Margery M. Koosed, Co-Chair

Margery M. Koosed is the Aileen McMurray Trusler Professor Emeritus at The University of Akron School of Law. Her writing focuses on death penalty litigation issues. She teaches Criminal Law, Constitutional Criminal Procedure, and seminars in criminal process, capital punishment litigation and mistaken convictions.

Professor Koosed received her B.S., cum laude, from Miami University and J.D. from Case Western Reserve University. A member of the Akron Law faculty since 1974, she served initially as a Lecturer in Law and Coordinator of the Appellate Review/Legal Clinical Program, and later as a Visiting Professor at the Case Western Reserve University School of Law. Her bar admissions include the U.S. Supreme Court; the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit; the U.S. District Court for the Northern and Southern Districts of Ohio; and Ohio.

Professor Koosed is a member of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, the American Bar Association and the Ohio State Bar Association, and other professional associations. She served two terms as a commissioner on the State Public Defender Commission, chairing the State Public Defender Commission’s Committee on Capital Defense Counsel Qualifications. She recently served on the American Bar Association’s Ohio Death Penalty Assessment Team and previously served as coordinator of the Ohio Death Penalty Task Force. She has also served as a member of the Executive Committee of the Association of American Law Schools Section on Criminal Justice and as an acting judge of the South Euclid Municipal Court.

Professor Koosed is a frequent presenter on death penalty issues at litigation seminars and symposia.

Rev. Dr. Crystal Walker, Co-Chair

Rev. Dr. Crystal Walker has a Masters of Divinity degree from Payne Theological Seminary and a Doctor of Ministry degree from United Theological Seminary.  Crystal’s ministry focus is on women who have experienced domestic abuse, rape and/or incest. She is the founder of Pastors Against Domestic Violence, an ecumenical ministry that trains pastors to be courtroom advocates for victims of domestic violence (women, men and children). Crystal is also focused on many additional social injustices in the city of Dayton. She is also a strong advocate against the death penalty and for stricter gun laws. She lost her son Edward age 28 to gun violence.

Crystal is married to Rev. Shelby Walker and is the mother of (5) Children from a blended family, Tamica Mathews (Daytona Beach, FL), Edward Powers (deceased) and Frank Powers (Indianapolis, IN), Jonathan Walker (Indianapolis, IN), Jamie Walker (Indianapolis, IN) and the proud grandmother of (6) granddaughters (Amani, Lili’Anna, Faith, Kyndal, Symira and Justice) and (3) grandsons (Kingsley, Xavier and Phil).

Jane Bohman

Jane Bohman serves as the co-convener of the Miami Valley chapter of Ohioans to Stop Executions, a grassroots volunteer organization that holds public education events and execution vigils, as well as supporting the work of OTSE.  From 2001-08, Jane served as the Executive Director of the Illinois Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty.  The Coalition educated the public on the flaws and injustices in the Illinois capital punishment system and promoted humane and effective alternatives to the death penalty.   Jane expanded the Coalition through outreach to criminal justice, student and faith-based organizations throughout Illinois.  She took a leadership role in the successful campaign to have then-Governor George Ryan commute all Illinois death sentences in 2003.   She testified before numerous legislative bodies and appeared on CNN, the PBS Newshour and other national news outlets.  Jane is a 1993 graduate of Chicago-Kent College of Law and received their Public Service Award in 2004.  She received her B.A. with honors from the University of Chicago in 1988.  In 2004 she was named by Crain’s Chicago Business as one of Chicago’s 100 Most Influential Women for her work against the death penalty.  

Richard Clark

Richard Clark, a Criminologist, is a professor in the Sociology and Criminology Department at John Carroll University. Among the courses he teaches is a class on the death penalty, and an Inside-Out Prison Education course held at a women’s prison in Cleveland. The course consists of ten women prisoners and ten traditional undergraduate John Carroll Students. Working with Jesuit World-Wide Learning, he also teaches an online Human Rights-Women’s Rights course to refugees located in various refugee camps in Africa and Asia.

Active in many social justice issues, he has received the John Carroll University Curtis W. Miles Community Service Award and the Lucrezia Cullicchia Excellence in Teaching Award for the College of Arts and Sciences.

Jack D’Aurora

Jack D’Aurora is a retired business lawyer and a contributor to The Columbus Dispatch op-ed section. Jack has written about the enormous costs of the death penalty, why judges should be appointed and not elected, human trafficking, gun policy, payday loans and other legal and social justice issues. He obtained his law degree from Georgetown.

A native of Steubenville, Ohio, Jack graduated from Notre Dame and was commissioned in the U.S. Navy in 1977.  He received his Naval Flight Officer wings in 1978 and was assigned to an F-14 squadron in San Diego in 1979. During two western Pacific deployments, he logged over 300 carrier-arrested landings aboard the U.S.S. Kitty Hawk.

Lynette Grace

For the past 24 years, Lynette Grace has worked at the Ohio Attorney General’s office as a Legal Secretary.

She has written a stage play called, “A Crime of Forgiveness,” based on a true crime murder about her own personal experience, that transforms chaos into art, which made its debut at MadLab Theater in Columbus, Ohio in October 2024.

She has met with Legislators on Capitol Hill, in Washington, D.C. She has been invited to the Ohio Senate and the Ohio House of Representatives to share her restorative justice testimony of Forgiveness, to give voice to bills going through legislation, in hopes of giving kids who were sentenced as youths, an opportunity to one day go to the Parole Board.

She is an advocate for the Campaign for the Fair Sentencing of Youth, located in Washington, D.C., as well as an advocate for the Ohioans to Stop Executions (OTSE) in an effort to end the death penalty in Ohio

Michael Hartley

Michael Hartley is the President of Swing State Strategies, where he utilizes his over two decades of political, policy/issue, public relations and corporate experience to work with clients on their public affairs, policy issue and political strategy needs.

Most recently, Hartley spent over four years as the Vice President of Government Relations for the Columbus Chamber of Commerce, where he led the advocacy effort at the local, state and federal levels on behalf of the Central Ohio business community.

Prior to his time with the Chamber, Hartley spent over thirteen years developing a reputation as one of the best political operatives in Ohio, serving a leadership role in a number of high-profile campaigns and government offices. His roles included: Ohio Campaign Manager for New Day for America, the Super PAC supporting Governor John Kasich, for the 2016 Ohio Republican Primary; Director of Public Liaison and Senior Staff member for Governor John Kasich where he directed all outreach efforts from the Governor’s Office; five Ohio statewide campaigns, including as Deputy Campaign Manager for Kasich Taylor for Ohio in 2010, Campaign Manager for Stivers for Congress in 2008 and Ohio Political Director for Bush/Cheney re-election in 2004; as well as serving in director positions in the Attorney General’s and Auditor of State’s Office.

Hartley received his Bachelor of Arts degree in History and Secondary Education from Baldwin-Wallace University.  He lives in Circleville with his wife Samantha and two children, Xavier and Sofia.