The ACLU's Capital Punishment Project
Get educated about the Death Penalty
The Capital Punishment Project (CPP) is a national project of the American Civil Liberties Union. The CPP engages in public education and advocacy, systemic reform and strategic litigation, including direct representation of capital defendants. The CPP challenges the unfairness and arbitrariness of capital punishment while working toward its ultimate repeal.
The Work of the CPP
Public Education and Advocacy
The CPP is actively engaged in repeal and moratoria efforts in a number of states. Elsewhere, the CPP is working to curtail the use of the death penalty and oppose recent efforts to expand its use.
Systemic Litigation
The CPP is currently involved in capital litigation in courts throughout the country, including the United States Supreme Court. In general, its litigation focuses on: (1) innocent persons; (2) severely mentally ill persons; (3) persons who face execution because of abysmal legal representation; (4) persons who face execution because of systemic discrimination; and (5) improving the fairness of capital trials and appeals.
Systemic Reform
The CPP works to reform the capital punishment process. In general, its initiatives focus on improving the fairness of capital trials and appeals, improving the quality of legal representation, and reducing the number of defendants who face the death penalty.
Capital Punishment Project Staff
John Holdridge, Director
Renee Rauch, Office Manager
Christopher Hill, State Strategies Coordinator
Cassandra Stubbs, Staff Attorney
Brian Stull, Staff Attorney
Anna Arceneaux, Staff Attorney
Odalys Rojas, Mitigation Specialist
William Webster, Paralegal
American Civil Liberties Union
Capital Punishment Project
201 West Main Street, Suite 402
Durham, N.C. 27701
Tel: 919-682-5659
Fax: 919-682-5961
John Holdridge is director of the ACLU's Capital Punishment Project in Durham, North Carolina. He has been a capital litigator for over 20 years, and has successfully represented numerous capital defendants at the trial and direct appeal levels. He has written on and lectured frequently about capital punishment and criminal justice issues.
Before joining the ACLU, John was a public defender in Connecticut's Capital Defense and Trial Services Unit, where he spearheaded the litigation seeking to prevent the execution of Michael Ross, a volunteer and the first person executed in New England in 45 years. Before that, John spent 11 years as director of the Mississippi and Louisiana Capital Trial Assistance Project in New Orleans, where he successfully represented numerous clients at trial and on direct appeal, including avoiding the death penalty in seven Mississippi cases involving black defendants and white victims. In Mississippi, John also was lead counsel for Larry Maxwell, who faced a triple capital murder indictment which the prosecution eventually dismissed, allowing Larry to return home to California. In Louisiana, John was lead counsel for Michael Ray Graham, who was exonerated after spending close to 14 years on death row.
John wrote the pleadings and co-argued the seminal case of State v. Peart, 621 So.2d 780 (La. 1993), in which the Louisiana Supreme Court recognized that indigent defendants have a pre-trial right to effective counsel and that the overwhelming caseloads of the indigent defender system in New Orleans violated that right. He also wrote the pleadings and argued United States v. Woolard and Bruner, 981 F.2d 756 (5th Cir. 1993), in which the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit declared a federal death penalty statute unconstitutional.
John is a graduate of Lawrence University, Appleton, Wisconsin, and New York University School of Law. He was the 2002 recipient of the Life in the Balance Achievement Award of the National Legal Aid and Defender Association, which stated that "he has set the standard for capital defenders throughout the country." In 2008, he received Lawrence University's Lucia R. Briggs Distinguished Achievement Award, which is presented to "to an alumnus or alumna of Lawrence University or Milwaukee-Downer College of more than 15 years, for outstanding contributions and achievements in a career field."
Christopher Hill is the state strategies coordinator with the ACLU Capital Punishment Project. Before joining the ACLU, Chris worked as a supervising attorney for Legal Services of New Jersey, where he sought to remove legal barriers impeding prisoners' successful re-entry back into society. In addition to extensive litigation experience, Chris has spent a great deal of his legal career, including his time as a National Association for Public Interest Law (now Equal Justice Works) Equal Justice Fellow, conducting outreach to educate the community about legal issues.
Chris received his B.A., with honors, in 1996, and his J.D. in 1999, both from Rutgers University, where he was awarded the Judge J. Skelly Wright Prize as the student who had contributed the most to civil liberties, civil rights and human affairs during their three years of law school.
Renee Rauch is the Office Manager for the ACLU Capital Punishment Project. Prior to joining the ACLU, Renee worked at Duke University Medical Center as a staff assistant in multiple departments. Her employment experience includes working with cancer and HIV patients and developmentally delayed children, as well as coordinating medical residents and staff. Her education has concentrated on the fields of education, medicine, and most recently, the law. Renee has been a passionate advocate over the past 20 years for the LGBT community, active in her communities in New Jersey and Tennessee, and currently in North Carolina.
Cassy Stubbs is a staff attorney with the ACLU Capital Punishment Project. Before joining the ACLU, Cassy worked as a New Mexico State public defender in the felony unit in Aztec, N.M. Previously, she litigated employment discrimination and wage and hour cases in state and federal court, both as a Skadden Fellow with Bet Tzedek Legal Services in Los Angeles, and as a contract attorney with the New York Civil Liberties Union in New York City. She served as lead counsel in multiple influential employment cases, including Wet Seal v. Ochoa, In Re Metro Fulfillment, 294 B.R. 306 (9th Cir. BAP 2003), and Lochren v. Suffolk County.
Cassy is admitted to the bars of New York, New Mexico, and California. She received her B.S, with honors, from Brown University in 1996 and graduated magna cum laude from New York University School of Law in 2000. She then served as a judicial clerk for Judge Harry Pregerson on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Brian Stull is a staff attorney with the ACLU Capital Punishment Project. Before joining the ACLU, Brian worked for close to five years at the Office of the Appellate Defender (OAD) in New York City, where he represented indigent criminal defendants convicted of serious felonies on direct appeal and in post conviction and federal habeas corpus proceedings. During his time at OAD, Brian argued over 35 appeals, including before the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, the New York Court of Appeals, and the Appellate Division of the New York State Supreme Court. Brian was also co-counsel in People v. Gantt, 13 A.D.3d 204, 786 N.Y.S.2d 492 (1st Dep’t 2004), a murder retrial of a client whose conviction he had successfully challenged in post-conviction.
Brian received a B.A., with high distinction, in 1993, and an M.S.W. in 1995, both from the University of Michigan, where he was awarded the National Association of Social Workers Social Work Student of the Year. As a social worker, Brian worked with chronically mentally ill adults.
Brian graduated cum laude from New York University School of Law in 2000, where he was awarded the Ann Petluck Poses Memorial Prize for outstanding work as a clinical student in the Capital Defender Clinic. He then served as a judicial clerk for federal magistrate judge Steven Pepe in the Eastern District of Michigan Federal District Court.
Anna is a staff attorney with the ACLU Capital Punishment Project. Prior to joining the ACLU, Anna was a fellow at the Fair Trial Initiative, where she assisted in the preparation of capital trial and post-conviction cases in North Carolina. Anna graduated from Columbia University School of Law in 2006, where she was a Harlan Fiske Stone scholar. She also served as Chapter Editor for the Human Rights Law Review/Jailhouse Lawyer’s Manual. A native of Louisiana, Anna co-founded the Student Hurricane Network (created in response to the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina), which won Columbia’s 2006 Public Interest New Initiative of the Year Award. Anna graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 2001 from the University of Texas.
Odalys Rojas is the mitigation specialist with the ACLU Capital Punishment Project. She has extensive experience as a mitigation specialist and criminal investigator. Before joining the ACLU, Odalys worked for seven years as a mitigation specialist on capital trial cases at the Office of the Public Defender, in Orlando/Miami, Florida, and the Habeas Corpus Resource Center in San Francisco, California, where she investigated capital post-conviction cases. She has assisted with the representation of foreign national clients where her work has taken her to South and Central America and Mexico. She has also worked on employment discrimination and wage and hour cases for migrant farm workers while working at the Florida Rural Legal Services and the Legal Services Organization in Indiana. In addition, she has served as the director of the Huntingburg Organization of Latinos Americans in Indiana, where the focus was centered on immigrant’s rights.
Odalys is a first generation immigrant from Cuba. She attended Indiana University and pursued a career in social service working as a drug counselor in a soup kitchen and later worked with an organization providing social services to migrant farm workers and their families.
William Webster is the paralegal for the ACLU Capital Punishment Project. Prior to joining the ACLU, William worked with several law firms in Washington, D.C. and Raleigh, N.C. His legal experience includes civil litigation involving insurance and medical malpractice matters, and assisting with the pro bono defense of misdemeanor criminal cases. William is a 1992 graduate of North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University. He is a member of the North Carolina Academy of Trial Lawyers.