Reproductive Justice: A Guide for Prosecutors
Thursday, June 29, 2023 • 4:00pm EST
OBGYN Physician & Darney Landy Fellow at the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists
Dr. Kristyn Brandi
Dr. Kristyn Brandi (pronouns: she/her/ella) is an OBGYN, family planning specialist and steadfast advocate of reproductive autonomy for BIPOC people who dismantles oppressive structures in reproductive health to help every person achieve their own reproductive justice. She currently serves as the Darney Landy Fellow at the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. She completed her medical school and residency training in OBGYN at Rutgers - New Jersey Medical School. She completed a Family Planning Fellowship at Boston University where she also earned her Master’s in Public Health with a concentration in Health Law, Bioethics and Human Rights. Her research is on reproductive decision making, contraceptive coercion, and racism in reproductive health care. She serves as the Board Chair of Physicians for Reproductive Health, sits on several sub-committees for the Society of Family Planning and is a founding member of Centering Equity, Racial and Cultural Literacy in Family Planning (CERCL-FP). She proudly identifies as a Latina pansexual abortion provider.
Kimberly Mutcherson
Co-Dean and Professor of Law at Rutgers Law School
Kimberly Mutcherson is Co-Dean and Professor of Law at Rutgers Law School in Camden. Dean Mutcherson is a reproductive justice scholar whose work sits at the intersection of bioethics, health law, and family. She has a particular focus on assisted reproduction, abortion, disability, and medical decision-making for pregnant women and children. Cambridge University Press released her edited volume, Feminist Judgments: Reproductive Justice Rewritten in 2020. In 2021, Dean Mutcherson received the Association of American Law Schools inaugural Impact Award as a co-founder of the Law Deans Antiracist Clearinghouse Project and the M. Shanara Gilbert Human Rights Award from the Society of American Law Teachers for the same Project. She received the Center for Reproductive Rights Innovation in Scholarship Award in 2013, a Chancellor’s Teaching Excellence Award in 2011, and the Women’s Law Caucus Faculty Appreciation Award in 2011 & 2014. Dean Mutcherson has been a Senior Fellow/Sabbatical Visitor at the Center for Gender and Sexuality Law at Columbia Law School and a Visiting Scholar at the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania. Prior to joining the faculty at Rutgers, Dean Mutcherson was a consulting attorney at the Center for Reproductive Law and Policy (now the Center for Reproductive Rights) and a Staff Attorney at the HIV Law Project.
Shannon Taylor
Commonwealth’s Attorney, Henrico County, Virginia
A native of Charlottesville, Virginia, Shannon Taylor is a 1989 graduate of the University of Virginia. Her first job after college was as a paralegal at the Richmond based firm of Hunton & Williams (now Hunton Andrews Kurth), which inspired her to pursue a career in the law.
Shannon received her law degree in 1995 from the University of Richmond Law School and began her career as a prosecutor in the Commonwealth’s Attorney Office for the City of Richmond. Based on her competent and successful prosecutions, she was named as a Special Assistant in the US Attorney’s office first in 1999 and then again in 2002-2004.
Shannon was special counsel for the Richmond Multi-Jurisdictional Grand Jury from 2004-2008. The special counsel’s job provided an opportunity to gain valuable experience working with additional agencies like the Virginia State Police, the Alcohol Beverage Control Board, and the Virginia Department of Taxation.
After three years in private practice, Shannon was elected Commonwealth’s Attorney for Henrico County in 2011, the first female to hold that position in the County’s history. She was re-elected in 2015 and again in 2019, this time winning the entire County. She is up for re-election this year, in 2023.
As Commonwealth’s Attorney, Shannon’s number one priority is keeping our community and our families safe from crime. She works each and every day to keep Henricoans safe, keep violent criminals off our streets and remove illegal guns. Shannon prioritizes compassionate, effective, policies to move Henrico forward, as the best way to keep the community safe while stressing rehabilitation.
Shannon has diversified the office so her office resembles Henrico County with women and minority prosecutors. She has enhanced the victim-witness program and has Spanish speaking translators available.
Shannon works closely with mental health caregivers and with drug rehabilitation programs to give offenders the best chance to succeed and lead constructive lives in the community.
She fully recognizes the importance of civic involvement to public safety and works closely with neighborhood and community associations to ensure that she is working with communities to address their needs.
Shannon is a leading voice advocating at the General Assembly for policies that remove systemic racism and discrimination from the criminal justice system. She continues to work to update and strengthen laws such as hate crimes and stalking.
Shannon is very active in the statewide Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Association, this year serving as president. Her leadership and her office have received many recognitions and accolades during her tenure.
Rachel Marshall
Executive Director, Institute for Innovation in Prosecution (moderator)
Rachel Marshall is the Executive Director of the Institute for Innovation in Prosecution.
Rachel previously served as the Director of Communications and Policy Advisor at the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office, following nearly a decade working as a public defender in Alameda County, California. Rachel has extensive expertise in the criminal legal system and efforts to reform it, as well as experience in media, policy, and advocacy.
Rachel graduated from Stanford Law School and Brown University. After law school, she clerked for federal District Court Judge David O. Carter in the Central District of California. Prior to law school, she taught high school history for three years in the Bronx.