Chris Mumma, Executive Director
For nearly two decades, Chris Mumma has served as the Center’s Executive Director. Instrumental in fighting for criminal justice reform in North Carolina, Chris has spearheaded legislation on eyewitness identification, the recording of interrogations, preservation of biological evidence, enhanced support for exonerees, and the establishment of the only Innocence Inquiry Commission in the United States. As the Center’s Executive Director, she also represented Dwayne Dail, Joseph Abbitt, Greg Taylor, Willie Grimes, Larry Lamb, Joseph Sledge, Johnny Small and Mark Carver in their successful post-conviction proceedings. Before joining the Center, Chris had a nine-year career in corporate finance at Nortel Networks. She then went on to attend law school and clerk for I. Beverly Lake, Jr., the Chief Justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court. She is the recipient of the 2007 Tar Heel of the Year Award, the 2008 Business Leader Magazine Pro Bono Impact Award, the 2009 Z. Smith Reynolds Susan Reynolds Award for Advocacy, the 2010 Advocates for Justice Kellie Crabtree Award, the 2012 Lawyer’s Weekly Women of Justice Public Service Practitioner Award, the 2014 Lawyer’s Weekly Barristers Breaking Barriers Award, the 2015 Indy Weekly Citizen of the Year Award, the 2017 NC Advocates for Justice Thurgood Marshall Award, and the 2018 NC Justice Center, Defender of Justice Litigation Award. She serves as a Commissioner on the Indigent Defense Services Commission and is a member of the Forensics Advisory Board.
Board of Directors
Jon Powell, Board President
Director, Restorative Justice Clinic, Campbell Law School
Richard Rosen
Professor of Law Emeritus, UNC School of Law
Dwayne Dail
North Carolina Exoneree – exonerated in 2007
Greg Taylor
North Carolina Exoneree – exonerated in 2010
Tru Pettigrew
Author and CEO of HERO Group
Jodi Hall
Associate Professor at NC State School of Social Work
Corey Santos
Former Chief Assistant District Attorney, Alamance County, NC
Staff
Debbie Carr, Support Staff
Greg Cathcart, Investigator
Guy Loranger, Staff Attorney
Rachel Moore, Case Assistant
Michael Roberson, Staff Attorney
Cheryl Sullivan, Senior Staff Attorney