Commission on Capital Punishment

Chairman, Judge Frank McGarr
Now in private practice with a focus on mediation and arbitration, Judge McGarr served as a federal prosecutor and as the First Assistant Illinois Attorney General before spending 18
distinguished years on the federal bench. He served as Chief Judge of the Federal District Court for the Northern District of Illinois between 1981 and 1986.

Co-Chair, Senator Paul Simon
Senator Simon has served the people of Illinois with distinction, both as a member of the Illinois General Assembly and the United States Congress. Since he retired from the United States Senate in 1997, Senator Simon has been a professor at Southern Illinois University and Director of its Public Policy Institute.

Co-Chair, Thomas P. Sullivan
An accomplished litigator, Mr. Sullivan served as United States Attorney for the Northern
District of Illinois from 1977 to 1981. Currently in private practice at Jenner & Block, he is
often called upon lend his legal expertise, judgment and leadership on public interest committees.

Former Deputy Governor Matthew R. Bettenhausen, Member and Executive Director
Mr. Bettenhausen served as the Deputy Governor for Criminal Justice and Public
Safety. A former Assistant United States Attorney in the Northern District of Illinois, he most recently served as the Associate Chief of the Criminal Division. State agencies reporting to him as Deputy Governor included the Illinois State Police, the Illinois Department of Corrections, the Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority, the Office of the State Fire Marshal, and the Law Enforcement Training Board, among others.

Kathryn Dobrinic, Member
Ms. Dobrinic served for 12 years as the elected State’s Attorney for Montgomery County.
Having practiced law in central Illinois for more than 20 years, Ms. Dobrinic served as the public defender in Christian County and has also worked in private practice.

Rita Fry, Member
An award winning attorney, Ms. Fry is the Public Defender of Cook County, Illinois. The
Office of the Cook County Public Defender is the second largest public defender’s office in the nation, with more than 500 attorneys providing indigent defense service in the largest county in the State.

Theodore Gottfried, Member
Mr. Gottfried is the State Appellate Defender of the State of Illinois, and has held the office since 1972. The office of the State Appellate Defender is responsible for providing appellate level and post-conviction indigent legal services throughout the State. With more than 140 attorneys state-wide, Mr. Gottfried’s office also provides advice and counsel to capital defense attorneys.

Donald Hubert, Member
Mr. Hubert is a Fellow of the International Academy of Trial Lawyers and the American College of Trial Lawyers. A well-respected litigator, he has represented defendants in murder cases as well as police officer defendants in civil police brutality cases. He serves by appointment of the Illinois Supreme Court as Chairman of the Court’s Committee on Professional Responsibility and is a former president of the Chicago Bar Association. He has devoted significant efforts to various charitable efforts, including Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Hales Franciscan High School.

William J. Martin, Member
During his tenure as a prosecutor in the Cook County State’s Attorneys office, Mr. Martin is well-known as the man who prosecuted Richard Speck. He also has extensive experience as a criminal defense lawyer, and is well-acquainted with the capital punishment system. His subspecialty is legal ethics, and he has defended hundreds of lawyers in Illinois disciplinary proceedings.

Thomas Needham, Member
Now in private practice with the firm of Baird & Needham, Mr. Needham most recently served as the Chief of Staff for Chicago Police Superintendent Terry Hillard. Before joining the Superintendent’s office, Mr. Needham was a policy advisor to Mayor Daley on public safety issues and a veteran Cook County prosecutor.

Roberto Ramirez, Member
Mr. Ramirez is founder and president of Tidy International, a janitorial and custodial company which is one of the fastest growing Hispanic owned companies in the United States. He immigrated to the United States as a young boy with his widowed mother and eight siblings. In 1996, he founded the Jesús Guadalupe Foundation in honor of his parents, as a means to financially assist Latino students in their pursuit of higher education.

Scott Turow, Member
A partner with Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal, Mr.Turow is probably better known across the world as a best-selling author of legal novels. Mr. Turow served as an Assistant United States Attorney in the Northern District of Illinois for several years before entering private practice.

Mike Waller, Member
The elected State’s Attorney of Lake County, Illinois, Mr. Waller is a veteran trial lawyer and prosecutor. The Lake County State’s Attorneys office is the third largest prosecutor’s office in the State.

Andrea Zopp, Member
A successful corporate lawyer, Ms. Zopp has also been a criminal defense lawyer, and formerly served as First Assistant State’s Attorney in Cook County. She is also a former Assistant United States Attorney in the Northern District of Illinois.

Judge William H. Webster, Special Advisor to the Commission
A senior partner with the Washington law firm of Milbank, Tweed, Hadley and McCloy, Judge Webster has served as the director of the CIA and FBI. He has also served as a Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit; a U.S. District Court Judge and as a federal prosecutor in Missouri.