Richard C. Glazer
Richard Glazer, Esq. is the Executive Director of the Pennsylvania Innocence Project and is leading efforts with the co-founders of the Project, David Richman, Esq. and David Rudovsky, Esq., to launch the Project in early 2009.
Mr. Glazer is a founder of the law firm of Cozen O’Connor, one of the 100 largest law firms in the United States, where he served as Regional Managing Partner and Department Chair from 1972 through 2003. Mr. Glazer served as Senior Advisor to the City of Philadelphia’s Managing Director from 2004 to 2006, providing strategic oversight of special projects for Philadelphia’s chief administrative officer. He now serves as the first elected Chair of the new Philadelphia Board of Ethics, an independent board focused on ethics and good government.
Mr. Glazer’s commitment to public service and the law began with his service as a volunteer with the United States Peace Corps in Malawi, from 1964 to 1966, where he worked on a tuberculosis control project that served as a prototype for similar programs designed to detect and treat infectious diseases, and work towards their eradication.
Mr. Glazer’s service has included serving as a board member, from 1987 to 2006, and as board Chair, from 1994 to 1996, for the Public Interest Law Center of Philadelphia, and as a member and leader of the Committee of Seventy, a non-partisan political watchdog organization focusing on election, school, police and judicial reforms, from 1996 to 2006.
Mr. Glazer is a graduate of Tufts University (B.S.) and Temple University School of Law (J.D.). He clerked for the Hon. James H. Gorbey, of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania from 1970-72.
Marissa Boyers Bluestine
Marissa Boyers Bluestine, Esq. joined the Pennsylvania Innocence Project on April 1, 2009 as its first Legal Director.
Ms. Bluestine has worked in both the private and public service – as a litigation associate at Duane Morris and as an Assistant Defender with the Defender Association of Philadelphia for over 10 years. At the Defender Association, Ms. Bluestine tried innumerable cases representing clients accused of crimes where eyewitness testimony was central to the evidence against them. She was also instrumental in preserving issues for appeal aimed at changing the law within the Commonwealth to allow for the presentation of expert witnesses at trial on eyewitness and false confession issues. In addition, Ms. Bluestine has been involved in advocating for the expansion of voir dire, more detailed jury instructions and improved lineup procedures to avoid the occurrences of wrongful convictions. A member of the Board of Directors for the Pennsylvania Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, Ms. Bluestine lectures across the state on issues related to criminal defense.
Ms. Bluestine is a graduate of Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut (1989) and a cum laude graduate of Temple University School of Law (1995), where she served as Managing Editor of the Temple Political & Civil Rights Law Review and was a national quarterfinalist in the National Trial Competition. |
