TAMPA, Florida – Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (FADP) announces the election of eight new members to its Board of Directors:
FADP Board Secretary Rachel Newman, J.D.; FADP Board Treasurer Krista Dolan, J.D.; Ira W. Bates, Ph.D.; Lin Liu, Ph.D.; Masimba Mutamba, J.D.; Agustin Quiles; Elizabeth Hogan Webb, J.D; and Roger L. Weeden, J.D.
FADP Executive Director Mark Elliott announced, “We are excited to welcome these eight talented individuals. Their unique backgrounds, diverse experience, and commitment to ending the death penalty in Florida will make them a great asset to FADP’s board and the organization.”
FADP’s newly-elected Board Chair, Sheila Meehan, welcomed the new board members, “We are honored that these strong leaders will help guide FADP at a critical moment of opportunity to take our work to a new level. Their expertise and deep community connections will help us as we prepare to support a new strategic alliance and campaign to protect people with serious mental illness from the death penalty.”
The new board members began their two-year terms with FADP effective January 30, 2022:
Rachel Newman, J.D., FADP Board Secretary, obtained her Bachelor of Arts at the University of Florida and subsequently received her Juris Doctorate from Nova Southeastern University Law School. Rachel has been an Assistant Public Defender in Broward County, Florida, since 2005. Throughout her career, Rachel has represented clients in Misdemeanor, Juvenile, and Felony court, including clients assigned to Repeat Offender Court, children charged in adult court (Direct-File), and juvenile clients entitled to resentencing according to Miller v. Alabama, 567 U.S. 460 (2012). In addition, Rachel served as Chief Assistant in the Felony Division, where she helped mentor and supervise attorneys. Currently, Rachel is assigned to the Major Crimes division and primarily handles capital and non-capital homicides. She is dedicated to fighting the death penalty one case, one client at a time, and considers the opportunity to do this work one of the most important and humbling experiences in her life. Rachel lives in South Florida with her husband and daughter.
Krista Dolan, J.D., FADP Board Treasurer, is a Senior Staff Attorney with the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Criminal Justice Reform practice group. Before joining SPLC, Krista worked on post-conviction issues for eight years, first with a public defender agency and then with the Innocence Project of Florida, before serving as the chief advisor in the Florida House Democratic Office for the Justice and Finance & Taxation silos. Krista received her Master’s in Applied American Politics and Policy, her Juris Doctorate from Florida State University, and her LL.M. in Law & Government at American University with a concentration in civil rights and constitutional law. She is the author of several publications and currently serves as the Treasurer of the Public Interest Law Section of The Florida Bar.
Ira W. Bates, Ph.D. is Chair of Accounting, Finance and Business Law departments at Florida A&M University. A veteran of the United States Air Force, he has experience in both the public and private accounting sectors. Dr. Bates has authored/co authored numerous journal articles and reviewed several books. Dr Bates is committed to issues related to homelessness and social justice reform.
Lin Liu, Ph.D. is an assistant professor at Florida International University. Her research and expertise revolve around criminal justice actors’ focal concerns, criminal offending trajectories, the heterogeneous needs of released prisoners, and quantitative methodologies. She has kept an active research agenda, and her research has appeared in a broad scope of social science journals such as Crime & Delinquency, Justice Quarterly, and Sociological Inquiry.
Masimba Mutamba, J.D. is an Assistant County Attorney with the Palm Beach County Attorney’s Office. He regularly advises County departments on various legal issues, including government transparency, data privacy, and constitutional and civil rights matters. Before working for Palm Beach County, Masimba was the inaugural William A. Trine Fellow at the Human Rights Defense Center. As a member of that non-profit’s litigation team, Masimba worked on state and federal lawsuits across the country to defend the human rights of incarcerated people in the nation’s jails, prisons, and detention centers. In this role, Masimba observed first-hand how difficult–and often tragically impossible–it is to right the wrongs of the criminal justice system. With that in mind, Masimba remains committed to ensuring that the law recognizes, advances, and defends all persons’ rights, obligations, and liberties. Masimba graduated with Distinction from the University of Glasgow Law School in Scotland and magna cum laude from the University of Miami School of Law.
Agustin Quiles is the founder of Mission Talk, an organization that equips Latinos around justice and advocacy and brings them together on faith and values to build influence and make a difference in vulnerable communities. Agustin’s work includes advocating and mobilizing for educational equity, immigration reform, criminal justice reform, ending poverty, and global compassion work. Agustin has served in several leadership roles, including Director of Mobilization for the National Latino Evangelical Coalition, Florida Representative for the Evangelical Immigration Table / National Immigration Forum, National Director for Hispanic Partnerships at Wycliffe USA. He has partnered or served as a consultant for several organizations, including Faith In Action, FRACEEV (Florida Fellowship of Hispanic Evangelical Councils), Florida Rights Restoration Coalition, Urban Strategies, Cru, InterVarsity, World Out Spoken, Live Free, City Seminary of New York, Lilly Endowment Latino Initiatives, AETH, Leadership Education at Duke University and many faith-based organizations.
Elizabeth Hogan Webb, J.D. is an assistant public defender with the Office of the Public Defender, Fourth Judicial Circuit of Florida; she is the sole appellate attorney in that office and has handled hundreds of matters advocating for the indigent accused at all stages of their court proceedings. She has several significant published appeal cases and has authored chapters in Florida Bar publications. As an assistant public defender, Elizabeth has represented clients who were sentenced to life without the possibility of parole as juveniles but were later eligible for resentencing under the Graham v. Florida U.S. Supreme Court case (one such client was released after having been sentenced to life without parole at the age of 14 and spending 43 years behind bars). She is a 1986 graduate of the Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania and a 1989 graduate of the University of Florida Levin College of Law. Elizabeth is a past president of the Catholic Diocese of St. Augustine Catholic Lawyers Guild and has been active in her parish for many years. She and her husband, Jack, have three grown children.
Roger L. Weeden, J.D. is a Criminal and Capital Defense Attorney in Orlando, Florida. Over the last several decades, Roger has taken on and tried some of the most difficult, complex and serious cases in Central Florida, including over thirty-five homicide cases, in seven of which the State sought death. Notably, he has twice represented women accused of murdering their husbands and obtained jury acquittals for both. Roger’s skill as a criminal defense attorney has been recognized by his peers within the Central Florida Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, who in 2017 bestowed on him the Joseph W. DuRocher “Foot Soldier of the Constitution” award, recognizing his significant achievements in Court and the Community. Roger is an active member of the National Lawyers Guild, Police Accountability Project and Mass Defense Committee. He is also Co-Chair of the Criminal Justice Sector of the CRC Network, a trauma informed organization seeking to bring recognition of trauma and resilience to the community. Roger has an undergraduate degree in English Literature from the University of Florida and a Juris Doctorate from DePaul University College of Law.