The Suzerain Team
Staff
Casey M. Secor
CEO, Senior Staff Attorney
Casey was first introduced to capital defense while working as an intern for a public defenders office in South Carolina in 2001, and that experience was one of his primary motivations for going to law school. After passing the bar in 2007, Casey worked as a public defender for three years and was then hired by the South Carolina Capital Trial Division in 2011.
From 2011 to 2016, he exclusively practiced death penalty defense in both South Carolina and Louisiana, during which time he was fortunate to work alongside exceptional lawyers and defense teams. However, in 2016, frustrated by the bureaucratic distractions inherent to working for government-funded entities, Casey founded Suzerain as a means of devoting himself entirely to the defense of his clients.
Since 2016, Casey has been involved in the defense of indigent defendants facing the death penalty in Florida, South Carolina and Louisiana. He is a graduate of the National Criminal Defense College, the Santa Clara Death Penalty College and the Trial Lawyers College, and serves as faculty for the National College of Capital Voir Dire.
Kay W. Thompson
Director of Operations, Paralegal
In 1990 Kay began her career in indigent defense working as a paralegal for public defender offices in South Carolina. As a result of her work ethic, intellect, and dedication to clients, Kay became a primary member of numerous public defender teams assigned to represent capital defendants from 1990 through 2010. Because of limitations in governmental funding for capital cases, Kay’s duties on these teams extended far beyond the customary role of a paralegal. She was responsible for meeting with clients in jail, reviewing evidence of alleged crimes, interviewing witnesses, collecting thousands of pages of records pertaining to the clients and their life histories, meeting with clients’ family members, working with experts in various fields, and preparing for and assisting in trials.
Throughout her twenty years in public defender offices, Kay worked on behalf of more than one hundred individuals charged with murder – twenty-five of whom faced capital prosecution. As a result of Kay’s efforts and those of her fellow team members, several of these capital defendants avoided potential death sentences via guilty pleas in exchange for terms of imprisonment. However, many of the cases Kay worked on went to trial. Of the clients whose cases went to trial and resulted in sentences of death, seven have been removed from death row after having their sentences reduced, and one client was released from prison entirely after spending eleven years on death row.
Joining Suzerain in 2016, Kay is a primary and indispensable member of the organization, and our clients benefit greatly from her wealth of experience, deep faith and belief in the inherent value of all people.
Kate O’Shea
Mitigation Specialist
Kate’s path to capital defense work was an unconventional one. From age 18 to 27, she worked as a Harley-Davidson mechanic. During that time, she joined the Chopper Chick Crew, a group of five women who traveled around the country performing live motorcycle builds and donating the bikes to charity. There began her love of charitable giving.
Kate eventually followed her mother, Cindy O’Shea (a career public defender and 40-year devotee of indigent defense), into capital mitigation. She worked for Cindy’s agency, Capital Mitigation Consultants, until starting her own agency in 2015.
Kate’s work with Casey Secor and Kay Thompson came about through an introduction by Allison Miller, and the four of them have worked together on five death penalty cases since 2019. Kate, Allison and Casey make up Suzerain’s consultation team, which provides assistance and training to capital defenders throughout the United States.
Since 2009, Kate has represented approximately seventy-five capital defendants, fourteen of whom went to trial. She joined Suzerain in 2022 with the hope that her experience will assist capital defenders around the country better serve their clients.
Christine Scott
Mitigation Advisor
Christine began her career helping people as a case manager at the Jericho Project’s Fordham Village, a supportive housing residence for previously homeless veterans in the Bronx, NY. Through this work, she became aware of how difficult it is for indigent people diagnosed with mental illness and substance abuse disorders to navigate the criminal justice system. Christine received an LMSW in New York in 2013.
In 2014, Christine moved to Louisiana to attend law school. She interned with the Promise of Justice Initiative, the Capital Appeals Project and the Louisiana Capital Assistance Center in New Orleans, as well as the Defender Association of Philadelphia. Christine was also a student practitioner at the Loyola University New Orleans College of Law Clinic, representing indigent defendants in New Orleans. While interning with Casey at the Louisiana Capital Assistance Center, Christine assisted Casey and other defense team members prepare for and try a client’s first degree murder case in rural Louisiana.
Starting in 2017, Christine worked for four years as the mitigation specialist and fact investigator representing Suzerain’s indigent defendant facing the death penalty in Louisiana. Christine also worked as a mitigation specialist for juvenile clients in Lafayette Parish, Louisiana, as well as for capital, juvenile and Miller clients in the 6th Judicial District of Florida.
In addition to her work with Suzerain, Christine now works as the Mitigation Specialist at the Federal Defender Services of Idaho Trial Unit in Boise, Idaho.
David Emond
Development & Marketing Director
David has spent more than twenty years working to advance opportunity and equity in the youth/workforce development and education sectors.
From 2014-18, David served as CEO of Liberty’s Kitchen, a nationally recognized youth development organization which uses foodservice-based businesses as a foundation for its social impact programs in workforce training, leadership development, and support of healthy lifestyles. During his tenure, Liberty’s Kitchen experienced dramatic growth, raising more than $9 million in operating and growth capital and launching three new earned revenue ventures, resulting in improved financial stability as well as greater opportunities for youth participants to build skills and find career pathways. He founded Laduma Strategy in 2019 to provide customized support to organizations seeking transformative impact.
David currently serves as board President of the NOLA Project, a small, ensemble-based theatre company in New Orleans. David holds a Bachelor of Arts with Honors from the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, MA, and a Master of Arts from Middlebury College in Middlebury, VT. In his free time he enjoys travel, theatre, reading, fitness, and supporting efforts to grow and develop a community that works for all.
Board of Directors
R. John Vahey
President
John Vahey graduated from Boston College in 2000 with a BS in History and obtained an MS in Finance from Johns Hopkins Carey Business School in 2013. Upon graduating from college, John worked as an options market-maker in New York City and analyst at a fixed-income hedge fund in South Carolina. He then served as a Legislative Assistant to United States Congressman Gary Ackerman, a senior Member of the House of Representatives Financial Services Committee. After working for Congressman Ackerman, John was a policy advisor at Third Way — a Washington, DC based think tank — where he analyzed banking, capital markets and financial regulatory reform issues. Currently, John serves as Managing Director of Federal Policy for Bond Dealers of America in Washington, DC, where he is responsible for analyzing federal regulatory and legislative policy related to domestic fixed income markets. He lives in Annapolis, MD.
Allison Ferber Miller
Allison Ferber Miller consults on capital cases in the Sixth Judicial Circuit of Florida, statewide throughout Florida, and nationally with the law firm Ripley Whisenhunt. She sits on the Board of Directors and is resource counsel for Suzerain Capital Defense, she works with nonprofits, and serves on the faculty of nationally renowned capital defense organizations as she works to bring equity to criminal justice, to support defendants who can’t afford representation, and to train future generations of defenders. Allison has also coauthored bipartisan legislation to prevent the death penalty’s application to the seriously mentally ill. She is recognized by the Florida Bar as an expert in criminal trial law.
Allison was formerly the Chief of Staff for Pasco County for the Office of the Public Defender for the Sixth Judicial Circuit of Florida, managing both offices, attorneys and staff, in New Port Richey and Dade City. She was also the Capital Case Coordinator for the office, and in that capacity, supervised the office’s representation of all defendants charged with Capital First Degree Murder in Pinellas and Pasco counties.
Allison received a B.A. from the University of Notre Dame and a J.D. from the Florida State University College of Law. She worked as an assistant public defender at the Office of the Public Defender for the Sixth Judicial Circuit of Florida from 2008 until 2021. She worked at the Office of the Public Defender in Leon County prior to relocating to the Tampa Bay area.
She is also mom to 5-year-old Annie, and wife to Chris.
Shaffy Moeel
Shaffy Moeel is a go-to attorney for persons in legal crisis and has succeeded in obtaining exceptional results for clients in the face of overwhelming odds.
A veteran of more than 30 federal jury trials, Shaffy is widely recognized for her expertise as a trial attorney. Shaffy specializes in complex criminal defense, representing both entities and individuals in federal courts across the country. She has litigated a variety of white-collar criminal cases including health care fraud, tax fraud, international arms trafficking, international economic sanction violations, securities fraud, money laundering, trade secrets, and economic espionage. Federal courts have appointed her to serve as lead counsel on six federal capital cases.
Shaffy is a Fellow in the American College of Trial Lawyers. She also serves as a faculty instructor and Board Member of the National Criminal Defense College. Trial advocacy and training programs across the country have recruited Shaffy to train lawyers on storytelling, trial practice, and client-centered representation. Shaffy received her undergraduate degree from the University of California, Berkeley, and her law degree from the University of California, Los Angeles School of Law.
The Honorable A. Victor Rawl, Sr. (Emeritus Member)
Judge Rawl graduated from the College of Charleston in 1968 and obtained his J.D. from the University of South Carolina School of Law in 1973. After working in private practice, as an Assistant Solicitor, and as a member of the South Carolina House of Representatives, Judge Rawl was sworn in as a South Carolina Circuit Court Judge and presided over thousands of civil and criminal cases from 1991 through 2003. Since 2008, Judge Rawl has been a member of Charleston County Council in Charleston, SC, where he has focused his efforts on issues involving public transportation, responsible governmental spending, taxation, public safety, and criminal justice. Additionally, Judge Rawl retired from the South Carolina National Guard as a Lieutenant Colonel in 1994, having served the people of his state for more than 25 years. He lives in Charleston, SC.