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 | Job Opportunity
September 1st, 2010
As of September 1st, Death Penalty Focus has launched a comprehensive national search for a new Executive Director. We are committed to an open and transparent process and are widely publicizing the position. |
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Lance Lindsey has been the executive director of Death Penalty Focus (founded in 1988) since 1995. As a former high school and college teacher, elementary and jr. high school principal, and executive director of human service organizations like Special Olympics, East Bay Perinatal Council, Crohn's and Colitis Foundation (Western Region), the Diabetic Youth Foundation, and Big Brothers/Big Sisters, Lance has been working for nearly 40 years to advance the causes of education, health, social justice and human rights. He also has taught at Arizona State Prison in Florence and in the San Francisco County Jails. He is a co-founder of California People of Faith Working Against the Death Penalty, founder of Californians for a Moratorium on Executions, and a past member of the board of directors of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. Lance, a resident of San Francisco since 1975, was born and raised in Los Angeles and has degrees in English and Comparative Literature from the University of California.
Stefanie Faucher has dedicated a decade of her life to working against the death penalty. She served as Program Director of Death Penalty Focus for seven years before being promoted to Associate Director. She has given talks and lectures about the death penalty at Stanford Law School, Golden Gate Law School, New College School of Law, and Notre Dame de Namur University, and she has been asked to speak to numerous local, statewide and national organizations, including: the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, California People of Faith Working Against the Death Penalty, and local chapters of Progressive Democrats of America, Amnesty International and the American Civil Liberties Union. Stefanie has been interviewed by the New York Times, Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Sacramento Bee, National Public Radio, San Francisco Magazine, and a variety of other newspapers and local radio and television news programs. In 2001, she taught an academic class on the death penalty at UC Berkeley through the Democratic Education at Cal program. In 2008 she was awarded the Abolitionist of the Year Award by the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. Over the last fifteen years, Stefanie has also been involved with organizations dedicated to AIDS awareness and prevention, ending homelessness, animal rescue, providing teenagers with information about STDS and birth control, and mentoring youth. She graduated from the University of California, Berkeley with a BA in Political Science. In 2001, while living in Argentina, she studied at the Universidad de Belgrano in Buenos Aires.
Shana Heller joined Death Penalty Focus as Development Director in August 2009. Her social justice background is varied. Prior to joining Death Penalty Focus, she spent 3 years serving as Development Coordinator for the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California. Shana is currently a Jeremiah Fellow with the Progressive Jewish Alliance, learning organizing and advocacy skills and engaging in discussions of social justice issues. The native San Franciscan spent 2005 working as the Program Assistant for Menedék Hungarian Association for Migrants, a Budapest-based NGO where she spent time researching the Hungarian asylum system and coordinating regional best practices efforts. During college she served as a member of the LGBT Alliance, leading diversity trainings and engaging allies of the LGBT community. Shana graduated from the University of California, San Diego with a BA in comparative politics and as a member of Phi Beta Kappa in 2006.
Yoko was born and raised in Japan. She moved to the United States in December 2001. While she was in Japan, she dedicated her spare time to the volunteer organization Soroptimist International America Japan Region Venture Club. She served as a board member, vice chairperson and the chairperson for several years. Yoko has worked with the elderly, the disabled, homeless people and battered women. Through this work, she became aware that many serious social issues were being overlooked by society. After immigrating to San Francisco, she earned a B.A. in Psychology from San Francisco State University. In school, Yoko became increasingly concerned with the cruelty of the U.S. prison system and with racism in the U.S. Before joining Death Penalty Focus as the Office Manager, she volunteered her time helping vulnerable youth both in public and private school settings in San Francisco. In her private life, she loves hiking, reading books and listening to music.
My brother, Robert James Kerr, was found lifeless, shirtless, barefoot and without identification on July 12, 2003 in Everett, Washington. He had been brutally beaten and strangled. It took weeks for investigators to identify him. I spent that time becoming increasingly worried and finally alarmed when he did not arrive for a scheduled visit and when my calls to his cell phone were answered by a stranger. I am still waiting for a suspect in my brother's death to be named and for justice to take its course. My grief is raw and unremitting. But I am absolute in my conviction that another death will not serve me. Justice through execution is not the justice I need and it is not the justice I want in my country or my world. I have never and will never support the death penalty. I know now, more than ever, that killing is wrong. Revenge will not bring my brother back and it will not bring me peace. I honor my brother's life and my memory of him by standing against the death penalty and working as the new Outreach Coordinator for CCV. The scars of his murder will never be gone but healing comes in many forms. My story is offered here in the hope that my words will bring others to the realization that another death will not solve anything and that our voices as victims who oppose more violence must be heard.
Aqeela grew up in Watts, CA, an epicenter of gang violence. After seeing 13
friends killed in gang wars, he was inspired to bring the warring factions, the
Crips and Bloods, together to work for an end to the violence. He was able to
create a peace treaty between the gangs in 1992, which has sustained for over
ten years. For the past 16 years he has continued working for peace. But in
January 2004, this belief was seriously tested when his 18-year-old son,Terrell,
was murdered while on a break from college. Aqeela decided he did not want the
person who killed his son to be executed, as it would only continue the cycle of
violence. Aqeela partnered with Death Penalty Focus to share his personal story
and experience with the criminal justice system as a murder victim family
member, and to share what he has learned about the death penalty. His son's
murder remains unsolved. He now serves as the Southern California Outreach
Coordinator for California Crime Victims for Alternatives to the Death Penalty. 
Aarti Kelapure joined California Crime Victims for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (CCV) as the Program Coordinator in April 2008. She is interested in various criminal justice and social justice issues, namely the death penalty and wrongful convictions. Prior to joining CCV, Aarti volunteered as a research assistant for a member of the California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice on prosecutorial misconduct, studied international human rights law at the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in Costa Rica, and volunteered at Death Penalty Focus. She has also volunteered at a childrens' homeless shelter and a shelter for battered women and their children. Aarti earned her B.A. in Sociology from University of California, Berkeley.
Elizabeth Zitrin represents DPF on the Steering Committee of the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty (WCADP), where she chairs Working Groups on the USA and on Corporate Responsibility. Elizabeth practiced criminal defense law in San Francisco and continues to be actively involved with capital cases. She serves on the Board of Directors of the ACLU of Northern California and is a past Chair of the Advisory Board of the Northern California Innocence Project. She is also the California Death Penalty Coordinator for Amnesty International USA. She holds a B.A. from Oberlin College and a J.D. from Northeastern University School of Law.
