News & Commentary written by 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.