Noel Nickle, Director
Noel Nickle (she/her/hers) serves as the executive director of the North Carolina Coalition for Alternatives to the Death Penalty. Noel has worked as a mitigation specialist on trial and post-conviction death penalty cases in North and South Carolina since 2006. Working with attorneys from The Center for Death Penalty Litigation, Noel secured life sentences for two individuals previously sentenced to death. Noel has a long history of community organizing in opposition to the death penalty, including her leadership in a successful community effort for the Asheville City Council to adopt a resolution supporting a moratorium on the death penalty. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Noel founded a social media group (WNC Response to COVID-19 For Those In Custody) for families who have loved ones in jail and prison custody and advocated for early release for incarcerated individuals. Noel is deeply committed to the principles and practices of restorative and transformative justice. She has a master’s in social work from UNC-Chapel Hill and lives in Asheville.
You can reach Noel at noel@nccadp.org
Nick Courmon, Community Engagement Coordinator
Nick (he/ him) joined NCCADP in May 2022.
Nick is a native of Greensboro, NC. He graduated from the University of North Carolina at Pembroke in 2019 with a B.A. in Political Science and a Pre-Law concentration. Nick is currently a graduate student at North Carolina Central University studying to receive his M.A. in African American History. Nick has previously engaged in organizing work alongside Democracy North Carolina and NextGen America. Nick is also currently serving as the spokesperson for the campaign to free Billie Allen from federal death row.
As a writer, poet, and spoken word artist, he has collaborated with Missourians Against the Death Penalty, NC Black Alliance, Democracy NC, NC Black Alliance, the Wounded Warrior Project, and has been featured in the Los Angeles Times, VICE News, and NBC’s TODAY. You can find more about Nick and his work in the arts and education on www.ndcpoetry.com
You can reach Nick at nickcourmon@nccadp.org
Alfred Rivera, Lived Experience Coordinator
Alfred Rivera was born in Brooklyn, New York, but he has deep roots in Puerto Rico. When he was 20 years old he moved to Winston Salem to live with family members after his mother died. Alfred had already suffered the loss of his father to homicide when he was just 4 years old. Alfred spent several years incarcerated as a young man and then in 1997 he was sentenced to death in Forsyth County for a crime he did not commit. Four people were executed during his time on North Carolina’s death row. In 1999, he won a new trial and was acquitted.
Alfred now lives in Concord, where in addition to his work with NCCADP, he is managing his own small business. Alfred is passionate about criminal legal reform and violence prevention among youth. He also believes other innocent people remain on North Carolina’s death row.
Ricky Covach, Digital Engagement Coordinator
Ricky Covach (he/him) hails proudly from Chapel Hill, NC and serves as Digital Engagement Coordinator for NCCADP. Ricky earned Bachelor’s degrees in Literature, Philosophy, and Honors in History from UNC Chapel Hill and completed a 162-page Senior Thesis project exploring the historical intersection between Black blues music, American capitalism, and anti-Black racism. Ricky is a very experienced videographer and filmmaker, and has organized screenings for his films both locally in the Triangle area of North Carolina and also in Phoenix and San Diego on the West Coast. He has provided professional technical support across a wide range of platforms and softwares and is adept at technological problem-solving. Ricky is committed to leveraging his skillsets in communication, graphic design, event promotion, and social media towards the abolition of the death penalty in North Carolina. Ricky currently resides in Durham, NC.
You can reach Ricky at ricky@nccadp.org
Board
Jennifer Marsh, Board Co-Chair
Jennifer (she/her) is a member of the Executive Staff at Self-Help, where she helps advance their mission of ownership and economic opportunity for all.
She works on projects including reducing pretrial incarceration for people who lack the cash to post bail in North Carolina, court fines and fees reform, voter registration, and other wealth building issues. She also assists partner organizations in executing their missions while disrupting practices that harm vulnerable populations.
Jennifer served as the Senior Staff Attorney and Project Manager for North Carolina’s Racial Justice Act Study before going on to work with many social justice organizations including, Disability Rights NC, Democracy NC, North Carolina NAACP, and the UNC Center for Civil Rights. She is a double Tar Heel, earning both her Bachelor of Arts and Law degrees from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Erica Washington, Board Co-Chair
Erica has studied the American punishment system for almost decades, with an interest in transformative models for addressing harm. Prior to joining EJUSA in 2023, she worked as a senior program associate for Impact Justice’s Restorative Justice Project. Before that, she spent almost three years with the Center for Death Penalty Litigation defending people on death row in the American South and working to challenge the racialized dehumanization that sustains the capital punishment apparatus. Simultaneously, Erica helped to build and lead a restorative justice criminal diversion program in Durham, NC. Erica received her J.D. from New York University School of Law and a B.A. from the University of Virginia in political philosophy, public policy, and law; as well as African and African American studies. She proudly serves on the Board of the North Carolina Coalition for Alternatives to the Death Penalty.
Melissa Boughton
Melissa Boughton joined Southern Coalition for Social Justice (SCSJ) in 2021 as a Senior SOLVE Communications Advocate, and now serves as the organization’s Communications Director. Before joining SCSJ, she headed communications at the Wilson Center for Science and Justice at Duke Law School.
Melissa also spent a decade as a journalist. She worked the courts and law beat at NC Policy Watch in Raleigh, and the crime and courts beats at The Post and Courier in Charleston, S.C.; The Winchester Star in Winchester, Va.; and The Kerrville Daily Times in Kerrville, TX. While reporting in Charleston, she was part of the team named a finalist for the 2016 Pulitzer Prize in breaking news reporting for coverage of the police killing of Walter Scott. She also covered the Mother Emanuel church shootings.
Melissa is a Texas native, but has lived in North Carolina since 2016. She is a 2010 graduate of the Mayborn School of Journalism at the University of North Texas.
Margaux Lander
Margaux Lander is an Investigator who has experience handling criminal, death penalty, and family defense cases. At Emancipate NC, Margaux’s main focus is to improve and broaden the representation of parents in North Carolina entangled in Abuse, Neglect, and Dependency cases. Margaux also collaborates with community partners and provides assistance in other civil rights cases at Emancipate NC.
Before joining Emancipate NC, Margaux worked as an Investigator at Still She Rises, a holistic, indigent defense organization that provides legal representation to mothers in the criminal legal and child welfare systems. Margaux’s previous experience also includes four years on the capital defense team for providing representation for Ammar al Baluchi in the U.S. Military Commissions at Guantánamo Bay. Margaux holds a master’s from SOAS University of London in Gender Studies and holds an undergraduate degree in both Religious Studies and International Relations from American University.
Concurrently, Margaux’s life as an organizer has focused on the occupation of Palestine, police violence, and torture. Margaux was born and raised in Floyd, Virginia.
Mark Pickett, Secretary
Mark Pickett serves as the ABA’s Indigent Defense Counsel, working to ensure that attorneys appointed to represent defendants in criminal cases are appropriately trained and funded. Prior to this role, Mark was a staff attorney at the Center for Death Penalty Litigation in Durham, North Carolina from 2013 to 2022, where he represented persons facing the death penalty in post-conviction and trial proceedings. Mark had a prior stint at the ABA from 2011 to 2013, where he served as a staff attorney with the Death Penalty Due Process Review Project, researching and assessing whether state death penalty systems comport with ABA policies. From 2009 to 2011, he was an Osborn Fellow Attorney with the Fair Trial Initiative working on trial-level death penalty cases in North Carolina. Mark received his B.A. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and his J.D. summa cum laude from North Carolina Central University School of Law.
Andre Smith
Andre (he/ him) was born in Raleigh and has lived in North Carolina nearly all his life. He recalls growing up in the segregated south and getting in trouble when he was a teenager, which led to him dropping out of high school. Andre didn’t return to school until he was in his 50’s when he obtained his GED, graduated from NC State with a degree in psychology, and later taught GED classes at Wake Tech
Andre suffered from a serious health crisis which led to him becoming disabled, and it was then that he found his true calling: teaching anger management and Buddhist meditation to incarcerated people. He has been a volunteer teacher and mentor at Nash Correctional since 2006.
Andre’s opposition to the death penalty is rooted in his love for his son Daniel, known as Peace to his friends and family. Peace was stabbed to death in 2007 at a Raleigh nightclub. Soon after the murder, Andre forgave the man who killed his son. Andre often references his path to forgiveness and acknowledges it as the only way he can experience contentment. As a Buddhist, he believes that all humans, including the man who killed his son, contain goodness and are capable of transformation.
Jessica Turner, Treasurer
Jessica Turner is a community organizer with years of regional experience, most recently as a field manager at the American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina.
Jess works to strengthen grassroots support in local chapters and within faith communities to build relationships and coalitions around numerous justice issues with a special focus on reproductive justice. She received her bachelor’s degree from Elon University and worked with faith-based advocacy groups in Baltimore, Maryland, and Washington, D.C., before receiving her Master of Divinity from Candler School of Theology in Atlanta, Georgia.
Prior to joining the ACLU of North Carolina, Jess organized in faith communities to abolish the death penalty, advocated for workers’ rights, and led racial justice workshops. In her free time, Jess enjoys running and volunteering in the community. She got involved in the death penalty around the execution of Kelly Gissendaner in 2015. The execution galvanized her to work so no one else dies at the hands of the state.
Advisory Circle
Vernetta Alston
Vernetta (she/her) was born in Durham, NC and has spent her entire life in the Triangle. She and her wife, Courtney, are raising their children, Reese and Davis, in southwest Durham. When she is not chasing small kids around, Vernetta enjoys running, watching sports, and traveling.
In 2004, Vernetta received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science from North Carolina State University. Five years later, she completed her law degree at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Vernetta’s first job out of law school was as a staff attorney for the Racial Justice Act Study following the passage of the Racial Justice Act in the fall of 2009. Vernetta spent the next several years of her practice working at the Center for Death Penalty Litigation. There she represented people sentenced to death in a variety of appellate court cases and educated North Carolinians across the state about flaws in our criminal justice system. In 2014, through the work of the North Carolina Innocence Inquiry Commission, one of Vernetta’s clients was exonerated and released from Death Row.
In 2017, Vernetta continued her public service on the Durham City Council, where she served for two years. In 2020, Governor Roy Cooper appointed Vernetta to the North Carolina House of Representatives. She was elected to her first full term in the same year. Vernetta continues to be a death penalty abolition champion and introduced a bill to repeal the death penalty in 2021.
Henderson Hill
Henderson Hill joined the ACLU as Senior Counsel after decades-long service as a public defender (PDS), director of the NC Death Penalty Resource Center [and its non-profit successor, the Center for Death Penalty Litigation], a partner at the civil rights law firm, Ferguson Stein Chambers (CLT), and as director of the Federal Defenders of Western North Carolina. Most recently, Henderson served as founding director of the 8thAmendment Project. Henderson launched, and continues to serve as co-director of RedressNC, an initiative to unwind extreme sentences through collaboration with community stakeholders, most principally moderate-progressive district attorneys.
Henderson’s community leadership activities include founding the Charlotte Coalition for Moratorium Now (CCMN), a grassroots organization that for ten years lead successful campaign for a city council moratorium resolution, and supported of moratorium campaigns and criminal law reform efforts at the state legislature. Henderson also founded the non-profit, Neighborhood Advocacy Center, a law office that provided parental representation in abuse, neglect and dependency cases in Mecklenburg County. After five years of dramatically raising the level of practice in the family court, the staff and operations of the NAC were absorbed into the local public defender office.
Henderson is a graduate of Lehman College, CUNY, (B.A. Economics), and Harvard Law School, J.D. Henderson has taught courses on trial advocacy and on trial advocacy faculty teams at UNC, Duke and Harvard law schools, and internationally. He has lectured widely on trial skills, death penalty jurisprudence and death penalty abolition. In 2007, he was inducted as a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers.
Ken Rose
Ken Rose retired at the end of 2016 after two decades of leadership, first as Executive Director and then as Senior Attorney, at the Center for Death Penalty Litigation. But no one would say he’s slowed down much since then. During Ken’s 35-year career representing people sentenced to death, two of his clients were exonerated: Henry McCollum who spent 30 years on NC’s death row and Levon “Bo” Jones who was released in 2008 after 15 years on death row. Mr. Jones’ case and Ken’s role in representing him was depicted in John Temple’s award-winning book The Last Lawyer: The Fight to Save Death Row Inmates. Prior to arriving in North Carolina in 1989. Ken represented poor people facing the death penalty first in Atlanta and then in Jackson, Mississippi where he launched the Mississippi Capital Defense Resource Center and served as its first director.
Ken was instrumental in the passage of the N.C. Racial Justice Act (RJA) in 2009, a landmark law that exposed decades of systematic racial bias in capital jury selection. He was also a key player in North Carolina’s lethal injection litigation. In no small part to Ken’s credit, we’ve not had an execution in NC since 2006 due to RJA and lethal injection litigation.
Ken is a graduate of Washington University and holds a J.D. from Boston University Law School. Ken received the National Legal Aid & Defender Association’s 2015 Kutak-Dodds Prize for his “extraordinary commitment to defending indigent clients facing the death penalty,” and CDPL’s 2017 Amsterdam Award.
In addition to his ongoing representation of indigent clients, including two men who are death-sentenced in North Carolina, Ken is actively involved in NCCADP’s Commutation Campaign and volunteers his time as a facilitator at Restorative Justice Durham.
