IPNO is made up of full time staff-attorneys and support staff, aided by a constellation of Interns and Volunteers including pro-bono counsel.

IPNO Staff

Emily Maw | William Aquino | Gregory Bright | Richard Davis | Brandon Early | Paul Killebrew | Jené O'Keefe Trigg | Kristin Wenstrom | Caroline Milne

Emily Maw

Director

Director Emily Maw has been with IPNO since 2003. Emily is licensed in Louisiana and Mississippi and litigates cases of wrongful conviction in both states while directing operations for the rest of the organization.

Prior to working at IPNO, Emily worked with the Louisiana Crisis Assistance Center for several years as an investigator for capital cases in Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas. She also worked at the Texas Defender Service.

Emily received her Bachelor of Laws from the University of Edinburgh and her Juris Doctor from Tulane Law School.

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William Aquino

Staff Attorney

William (Bill) Aquino is a staff attorney who originally served as an intern at IPNO in 2007. Bill is employed part-time on case review with the district attorney's office on the IPNO-initiated Orleans Parish Post Conviction DNA Testing Project.

During law school, Bill was a summer intern and later student attorney at the Tulane University Domestic Violence Clinic. Before law school, he worked as a licensed private investigator in San Francisco. Bill also served as an investigator for the city of New York's Civilian Complaint Review Board, working on investigations and departmental prosecutions of New York Police Department officers stemming from complaints of abuse of authority and excessive force.

He has a Bachelor of Arts in history from the University of California Los Angeles and received his Juris Doctor from Tulane Law School in 2009.

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Gregory Bright

Assistant Education and Outreach Director & Exoneree

When Gregory was 20 years old, he was wrongfully convicted of second-degree murder, sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, and spent 27.5 years in the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola, Louisiana before being exonerated in 2003. He lost those years because the police failed to meaningfully investigate the murder, false testimony was presented at his trial, prosecutors disregarded their duty to disclose exculpatory evidence and he received woefully inadequate representation from an appointed lawyer.

Functionally illiterate when he first entered prison, Gregory taught himself to read and write. Eventually teaching himself the law, challenging the courts all the way to the State Supreme Court before a lawyer from Innocence Project New Orleans stepped in to help unravel his case. He has observed laws change, witnessed other laws stay the same and seen people affected by both.

In 2010, Never Fight a Shark in Water—a play about Gregory—was written, produced and performed.

As assistant education and outreach director, Gregory identifies opportunities for speaking engagements around the state, secures events and tells his story to a variety of audiences. Gregory also authors op-eds and assists journalists who are writing about wrongful convictions.

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Richard Davis

Case Manager, Law Clerk

Richard Davis is a law clerk and IPNO’s case manager. He came to IPNO for a four-month internship in 2005, and has remained ever since.

Richard obtained a Bachelor of Law degree from the University of Sheffield in 2004. He obtained his Master of Law degree from Loyola University New Orleans in 2011, while working at Innocence Project New Orleans.

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Brandon Early

Investigator

Brandon Early has been an investigator at IPNO since 2008.

Brandon, a native New Orleanian and trained participatory action researcher, began his real world experiences with the Southeast Community Research Center in Atlanta where he supported the development and implementation of community-based participatory research method projects aimed at addressing bioethics in research and health disparities among marginalized communities of Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Mississippi.

Before returning to New Orleans, Brandon honed his investigation and research skills with MDRC in New York City, conducting social policy research to improve the well being of low-income populations and communities. During his time at MDRC, Brandon assisted in a rigorous evaluation of Center for Employment Opportunities, a highly regarded employment transition program for ex-prisoners.

Brandon has also worked with the Lindy Boggs National Center of Community Literacy at Loyola University New Orleans to support the development of an action research led inquiry into underemployment and literacy issues among black men in distressed communities of New Orleans.

Brandon studied at Morehouse College and graduated from Loyola University New Orleans with a Bachelor of Science in Sociology.

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Paul Killebrew

Staff Attorney

Paul Killebrew is a staff attorney who originally served as a summer intern at Innocence Project New Orleans in 2005.

During law school, Paul interned with the United States Attorney's Office and Debevoise & Plimpton LLP in New York. After graduating from law school in 2007, he clerked for a federal district court judge in his hometown of Nashville, Tennessee.

Before law school, Paul worked as a grant writer for the Brooklyn Bureau of Community Service, a social service agency, and was a literacy instructor for adults with developmental disabilities.

He has a Bachelor of Arts in English and Political Science from the University of Georgia and received his Juris Doctor from New York University.

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Jené O'Keefe Trigg

Managing Director

Jené O'Keefe Trigg, IPNO's managing director, brings to IPNO nearly 15 years of experience in nonprofit communications and management. As managing director of Pro-Media Communications, a social issues public relations firm, she worked with numerous nonprofits including but not limited to the Correctional Association, National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, Safe Horizon and Death Penalty Information Center.

Prior to Pro-Media, Jené was the executive director (and hired originally as the development director) of The Moratorium Campaign, a national anti-death penalty nonprofit based in New Orleans and founded by Sister Helen Prejean.

At Pyramid Communications, a public affairs firm in Seattle, Jené worked with numerous justice and political-focused groups such as Legal Aid of Washington Fund, Columbia Legal Services and the Leonard Peltier Defense Committee. She was also lead advance during the 2000 Gore/Lieberman Campaign. She has been a Court Appointed Special Advocate volunteer and a mentor with the Women's Prison Association and for 13 years assisted with publicizing the wrongful convictions of three men widely known as the "West Memphis Three" who were freed August 19, 2011.

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Kristin Wenstrom

Staff Attorney

Kristin Wenstrom is a staff attorney who began working at IPNO as an intern in 2006 and officially joined the ranks as an Equal Justice Works Fellow in 2008.

Kristin's fellowship entailed representing wrongfully convicted youth sentenced to life without parole in Louisiana and utilizing their cases and stories to reform policy that allows for these injustices to occur. In addition to her juvenile cases, Kristin also represents Innocence Project New Orleans’ exonerees on their applications for compensation for wrongful conviction.

Kristin received her Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy and Mathematics from New York University in 2002 and her Juris Doctor from Tulane Law School in 2008. Before law school she worked for three years as a legal assistant at Fragomen, Del Rey, Bernsen, and Loewy, LLP in New York City.

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Caroline Milne

Staff Investigator

Caroline Milne interned with IPNO for a year and a half before officially joining the team in 2011.

During law school, Caroline co-chaired Tulane Law School’s Street Law program and worked as a student attorney at the Criminal Defense Clinic. She has a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism from New York University, completed a second major in English at Columbia University, and received her Juris Doctor from Tulane in 2011.

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