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Michael Benza received his Bachelor of Arts (1986) and law degrees (1992) from Case Western Reserve University. He also received a Master of Arts degree in Clinical Psychology (1988) from Pepperdine University. He was the 1992 Biskind Fellow from CWRU School of Law and spent a year working for the Legal Resources Centre, a civil and human rights law firm in South Africa. Upon returning to the States, he spent four years in the Capital Defense Unit at the Office of the Ohio Public Defender. He was assistant counsel at the Cleveland Bar Association working with the Certified Grievance Committee as well as other committees. Professor Benza teaches Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure I, Death Penalty Issues, and the Death Penalty Lab, and coached the Mock Trial team. The Student Bar Association selected Professor Benza as the Professor of the Year in 2007, 2008 and 2009. In 2009 Professor Benza was elected as an alumni member to the Society of Benchers. Professor Benza continues to represent death row inmates in state courts and federal habeas proceedings. He has litigated capital cases in state trial courts, state appellate and post-conviction courts, and federal courts including arguing Smith v. Spisak before the Supreme Court of the United States.

Joseph O’Connor was born in Dublin, Ireland. His books include six previous novels: Cowboys and Indians (short-listed for the Whitbread Prize), Desperadoes, The Salesman, Inishowen, Star of the Sea, and Redemption Falls. Star of the Sea became an international bestseller, winning the Irish Post Award for Literature, and France’s Prix Millepages, Italy’s Premio Acerbi, and the Prix Madeleine Zepter for European Novel of the Year. His work has been published in thirty-five languages.

Dani Rodrik is the Rafiq Hariri Professor of International Political Economy at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Paul Muldoon is a professor at Princeton University and Founding Chair of the Lewis Center for the Arts. In 2007, he was appointed poetry editor of *The New Yorker*. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and a mamber of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Adademy in Arts and Letters. His awards include th T.S. Eliot Prize, the Irish Times Poetry Prize, the Pulitzer Prize, The International Griffin Prize, the American Ireland Fund Literary Award, and the Shakespeare Prize.

Bill Flanagan writes about music. His novels include *Evening's Empire, New Bedlam* and *A&R*, as well as the non-fiction books *Written in My Soul *and *UT At The End of the Wo*rld. He wrote for the *Boston Globe *from 1979 to 1984. He is the creator of VH1 Storytellers for MTV. He is an on- air essayist for CBS News *Sunday Morning*. He graduated from Brown University.

Paul Simon is the winner of 12 Grammy Awards. He is an inductee of The Songwriters Hall of Fame and the Rock n'Roll Hall of Fame. His song *Mrs. Robinson *was named in the top ten of The American Film Institute's 100 Years 100 Songs. He was a recipient of The Kennedy Center Honors in 2003.

Thurston Clarke is the author of *Ask Not: The Inauguration of John F. Kennedy and the Speech that Changed America*, and most recently, *The Last Campaign: Robert F. Kennedy and 82 Days That Inspired America*. His *Pearl Harbor Ghosts *was the basis of a CBS documentary, and his bestselling *Lost Hero, a biography of Raoul Wallenberg*, was made into an award-winning NBC miniseries. His articles have appeared in *Vanity Fair, The New York Times* and *The Washington Post*. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship.

Sally Bedell Smith is the author of *Grace and Power: The Private World of the Kennedy White House*, as well as the best selling biographies, *In All His Glory: The Life & Times of William S. Paley and the Birth of Modern Broadcasting*; *Reflected Glory: The Life of Pamela Churchill Harriman*; *Diana in Search of Herself: Portrait of a Troubled Princess*; and *For Love of Politics: Inside the Clinton White House*. She is a contributing editor at *Vanity Fair*, having previously worked at *Time *and *The New York Times*.

Matt Bai is the author of *The Argument: Inside the Battle to Remake Democratic Politics. * He writes the "Political Times" column for the *New York Times *and is a frequent contributor for the *Times Mag*azine, where he covered both the 2004 and 2008 presidential campaigns. Before joining the *Times Magazine*, he was a national correspondent for *Newsweek*. Mr. Bai is a graduate of Tufts University and Columbia's Graduate School of Journalism.

Cassandra Burke Robertson is an associate professor at Case Western Reserve University, in Cleveland, Ohio, where she teaches Civil Procedure, Professional Responsibility, and International Civil Litigation. She received a law degree from the University of Texas at Austin, as well as joint master's degrees in Middle Eastern Studies and Public Affairs. Professor Robertson's scholarship focuses on organizational theory and institutional choice within a globalizing practice of law.

Deborah D. Ascheim, MD, is an Associate Professor in the Departments of Health Evidence & Policy and Medicine/Cardiovascular Institute at The Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York. She joined the Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) Board in January 2008, and has been doing medical evaluations for the PHR Asylum program since 2005. She is the Clinical Director of Research and Director of the Clinical Research Unit at the International Center for Health Outcomes & Innovation Research (InCHOIR) at Mount Sinai, and is board certified in cardiovascular disease and internal medicine, with a specialization in congestive heart failure. Her work has been published in journals such as *The New England Journal of Medicine*, *Thyroid, Journal of Cardiac Failure*, and *The Annals of Thoracic Surgery*. Dr. Ascheim graduated from New York University Medical School and completed her internship and residency in Internal Medicine, as well as her fellowship in Cardiovascular Diseases, at the New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center. She completed a post-graduate fellowship at Columbia University College of Physicians & Surgeons and remained on faculty as an attending Cardiologist in the Heart Failure Center at Columbia P&S and the Mailman School of Public Health from 1995-2008. Dr. Ascheim completed her undergraduate studies at the Brearley School, graduating cum laude from Wellesley College.

Dr. Peter A. French is the Lincoln Chair in Ethics, Professor of Philosophy, and Director of the Lincoln Center for Applied Ethics at Arizona State University. He was the Cole Chair in Ethics, Director of the Ethics Center, and Chair of the Department of Philosophy at University of South Florida. Before that he was the Lennox Distinguished Professor of the Humanities and Professor of Philosophy at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas. He has taught at Northern Arizona University; the University of Minnesota; Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia, and was Exxon Distinguished Research Professor, Center for the Study of Values, University of Delaware. Dr. French has a B.A. from Gettysburg College, an M.A. from the University of Southern California, and a Ph.D. from the University of Miami. He received a Doctor of Humane Letters honorary degree from Gettysburg College in 2006. Dr. French is the author of 20 books including* The Virtues of Vengeance*; *Cowboy Metaphysics*;* Ethics and College Sports*; and *War and Border Crossings: Ethics When Cultures Clash*. His newest book, *War and Moral Dissonance*, includes a memoir of his experiences teaching ethics to Navy and Marine chaplains returning from or about to be deployed to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He is a senior editor of* Midwest Studies in Philosophy* and was editor of the *Journal of Social Philosophy* and general editor of the *Issues in Contemporary Ethics* series. Dr. French has lectured throughout the world and published dozens of articles in major philosophical and legal journals.