Public Defense Advisory Board

Current board members

Chris Carney

Chris Carney, partner in the firm Carney Gillespie PLLP, is an experienced criminal defense lawyer, a former public defender, and a professor of mental health law at the University of Washington School of Law. Along with attorneys from the ACLU of Washington, Disability Rights Washington, and the Public Defender Association, he helped litigate Trueblood v. DSHS, a constitutional challenge to the length of time individuals with mental disabilities spend in jail waiting for court-ordered competency evaluations. He currently serves on the executive committee implementing statewide reforms mandated by the class-action suit. Mr. Carney won the "Champion of Justice" award from the Washington Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers in 2015. He represents a nonpartisan organization active in King County that focuses on mental health issues.

Term expires June 30, 2025.

Nyema Clark

Nyema Clark is a community organizer, farmer, and activist who founded Nurturing Roots, an urban farm project in Seattle that works to build community through gardening, to engage youth, and to provide healthy food to communities of color. She currently serves as the executive director of Nurturing Roots. Ms. Clark has a passion for juvenile justice reform stemming from her own experience as a youth, when she was prosecuted for an altercation with her best friend; over the years, she has personally seen the way a criminal record acts as a barrier to equity. She has worked to address these disparities and to reform and dismantle the prison industrial complex, volunteering with the Black Prisoners Caucus, the Black Power Epicenter, the No New Youth Jail, and other community-based movements in the Seattle region. She represents a nonpartisan organization active in King County that focuses on juvenile justice. Term expires June 30, 2026.

Oloth Insyxiengmay 

Oloth Insyxiengmay is a system-impacted community member. Oloth was sentenced to 75 years in prison at age 15 and released 23 years later, after the U.S. Supreme Court, in Miller v. Alabama, found life sentences for juveniles unconstitutional. During his years in prison, he took classes, fought for the rights of fellow prisoners, and became a leader in his community, helping to create the Asian Pacific Islander Cultural Awareness Group (APICAG) at Clallam Bay Corrections Center. Oloth is a graduate of the University of Washington with a major in Law, Societies, and Justice and Comparative History of Ideas. Currently, he is the director of Rooted ReEntry, a community collective that supports community members impacted by the criminal legal system. His work in community centers around youth and fighting to end mass incarceration and the detention of marginalized BIPOC folks. Oloth champions transformative and restorative justice as an alternative to a punitive criminal legal system that disproportionately harms Black, Brown and Indigenous communities.

Term ends June 2025.

Shoshana Kehoe-Ehlers

Shoshana Kehoe-Ehlers is a managing attorney at the Washington State Office of Public Defense, where she oversees OPD’s statewide 71.09 (sexually violent predator) Civil Commitment Public Defense Representation Program. She monitors contract attorneys who represent people facing civil commitment, provides training, works on post-conviction system reform, and more. Prior to coming to OPD, Ms. Kehoe-Ehlers was the program director at the Washington State Sentencing Guidelines, where she oversaw staffing of the state’s Sex Offender Policy Board; she worked on policy development, data collection, legislative proposals, and reports to the governor and legislator. From 2001 to 2009, she was a public defender in Seattle, representing both adults and youth, and handling felony, misdemeanor, and dependency cases. Shoshana obtained her JD from Hamline University School of Law, where she graduated with honors. She holds the seat representing state OPD.

Term expires June 30, 2024.

Sara Rankin

Sara Rankin, a law professor at Seattle University School of Law, is a national expert on legal and policy issues relating to people experiencing homelessness and deep poverty. Her research and teaching explore the impact of homelessness on marginalized groups, including people of color, immigrants, and people with disabilities, as well as the intersectionality of homelessness and incarceration. Sara is the founder and director of the Homeless Rights Advocacy Project at Seattle U’s Korematsu Center, where she works with law students to advance the civil, constitutional, and human rights of unhoused people. She is also co-founder and co-chair of the Third Door Coalition, an alliance of Seattle researchers, service providers, and business leaders advancing permanent supportive housing as the most humane and cost-effective solution to chronic homelessness. Sara regularly partners with national and local leaders in homeless rights advocacy, presents across the nation on homeless rights issues, and writes extensively on the criminalization of homelessness and the need to find nonpunitive responses to chronic homelessness. She received her JD from New York School of Law and a master’s in education from Harvard.

Term expires June 2025.

Shrounda Selivanoff

Shrounda Selivanoff is the public policy director for Children’s Home Society, where she works to support policy development that can improve outcomes for disenfranchised and marginalized families. Prior to her position there, she worked as a social service specialist in the Parents Representation Program at the Washington State Office of Public Defense, providing advocacy for parents who were facing a state dependency proceeding, assisting parents with visitation, and providing other critical support to traumatized families. Ms. Selivanoff has dedicated her professional life to supporting families facing dependency proceedings, promoting strength-based programs, acting as a mentor and advocate, and helping to reduce the barriers to family reunification.

Term expires June 30, 2026.

John Strait

John Strait is an associate professor of law at the Seattle University School of Law and a national expert on public defense and ethics. Mr. Strait has served on the Washington Supreme Court’s Judicial Ethics Advisory Committee, the King County Bar Association’s Campaign Ethics Committee and the Washington State Bar Association’s Rules of Professional Conduct Committee. He also chaired the Seattle Port Authority’s Ethics Advisory Committee. He represents the Washington Defender Association.

Term expires June 30, 2024.