbs graduated magna cum laude from Seton Hall University with a B.S. in Accounting. He received his J.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and earned his LL.M. from New York University. Dean Hobbs was recently appointed a Commissioner on the New Jersey State Commission of Investigation by former Governor James McGreevey. He is a member of the Standards Review Committee of the American Bar Association, Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar, and has twice chaired the Law School Development Committee. He also serves as a member of the boards of the Newark Alliance, Lexis-Nexis, Newark Beth Israel Medical Center, the New Jersey Commission of Professionalism and the New Jersey Institute for Continuing Legal Education. In 2004, he served as Chair of the Newark, New Jersey Mayor's Blue Ribbon Commission on the Downtown Core Redevelopment .
Source

Dale Jones, Assistant Public Defender and former death penalty trial attorney

An attorney with the Public Defender's office since 1974, Mr. Jones is responsible for supervising the Mercer, Middlesex, Monmouth and Union county regional public defender offices as well as the Law Guardian Program. Since 1984, he has coordinated statewide training programs, death penalty defense activities and ancillary services applications. Mr. Jones is also the legislative liaison for the agency. He is a member of the New Jersey Supreme Court's Criminal Practice and Evidence Committees and has been a Certified Criminal Trial Attorney since 1982. He is a graduate of the Rutgers Newark College of Arts and Sciences and Rutgers University School of Law.
Source

Senator Raymond J. Lesniak, Senate Sponsor of Repeal Bill

Senator Raymond J. Lesniak, the sponsor of this groundbreaking bill, is a graduate of Rutgers University (1971) where he received a B.A. Degree in Economics. He graduated St. John's University School of Law with honors receiving his Juris Doctorate Degree in 1974. He was admitted to the New Jersey Bar in 1974 and served as Staff Attorney and Interim Director of the Office of Poverty and the Law, Department of Community Affairs. He is a partner in the law firm of Weiner Lesniak in Parsippany, N.J.

Elected to the New Jersey General Assembly in 1977, Senator Lesniak served five and one-half years being reelected in 1979 and 1981. Senator Lesniak was elected to the New Jersey Senate in a special election in 1983 for a one-half year term and elected to a full four year term beginning January, 1984 and reelected in 1987, 1991, 1993, 1997, 2001 and 2003. He served as Chairman of the Labor, Industry & Professions Committee, 1988-1993, and as a member of the Senate Education Committee, 1990-1991. He currently serves as Chairman of the Senate Economic Growth Committee and as a member of the Senate Commerce Committee.
Source

Prof. R. Erik Lillquist, Gibbons Institute, Associate Dean for Finance, Seton Hall Law School

Associate Dean Lillquist teaches in the areas of criminal law and procedure, evidence, contracts, and electronic commerce. His current research interests include the interaction between theories of human-decision making and the legal process, and understanding the implications of biology, medicine and psychology for law. Dean Lillquist received his B.S. in Biology and B.A. in History from Stanford University in 1989, and his J.D. from the University of Virginia in 1995. At Virginia, he was elected to the Order of the Coif and was the Editor-in-Chief of the Virginia Law Review. After law school, Dean Lillquist clerked for the Honorable John M. Walker, Jr. of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. He then joined the firm of Lankler, Siffert & Wohl, where he specialized in criminal defense. Dean Lillquist joined the faculty of Seton Hall Law School in 1999, where he is the Director of the Institute of Law, Science and Technology. In the Fall of 2004, Dean Lillquist visited at the University of Minnesota School of Law. He was named a Dean's Fellow at Seton Hall in 2005, and Associate Dean for Finance and Administration in 2007.
Source

Lawrence S. Lustberg, Gibbons P.C.

At Gibbons, Lawrence S. Lustberg chairs the Criminal Defense Department and is the Director of the John J. Gibbons Fellowship in Public Interest and Constitutional Law. He graduated from Harvard University (B.A., magna cum laude, 1979) and the International Graduate School, University of Stockholm in Stockholm, Sweden in 1980. He then graduated from Harvard Law School (J.D., cum laude) in 1983. Lawrence Lustberg is a Fellow at the American College of Trial Lawyers, a member of the New Jersey Commission on Government Efficiency and Reform, and Chairman of the Subcommittee on Corrections, Probation and Parole Practices. He is currently an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Law at both Seton Hall University Law School (1992-present) and Rutgers University Law School (1991-present).
Source

Prof. Robert J. Martin, J.D., Ed.D., Seton Hall Law School, Center for State & Local Government, Conference Co-Chair

Professor Martin served 23 years in the New Jersey Legislature as Assemblyman and Senator, representing the 26th District. He served on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Education Committee, and Joint Committee on the Public Schools. In 2005. he received the Eastern Regional Conference of State Government’s annual Leadership Award for his work in promoting mutual cooperation and programs among the New England and Middle Atlantic states. Prof. Martin is also a member of the Board of Directors of the New Jersey Institute of Continuing Legal Education (ICLE), the Executive Committee of the Council of State Governments, the New Jersey State Employment and Training Commission, and the Education Commission of the States.

Professor Martin received his B.A. from Dickinson College, M.A., with distinction, from Lehigh University, J.D., magna cum laude, from Seton Hall University, and LL.M. from New York University, where he was awarded the Seymour Goldstein Memorial Prize for academic excellence. He also earned an Ed.D. from Columbia University, concentrating in school law.
Source

W. Michael Murphy, Jr., former Morris County Prosecutor

W. Michael Murphy, Jr. is a former Prosecutor of Morris County and candidate for Governor of New Jersey. He is also a registered lobbyist in the State of New Jersey, the U.S. House of Representatives, and the U.S. Senate. Mr. Murphy is also the Chairman of Garden State Preservation Trust, and is the immediate Past Chairman and a member of the Board of Trustees of the Public Policy Center of New Jersey. In addition, he served as President of the New Jersey Prosecutors Association and chaired the association's Legislative Committee. Mr. Murphy holds a bachelor's from Georgetown University and a Juris Doctorate from Seton Hall Law School. He is also a graduate of the Senior Executives in State and Local Government program at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. After law school, Mr. Murphy served in the State Office of the Public Defender and later also worked in private practice, specializing in such areas as land use planning, products liability, and civil and corporate litigation.
Source

Jeremy Peters, New York Times

Jeremy Peters is a reporter on the Metro desk of The New York Times, where he has been working more or less since college. When he was still at the University of Michigan as an editor for his college paper, The Michigan Daily, he started picking up the occasional freelance assignment for the Times National desk. From there, he was hired as an intern for the Times. After a two-year stopover in St. Thomas as a reporter for The Virgin Islands Daily News, he returned to the Times. Jeremy has covered a wide range of topics for the paper, from the auto industry to the United States economy to the New Jersey Legislature. He is currently assigned in Albany, where he has been covering the fallout from Eliot Spitzer's resignation and the attempt to restore order to New York's state government.
Source

Hon. Deborah T. Poritz, Chief Justice, Supreme Court of New Jersey (Ret.)

The Honorable Justice Deborah T. Poritz was Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of New Jersey from 1996 to 2006. She was also the first female state attorney general, serving from 1994 to 1996. In September 1996, the former chief justice received the Alumna Award of Merit from the University of Pennsylvania Law School and in May 1997, she received the Alumna of the Year Award from Brooklyn College. She has also received honorary degrees from Rutgers University School of Law, Seton Hall University School of Law, Drew University, Montclair University, Monmouth University and Thomas Edison State College. She has been presented with the National Association of Women Judges' Lifetime Achievement Award and the Civic Leadership Award from the New Jersey Council for the Humanities.

She received her bachelor's degree magna cum laude from Brooklyn College in 1958, studied English and American literature at Columbia University on a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship and then continued graduate studies at Brandeis University. In 1977, former Chief Justice Poritz received her law degree from the University of Pennsylvania Law School.
Source

David A. Ruhnke, Ruhnke & Barrett, private defense attorney

As of the Spring of 2007, David Ruhnke had tried a total of 15 capital cases to a verdict, including nine federal cases. Among these is the embassy bombing case tried in the Southern District of New York in the spring of 2001 where the jury spared the lives of two al-Qaeda operatives who had participated in the simultaneous terrorist bombings of American embassies in East Africa, resulting in 224 deaths and thousands of injuries. Mr. Ruhnke tried the first post-1988 federal death penalty cases in the Eastern, Southern and Northern Districts of New York as well as the first such case in the Middle District of Pennsylvania. He is a former Assistant Federal Public Defender and his been in private practice for the past 25 years. He lectures frequently on the defense of capital cases.
Source

James K. Smith, Assistant Public Defender

James K. Smith graduated from Muhlenberg College in 1969 and from Georgetown University Law Center in 1972. While in law school, he worked as an intern for the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia. Mr. Smith joined the Appellate Section of the Office of the Public Defender in 1972, and has worked there ever since. James K. Smith was the Deputy in charge of the office from July, 1979 until March, 1989.
Source

Hon. Peter G. Verniero, Associate Justice, Supreme Court of New Jersey (Ret.)

Justice Verniero was nominated to serve on the Supreme Court by Governor Christine Todd Whitman. He was sworn in on September 1, 1999 by then-Justice Marie L. Garibaldi. He served until 2006. He graduated summa cum laude from Drew University in 1981, where he was Phi Beta Kappa. He graduated with honors from Duke University School of Law in 1984 and was admitted to the Bar of New Jersey the same year. The Justice served as a law clerk to now-retired Supreme Court Associate Justice Robert L. Clifford during the 1984-1985 Court Term. In private practice, Justice Verniero was an associate with the law firm of Pitney, Hardin, Kipp & Szuch (1985-1987) and a director of the firm of Herold & Haines (1990-1993). In 1986, he was an adjunct professor of business law at the County College of Morris.

Appointed by Governor Whitman as her Chief Counsel, Justice Verniero served in that capacity from January 1994 to February 1995, when he became the Governor’s Chief of Staff. He remained in that position until July 10, 1996, when he was sworn in as Attorney General. There, he handled several landmark cases, appearing, for example, in defense of Megan’s Law before the United States Court of Appeals, which upheld the law in 1997.
Source

Kevin D. Walsh, Esq., New Jerseyans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty

Kevin D. Walsh is the Chair of the Legal Committee of NJDPM. He clerked for the Honorable Gary S. Stein, Associate Justice of the New Jersey Supreme Court. As an attorney in South Jersey, Kevin works on affordable housing issues. Kevin D. Walsh is the Associate Director of Fair Share Housing Center, a non-profit legal and policy center founded in 1975 to advance and protect the Mount Laurel doctrine. Kevin joined the center in 2000, and is a graduate of Rutgers School of Law in Camden.

He represented the challengers of the lethal injection protocol in I/M/O Amendments to Death Penalty Regulations, 367 N.J. Super. 61 (App.Div. 2004) which stayed all executions in New Jersey – never to resume.
Source

Miles S. Winder, III, Member of NJ Death Penalty Study Commission

Miles S. Winder, III, a member of NJ Death Penalty Study Commission, received his A.B. from Oberlin College 1969, and his J.D. from the University of Denver College of Law 1972. He is an adjunct faculty member at Raritan Valley Community College. Mr. Winder is the Chair of the Real Property Probate and Trust Law Section of the NJSBA, the Chair of the District XIII Ethics Committee, and the President of the Somerset County Bar Association. He is also a trustee NJSBA, as well as a member of the Board of Directors at Northwest Jersey Legal Services.
Source

William A. Zarling, Former Deputy First Assistant Prosecutor – Mercer County

From 1971-2007, William Allan Zarling was employed by the Mercer County Prosecutor's Office, last serving as Deputy First Assistant Prosecutor. Among his varied responsibilities, he was police legal advisor for over 25 years. As a litigator, his experience includes three death-penalty murder trials. He has taught criminal law, arrest, search and seizure and domestic violence at the Trenton Police Academy since 1980 and has been an Adjunct Professor of Law and Justice at The College of New Jersey (TCNJ) since 1881, an Adjunct Professor at Widener University School of Law (Delaware) from 1990-1999 and a Visiting Part-Time Lecturer at Rutgers University School of Law - Camden since 2000. In September, 2005, he received the second annual "Career Advocacy Award" from the New Jersey County Prosecutor's Association. He attended the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard Law School and served a two-year trial-level clerkship for the N.J. Superior Court and the U.S. District Court (Trenton).
Source

Hon. James R. Zazzali, Chief Justice, Supreme Court of New Jersey (Ret.)
Conference Chairman

Chief Justice Zazzali was nominated by Gov. Jonathan S. Corzine on Sept. 21, 2006. His nomination was confirmed by the Senate on Oct. 23 and he was sworn into office on Oct. 26. He is the seventh Chief Justice to lead the New Jersey Supreme Court since the 1947 Constitution. Chief Justice Zazzali was first named to the Supreme Court on May 18, 2000. He was confirmed on May 25 and sworn in on June 14. Chief Justice Zazzali graduated from Georgetown College in 1958 and Georgetown Law Center in 1962. He served his clerkship with the Honorable Lawrence A. Whipple. He is admitted to the New Jersey, New York and District of Columbia bars. Chief Justice Zazzali served as Chief of the Appeals Division of the Office of the Essex County Prosecutor; General Counsel to the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority; Receiver for Bloomfield College; Chairman of the New Jersey State Commission of Investigation; Vice-Chairman of the Disciplinary Review Board, and as New Jersey Attorney General.

In litigation challenging jail conditions, at the request of United States District Judge Harold Ackerman, Zazzali served as Special Master for the county jails in Essex, Monmouth and Bergen Counties. He also served, at the request of the United States State Department, on delegations to the United Nations conferences. He is a former Adjunct Professor at Seton Hall Law School, former member of the editorial board of the New Jersey Law Journal, and a contributor to various magazines, newspapers and law journals.
Source