Happy New Year to all of SCHR's friends and supporters! As we celebrate the victories from the past years under the direction of Lisa Kung and Stephen Bright; we are thrilled to usher in 2010 with a new leader, our long time Public Policy Director, Sara Totonchi.

Lisa Kung has received a fellowship from the Open Society Institute to investigate the dichotomy in the way some Southern communities of color navigate and deal with challenges and opportunities. She will travel throughout the South interviewing members of these communities for a series of oral history podcasts.

Sara has been SCHR's public policy director and media strategist for the last nine years and is the first non-lawyer to lead the organization. Kung was named director in 2006 when the Center's senior counsel and power house of almost three decades, Stephen Bright, stepped down to spend more time in the courtroom and classrooms.

Sara joined SCHR in 2001 to spearhead the legislative campaign around indigent defense. Her work at the Georgia General Assembly has been instrumental in defeating legislation that would weaken the indigent defense system and expand the death penalty. Sara collaborates with attorneys to galvanize public support of SCHR's litigation through strategic media outreach. She has lead coalition efforts and legislative advocacy for criminal justice reform with concerned citizens including family members of people in prison, attorneys, faith-based communities and survivors of crime. Sara is the Chairperson of Georgians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, our statewide anti-death penalty coalition.

Under Sara's leadership SCHR will continue to fight for criminal justice reform that upholds the constitution and allows equal access to the law regardless of economic means. "I am honored and humbled to having been asked to lead this extraordinary organization. I want to continue to build up SCHR to be a powerful organization that has the capacity to have great wins, and to continue the incredible work of Steve Bright and Lisa Kung in shining a light on the injustices that our system perpetuates," she said.

SCHR's goals include:

· Reducing the number of people on death row in Alabama and Georgia by means other than execution.
· Reducing the number of people under criminal justice control in Alabama and Georgia.
· Securing a fully-funded indigent defense system with competent counsel in Georgia and Alabama.
· Reducing the financial incentives of government, the private sector, and individuals that are expanding/driving the criminal justice system in Georgia and Alabama

SCHR is thrilled that this important list will be passed into such capable hands. Please join us in thanking Lisa Kung for her brilliant service and welcoming Sara Totonchi to her new position!

The Southern Center for Human Rights is a non-profit public interest law firm based in Atlanta, Georgia. Established in 1976 in response to the reinstatement of the death penalty in Georgia, SCHR is dedicated to ending capital punishment, mass incarceration, and other criminal justice practices that are used to control the lives of poor people, people of color, and other marginalized groups in the southern United States, and to build the power of those communities to transform the criminal justice system.