Our Founders
Dr. James M. Binnall
Dr. Binnall is an Associate Professor of Law, Criminology, and Criminal Justice at California State University, Long Beach (CSULB). He is also a licensed California attorney and a formerly incarcerated person who spent just over 4 years in prison for a DUI Homicide that claimed the life of his close friend. For the past 13 years, Dr. Binnall has maintained a law practice specializing in the representation of law students in the State Bar of California State Moral Character and Fitness Determination process.
Prior to his appointment at CSULB, Dr. Binnall was an Associate Professor of Law at the Savannah Law School (2014-2015) and a Law Teaching Fellow at the Georgetown University Law Center (2011-2013). At CSULB, Dr. Binnall is the Faculty Advisor for Rising Scholars and the Executive Director of Project Rebound – both organizations that work to ensure the success of formerly incarcerated and system involved students on campus.
Dr. Binnall’s research focuses on the civic marginalization of those with criminal convictions, parole and post-release, and conditions of confinement. His primary research focus examines the exclusion of individuals with a felony conviction from the jury process. The nation’s leading scholar on the topic, Dr. Binnall has testified for the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and presented his research to the American Bar Association’s Jury Commission. He has published numerous articles in both law reviews and social science journals, and is the author of the first book devoted to the issue of record-based juror exclusion: Twenty Million Angry Men: The Case for Including Convicted Felons in Our Jury Process (University of California Press, 2021).
Frankie Guzman
Francis (“Frankie”) V. Guzman is a youth justice policy attorney and Director of the Youth Justice Initiative at the National Center for Youth Law in Oakland, California. Frankie works to eliminate the practice of prosecuting and incarcerating children in California’s adult criminal justice system, reduce incarceration and justice system involvement, and increase developmentally appropriate services for youth in communities statewide.
At age 15, he was arrested for armed robbery and, on his first offense, was sentenced to serve 15 years in the California Youth Authority. Released on parole after serving six years, Frankie enrolled in Oxnard College and transferred to UC Berkeley where he earned a BA in English. Frankie graduated from UCLA School of Law and became an expert in juvenile law and policy with a focus on ending the prosecution of youth as adults.
Through partnerships with public agencies, community organizations, and advocacy groups, Guzman has helped lead California’s effort to dramatically reduce the number of youth prosecuted as adults and serving time in adult prisons, reduce the number of youth incarcerated and involved in the juvenile justice system, and increase funds and resources for community-based services for youth statewide.