Pretrial Justice Institute (PJI)

Board of Trustees

Barry Mahoney is President Emeritus of The Justice Management Institute (JMI), a Colorado-based non-profit organization that he helped to found and for which he served as President from 1993 to 2002. In recent years, in addition to directing several JMI projects, he has served as a consultant on justice system modernization and improvement issues in Serbia, Kosovo, and Mexico, as well as in the U.S. His earlier experience includes extensive litigation experience handling criminal and constitutional law cases in state and federal courts as an Assistant Attorney General of the State of New York. He has also been an Associate Director of the National Center for State Courts, the Director of the London Office of the Vera Institute of Justice, and Director of Research at the Institute for Court Management. He has written widely on justice system issues, is the principal author of several publications focused on issues in pretrial services, and was the Reporter for the Third Edition of the NAPSA Standards on Pretrial Release. He is the current Chair of the PJI Board of Trustees.

Justice Deborah A. Agosti is a retired Supreme Court justice in Nevada. She has had a very successful career including being the Chief Justice in 2003. She was the first female Justice of the Peace in Reno Township, followed by the first woman to sit on the District Court Bench for Washoe County, where following that she ran and was elected to the Supreme Court of Nevada in 1998. She was responsible for creating the Specialty Court Funding Committee as well as the co-chair for the Jury Improvement Commission. She has also been an instructor at the National Judicial College.

Susan Brannen is currently the Specialized Services Manager for Adult Probation in Columbus Ohio and serves as President of the Ohio Association of Pretrial Services Agencies. She previously held the position of Executive Director of Pretrial Services Corporation in Rochester, N.Y. and served as president of NYAPSA.

Michelle Brown is currently serving her second term as President of the National Association of Pretrial Services Agencies (NAPSA). Prior to being elected President, she served on the NAPSA Board of Directors for five years in the capacities of At-Large Director and Central Regional Director.

Michelle is currently employed as Director for Tarrant County Pretrial Services in Fort Worth, Texas where she has worked since 1987. In addition to the Pretrial Release Unit, Michelle also provides oversight of the county’s Adult Drug Court Program and Mental Health Diversion Program. She holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Criminology and Corrections and a Master of Science Degree in Criminal Justice Management from Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas. She is a member of several professional organizations, including the National Association of Blacks in Criminal Justice (NABCJ), the Texas Corrections Association (TCA), and the National Association of Drug Court Professionals (NADCP). Michelle also serves on the Advisory Board for the Criminal Justice Department at Remington College in Fort Worth. In addition, she is currently serving as President of the Fort Worth Alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., a national public service sorority.

Judge James G. Carr, a graduate of Kenyon College and Harvard Law School, is the Chief Judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio, having been appointed as a District Judge by President Clinton in 1994. Before then, he was a United States Magistrate Judge for that Court from 1979. From 1970-79 he was a Professor of Law at the University of Toledo College of Law. He has previously served as member of the Magistrate Judges Committee and the Criminal Law Committee of the U.S. Judicial Conference, and as the Chair of that Committee's Pretrial Services Subcommittee. He is the author of treatises on the Law of Electronic Surveillance and Ohio Juvenile Law, and other books and articles on criminal law and procedure and civil procedure. He has been a member of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court since 2002. He has been a member of the Institute's Board since 1992.

Norm Early is the former Denver District Attorney. He is now a principal in BounceBack which outsources "bad" check programs for prosecutors and MarkeTouch Media which specializes in telemarketing phone calls. Additionally, he serves as special counsel to Welborn Sullivan Meck & Tooley, P.C., a Denver law firm and is media spokesperson for the National District Attorneys Association.

Mr. Early was the developer of the District Attorney's Victim/Witness Assistance Program, the Drug Education Program, the drinking and driving program called “It's Not Worth It”, and others. He has served as a legal analyst for MSNBC and NBC and has appeared on many national television programs.

During his career, Mr. Early has been the recipient of a number of awards for his contributions to the community and the criminal justice system. Mr. Early is the founder and first president of the National Black Prosecutors Association, former president of the Colorado District Attorney's Council, served as president of the board of the National Organization for Victim Assistance and a member of the board of the National District Attorney's Association. He is a founding member of the Sam Cary Bar Association, and sits on the boards of Crimestoppers, Make-a-Wish Foundation of Colorado, Pretrial Services Resource Center, Fight Crime Invest in Kids, Open Door Youth Gang Alternatives, University of Illinois, College of Law (Board past President), the Metropolitan Football Stadium District and the Civil Service Review Board.

Mr. Early, holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in government from The American University. He then earned his law degree from the University of Illinois, College of Law, at Champaign-Urbana.

Robert J. Guttentag is a retired business executive. He attended Harvard 1953 AB. and Harvard Business School 1958 MBA. He was a member of the US Navy 1953-1956. Prior employment includes: Exec. VP WJ Young Machy. Co Inc. 1959-1967 and Gillette Co. Division Mgr. Engineering Services 1967-1992. Robert’s non profit activities include PSRC 1976-present (Chair 1994-96), Justice Resource Institute 1976-present (Vice Chair), Massachusetts Commission on Judicial Conduct 1991-present (Chair), The Key Program Inc. 2000-present. Judicial Nominating Committee 1993-2000 and Massachusetts Board of Bar Overseers 1993-2004. Other non profit activities include or have included The Massachusetts Public Health Council, Boston Police Foundation, Women's Technical Institute, Governor's Management task force.

Judge Tomar Mason of the San Francisco Superior Court has been a state trial court judge for 16 years handling both civil and criminal matters. She served on San Francisco's jail overcrowding committee, whose development of jail alternative programs enabled San Francisco to satisfactorily end a 14-year old consent decree governing its jail. Judge Mason has contributed to a number of other nontraditional criminal justice efforts, including drug and mentor courts for youthful offenders, as well as partnerships with public schools. As a practicing attorney and later as a judge, she has fought for justice in child abuse and domestic violence cases.

In addition to her bench duties, Judge Mason serves on numerous state and national boards. After an active role founding both the National Association of Drug Court Professionals (NADCP) and its California counterpart, CADCP, for which she served as President, she was recognized by President Clinton for her support of resources for Drug Courts in the U.S. Crime Bill. She was chosen as a coalition member for the Council of State Governments' Criminal Justice/Mental Health Consensus Project, is a NADA (National Acupuncture Detoxification Association) Certified Acupuncture Detoxification Technician, has served on the National Council on Crime and Delinquency (NCCD), has twice served as President of the Association for Criminal Justice Research of California (1998-1999; 2003-2005), currently serves on the Youth Law Center Board of Directors and serves on and was the Immediate Past Chair of the Pretrial Services Resource Center (PSRC) Board.

Judge Mason often serves as faculty or presenter at national and international conferences. Currently on faculty for the National Judicial College in Reno, she has also taught for the Nevada Judges' College. She has addressed the Federacion Argentina De Comunidades Terapeuticas International Conference in Buenos Aires, the 47th Annual Conference of the American Society of Criminology in Boston, and numerous national symposia on drug courts and criminal justice in Annapolis, Atlanta, Austin, Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, New Orleans, Philadelphia, Portland, Sacramento, San Diego, Sarasota, Seattle, Stockton and Washington, D C.

She received her J.D. from UCLA School of Law in 1977, and her B.A. from Michigan State University in 1973.

E. Michael McCann has recently retired from being the District Attorney for Milwaukee County. At 30 he became the assistant District Attorney and in 1969 he was sworn in as the D.A. He is currently the longest serving D.A. in any major city in the nation, completing 38 years of service on January 2007. He is known for getting one of the biggest convictions of the century for Jeffrey Dahmer. Currently he is an adjunct professor at Marquette University Law School. He is the father of two adult children and recently became a grandfather.

Jerome E. McElroy is the Executive Director of the New York City Pretrial Agency (CJA), a non-profit agency providing pretrial services to the City's Criminal Courts. Previously he was an Associate Director of the Vera Institute of Justice, and prior to that he was the Deputy Administrator of the New York State criminal justice planning agency (DCJS) under the LEAA program. He brings to the Board a comprehensive knowledge of the criminal justice system, and skills and experience in conducting and managing criminal justice research.

Howard Messing has been Federal Jail master in Broward County Florida (Fort Lauderdale) for the past 25 years and served as Master in Monroe County (Key West) Florida where he actively participated in the successful resolution of the Jail Conditions litigation. He has served as a consultant in criminal justice system delay reduction to over 50 jurisdictions nationally and is an accomplished speaker/trainer on this topic. He is a tenured Full Professor of Law (Emeritus) at Nova Southeastern University. He has been teaching criminal justice and ethics related courses at Nova for the past 25 years. He is a long time member of the Florida Bar Professional Ethics Committee, a three-time Chairperson of local Bar Grievance Committees and was one of the drafters of Florida’s Rules of Professional Responsibility. He writes and speaks extensively on law, ethics and popular culture and has been chosen by the Federal Judicial Center as Ethics Trainer for District, Bankruptcy and Magistrate Judges.

Professor Messing is Past Chair of the Pretrial Justice Institute and Past Chair and long time member of the Board of Directors of the Pretrial Services Resource Center. He has beenhonored by NAPSA as its Ennis J. Olgiati Award Winner.

Dennis Murphy has lived and practiced law in Washington, D.C. (where he worked for the U.S. Department of Justice, the U.S. Attorneys Office, and D.C. Law Students in Court, for which he was the Executive Director), Tucson, Arizona (where he was a private criminal defense attorney and public defender for eleven years), and, since 1996, New York City (where he was Attorney-in-Charge of the Legal Aid Society’s Criminal Defense Division, a capital defense lawyer for the Capital Defender Office for the state-wide Capital Defender Office for seven years, and currently a senior trial lawyer for the Legal Aid Society in Manhattan). He has taught, lectured, or testified on legal or mental health and the law subjects in schools (high school, community college, university, law school, medical school, and business school), before legal groups, and legislatures. He has been a consultant to public defender organizations and communities experiencing difficulties in the funding and delivery of quality legal representation to indigent accused and assisted in related impact litigation. He has been on the boards of several state and national organizations, including Arizona Attorneys for Criminal Justice, the Pretrial Services Resource Center, and the New York State Association of Criminal Defense Attorneys. He graduated from Georgetown University Law Center in 1976. He is the current chair of the Financial Subcommittee.

Carol Oeller has worked for Harris County Pretrial Services for twenty-seven years and has held the position of director since 1999. Ms. Oeller served on the NAPSA Board of Directors as an at-large director between 1989-1992, and as vice-president 1995-1997. She was NAPSA’s Membership Committee Chair from 1991-1997, conference coordinator 1989-1992, conference host in 2005, and a member of the release standards committee that completed the Third Edition of the Release Standards in 2004. She received NAPSA’s highest honor, the Ennis J. Olgiati award, in 1994. In 1992, Governor Ann Richards appointed her to the Texas Council on Offenders with Mental Impairments where she served for eight years; seven as chair of the Council. In 1998-1999, she co-chaired the Mental Health Association’s Criminal Justice Workgroup that lead to the Houston Police Department's implementation of a Crisis Intervention Team in July 1999. Ms. Oeller has worked on projects for the Bureau of Justice Assistance and the National Institute of Corrections.

Hallem H. Williams, Jr. is currently employed as Senior Program Manager for the Faith-Based Re-Entry Initiative being implemented by the Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency, an independent agency of the federal government. He has been honored as administrator of the year for the District of Columbia by the National Forum of Black Public Administrators He was recognized by the ABC television affiliate as Washingtonian of the week. Hal serves on several Boards and Commissions in addition to the PJI Board, such as the Ethics Committee and the Disciplinary Review Committee of the District of Columbia Bar Association, and the Board of Trustees of the Nineteenth Street Baptist Church.