Jennifer Merrigan is Acting Director of the Death Penalty Litigation Clinic, a non-profit law firm in Kansas City, Missouri, where she has been a staff attorney since 2004. She graduated from UMKC Law School with distinction in 2004. She has been appointed on both state and federal habeas corpus cases, as a mitigation investigator and as counsel. She helped to research and develop the Supplementary Guidelines for the Mitigation Function of Defense Teams in Death Penalty Cases, 36 Hofstra L. Rev. 677 (Spring 2008). Ms. Merrigan is the 2010 recipient of the Missouri Association of Criminal Defense Lawyer’s Atticus Finch Award.
Joseph W. Luby has served as an attorney with the Death Penalty Litigation Clinic, formerly the Public Interest Litigation Clinic, since 2001. After graduating from Yale Law School in 1998, he served as a judicial law clerk for Judge John R. Gibson of the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, and then for Judge Howard F. Sachs of the United States District Court for the Western District of Missouri. Mr. Luby has represented death-sentenced prisoners in all manner of post-trial proceedings, with an emphasis on federal habeas corpus remedies. In 2009 he was awarded the Missouri Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers‚ Atticus Finch Award for the pursuit of justice and the defense of unpopular causes.
Jessica Sutton is a staff attorney at the Death Penalty Litigation Clinic, which she joined in 2010. Jessica is a 2009 graduate of Boston University School of Law, where she was awarded the Warren S. Gilford Law and Humanity Prize as well as the Clinical Legal Education Association Outstanding Student Award for her work in the criminal defense clinic. During law school, Jessica co-founded a community-based legal clinic serving transgender people in Boston, including those who are incarcerated. Jessica also interned at the New York Civil Liberties Union and volunteered for the Center for Death Penalty Litigation. After law school, Jessica clerked for the Honorable Helen Toor at Chittenden Superior Court in Burlington, Vermont. She currently serves on the Board of Equal Justice Works.
Codi Campbell is the Paralegal for the Death Penalty Litigation Clinic, where she has been the paralegal since April 2008. Codi graduated from Washburn University with a Legal Studies degree in 2007. She also attended Barton County Community College in Great Bend, Kansas and graduated with an Accounting degree in 2003. Codi is currently pursuing a degree in Criminal Justice from Washburn University in order to learn more about criminal investigation. (Contact DPLC for CV).