Board of Directors

  Karl Keys is co-chair of PADP and a criminal defense attorney who lives and practices along the Delaware River.  For the last eight years he has written the newsletter and blog Capital Defense Weekly, has run several national death penalty related listservs, served on the ABCNY's Capital Punishment Committee, as well as the Boards of Directors of NJADP, Journey of Hope and various local community arts organizations.
  David Rose is the Secretary of the board of directors of PADP.   He is a resident of Easton, Pennsylvania.  He is one of the original members of the local anti-death penalty group, Lehigh Valley Committee Against State Killing (LV CASK).  David is a member of the Lehigh Valley Monthly Meeting (Quakers) and has served on the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting Criminal Justice Committee, where he was responsible for organizing opposition to the death penalty among Quakers.  David has a BS in Criminology from Florida State University and is currently enrolled in the Master of Public Administration Program at Kutztown University.  He is employed by the State of New Jersey.
Aja Beech first became involved in prison reform activism when her brother was in jail under wrongful charges. Her pursuit of justice for her brother gave her first hand knowledge of the highly arbitrary sentencing system. This caused her to reflect on the murder of her cousin Deidre Johnson and the lack of services for both inmates and victims’ family members. Ever since, Aja has worked against the death penalty, for victims’ services and prison reform. She is a graduate of Temple University and published poet living in Philadelphia with her two sons.
Deborah Doyle Belknap is an Assistant Professor of criminal justice and psychology at Keystone College in Northeastern Pennsylvania. She holds a law degree and practiced criminal and civil law before returning to graduate school for a doctorate in psychology. As a graduate student, she was involved as a researcher in the Capital Jury Project, and she is currently engaged in research on capital punishment and the mentally ill.
Stephen Bruder has been Legislative Director for Pennsylvania Senator Jim Ferlo since January of 2003. He is a graduate of Duquesne University.  Stephen currently acts as the Chair for the PADP Board Legislative Committee.
Marshall Dayan has been actively involved in the anti-death penalty movement since 1981.  His first client after obtaining a law license in the District of Columbia was a Virginia death row inmate, and he has represented indigent persons accused or convicted of capital offenses at all stages of litigation and advocacy, from trial through the clemency process.  He was staff attorney with the North Carolina Resource Center for seven years, an assistant appellate defender for the State of North Carolina for three years, and was in private practice from January, 1988 through July, 2001.  In August, 2001, Dayan became an Assistant Professor of Law at North Carolina Central University School of Law.  In June, 2006, Dayan became State Strategies Coordinator of the national ACLU's Capital Punishment Project, which relocated from Washington, D.C. to Durham, N.C.  After almost a year with the ACLU-CPP, Dayan joined the Capital Habeas Unit of the Federal Defender's Office in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  Dayan has published law review articles on the death penalty in various journals, and has also written several pieces on capital litigation for The Champion, the magazine of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.  He has also served as Chair of the Board of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, and served as Vice-Chair on the Commission on Social Action for Reform Judaism.
Walter Everett's son was murdered in 1987, and his subsequent journey took him through intense rage until he realized that he, too, was dying emotionally and spiritually.  His desire for healing gradually moved him toward forgiveness, and ultimately to a commitment to abolition of the death penalty, recognizing that capital punishment is poor public policy that does nothing positive for victims' families, and only increases the level of violence in society.  An ordained clergyman, he is currently serving as pastor of St. John's United Methodist Church in Sunbury, Pennsylvania and serves on the Board of Directors of Murder Victims’ Families for Human Rights (MVFHR) and PADP.
Andy Hoover is the former Executive Director of PADP and has been involved in the death penalty abolition movement since 2000.  Andy is also the Legislative Director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania.  He is a 1995 graduate of the University of Pittsburgh with a bachelor's degree in communications and a 2008 graduate of Penn State with a master's degree in community psychology&social change.
Marlene Lang is currently a free lance columnist for the Sun-Times News Group and resident of Lancaster Pennsylvania.  She is also Editor, writer and Web master for EFMR Monitoring/Three Mile Island Alert, non-profit groups monitoring nuclear power industry in central Pennsylvania.  Marlene is an award winning journalist and has experience with media markets in Illinois, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania.