Featured Speakers
Eric S. Janus, J.D.
Professor & Dean Emeritus
Mitchell Hamline School of Law
Eric Janus is President and Dean Emeritus at Mitchell Hamline School of Law, where he has been on the faculty since 1984. He served as President and Dean of the law school from 2007-2015. He was named one of the “25 Most Influential People in Legal Education” by The National Jurist in 2015 and 2016.
Hon. Bradford M. Bury
Retired NJ Superior Court Judge
Judge Bury graduated from Villanova School of Law and served as an Assistant Prosecutor in the Union County and Morris County Prosecutor’s Offices for 5 years, where he supervised trial teams, the narcotics strike force, and the special enforcement unit. He was a trial attorney in private practice for 35 years, litigating civil and criminal cases in state and federal trial and appellate courts.
Matt Gray
Investigative Reporter
NJ Advance Media
Matt Gray is a news reporter with NJ.com who focuses on crime and court coverage across New Jersey. He regularly reports on major criminal cases, law enforcement activity, and developments in the state’s court system. He has worked as a journalist in New Jersey for more than 30 years, covering breaking news and long‑term issues affecting communities statewide.
Corey Rayburn Yung, J.D.
Professor of Law
University of Kansas
Corey Rayburn Yung is a William R. Scott Research Professor at the University of Kansas School of Law.
Yung's scholarship has appeared in, among other publications, The Boston College Law Review, George Washington Law Review, Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review, Iowa Law Review, and Northwestern University Law Review
Dr. Colombino, PhD
Clinical & Forensic psychologist
Center for Forensic & Clinical Psychology of NJ
Dr. Niki Colombino is a licensed clinical psychologist who specializes in forensic psychology. She is licensed to practice psychology in New Jersey and New York and is also licensed to practice under PSYPACT in participating states. Dr. Colombino received her PhD in clinical-forensic psychology from The Graduate Center at John Jay College of Criminal Justice (CUNY).
Emma Ruth
Policy Analyst & Advocate
Free to Heal
Emma Ruth is a cofounder of Free to Heal, a ragtag group of researchers and survivor-activists who partnered to publish and disseminate a report that exposes the violence of sex offense civil commitment, called “Inside Illinois Civil Commitment” (2021). Free to Heal takes the stance that state violence is not a solution to sexual violence, and that we all must be free in order to heal from sexual harm.
Dr. Matthew Barry Johnson
Tamara Rice Lave, J.D., Ph.D.
Rodney Roberts
Professor of Psychology
Matthew Barry Johnson is a Professor of Psychology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York. He is a highly regarded expert witness and the author of “Wrongful Conviction in Sexual Assault: Stranger Rape, Acquaintance Rape, and Intrafamilial Child Sexual Assault” (Oxford University Press, 2021). Professor Johnson earned the Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Adelphi University.
John Jay College
Professor of Law
University of Miami
Re-entry Coach
After graduating from Stanford Law School, Professor Lave was a deputy public defender for ten years in San Diego, California. As a P.D., she handled a variety of cases including possession of a spiny lobster out of season, torture, child molestation, rape, and murder. She also represented accused sexually violent predators in civil commitment hearings.
Rodney Roberts, a native of Newark, New Jersey, wrongfully served 18 years in Rahway State Prison as a result of being coerced into pleading guilty to a crime he did not commit. In spite of struggling with the immense feeling that came with pleading guilty, Rodney pushed forward with studying law and pursuing a higher education while falsely imprisoned. In 2014, as a pro se litigant and with the assistance of counsels and support from the Innocence Project, he was exonerated via DNA evidence. Since then, he has been on the frontline advocating for a more just criminal legal system, offering peer support to exonerees and their family members, and lending his experience to help pass legislation that addresses wrongful conviction. Proudly, in 2022, Mr. Roberts was hired as the Innocence Project’s first re-entry coach under the guidance of the organization’s social work department. In this role, he continues to provide necessary care to those impacted by wrongful imprisonment — and share insights related to wrongful conviction.
The Innocence Project
Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg
Investigative Reporter
The Appeal
Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg is a Senior Reporter for The Appeal. Based in New Jersey, she writes on prison and jail conditions, wrongful convictions, and the criminalization of disabilities. Elizabeth has also written for The Nation, New York Focus, and TruthOut. artnering with CoLAB Arts, she has written two interview-based plays, which have been performed in the Northeast—“Life, Death, Life Again: Children Sentenced to Die in Prison” and “Banished: A Family on the Sex Offender Registry.”
Alex Shalom
Partner
Lowenstein Sandler
Alexander Shalom leads the Lowenstein Center for Public Interest, bringing strategic focus to the firm's pro bono efforts and strengthening partnerships with leading nonprofit and community organizations across the country and within the firm's local communities, while maintaining an active litigation docket, including impact litigation and direct representation, and advocacy on behalf of an individual who has been civilly committed.
Terry Schuster
Ombudsperson
Office of the Corrections Ombudsperson
Terry Schuster is the New Jersey Corrections Ombudsperson, directing an independent state agency that inspects prison facilities including the Special Treatment Unit (STU), and that investigates complaints of mistreatment from incarcerated people and residents. Terry is an attorney and criminal justice policy expert. His office regularly tours the STU, receives letters and phone calls from the residents, and troubleshoots concerns with leaders at the state Department of Corrections and Department of Health.
Alison Perrone
Appellate Deputy Public Defender
NJ Office of the Public Defender
Alison Perrone is a Deputy Public Defender and Supervising Attorney of the statewide Appellate Section of the New Jersey Office of the Public Defender. Ms. Perrone began her career as a public defender in 1997 before transitioning to private practice in 2001. For seventeen years, she maintained a solo practice specializing in criminal appeals before returning to the Office of the Public Defender in 2018 to lead the Appellate Section.
Ron Pierce
Deputy Ombudsperson
Office of the Corrections Ombudsperson
An alum of the N.J. Step program, Ronald Pierce received his associate degree from Mercer Community College while at East Jersey State Prison. Ron continued his education when released and completed his undergraduate studies in Justice Studies, Summa Cum Laude, from Rutgers University-Newark in 2018 and was a recipient of the Vera Institute Scholarship.
Michael Mangels
Assistant Deputy Public Defender
NJ Office of the Public Defender
Michael began his legal involvement with detainees in the Special Treatment Unit while still attending Seton Hall Law School in 2014 in its Constitutional Litigation and Civil Rights Clinic who served as class counsel for the Alves v. Main litigants enforcing the settlement agreement. Upon graduation, he clerked with the Honorable Margaret M. Hayden.
Jenny Brooke-Condon
Professor of Law
Seton Hall Law School
Professor Condon is the Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs, teaches constitutional law, and directs the Equal Justice Clinic. The clinic challenges discrimination against non-citizens and other vulnerable groups and fights for second chances for people serving disproportionately lengthy sentences. The clinic has challenged life sentences for people sentenced as youth and late adolescents, fought arbitrary denials of parole, and represented clients in requests for clemency and federal sentence reduction.
Elizabeth Weil-Greenberg
Stephanie Jones
survivor and advocate
Investigative Reporter
Stephanie Jones is a victim of the Special Treatment Unit’s civil commitment system who lost ten years of her life to this atrocious place.
The Appeal
Bill Dobbs
attorney, activist, and consultant
Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg is a Senior Reporter for The Appeal. Based in New Jersey, she writes on prison and jail conditions, wrongful convictions, and the criminalization of disabilities. Elizabeth has also written for The Nation, New York Focus, and TruthOut. artnering with CoLAB Arts, she has written two interview-based plays, which have been performed in the Northeast—“Life, Death, Life Again: Children Sentenced to Die in Prison” and “Banished: A Family on the Sex Offender Registry.”
William Dobbs is an attorney and civil libertarian long concerned with harsh punishments, especially those used in sex-related cases. He is active in the ongoing campaign to close Minnesota’s sex offense civil commitment program (MSOP) and serves as an ex officio member of the Resident Advisory Family Council which is comprised of and advocates for detainees.
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