Meet Our Team

Amy Knight is a capital defense attorney with over a decade of experience at all stages of representation with a particular interest and expertise in constructing novel and deeply researched legal and constitutional arguments. She has a longstanding interest in protecting people in custody from sexual abuse and has successfully litigated against jails and prisons to win compensation for victims. She also has significant expertise in representing clients from other countries facing capital prosecution in the United States. From co-founding the gay-straight alliance at her high school, to coordinating her law school’s participation in the legal helpline at the National Center for Lesbian Rights, to her continued advocacy for clients of all identities, she has maintained a lifelong commitment to inclusion and fair and equal treatment and to finding new ways to use the law to advance those goals.

Erin McCallon is a paralegal at Phillips Black, Inc. She received her degree from the University of California, Berkeley in Political Science and Human Rights and has been working at Phillips Black since July of 2023 assisting various case teams during the post-conviction process providing both administrative and substantive case support.

Jessica Sutton is a Principal Attorney and Mitigation Specialist at Phillips Black, Inc. who has been representing queer folk and women facing the death penalty for over fifteen years. In 2007, Ms. Sutton co-founded the Massachusetts Transgender Legal Advocates, a free legal clinic serving trans communities in collaboration with the Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition, TransCEND of Cambridge Cares about AIDS, and the AIDS Action Network of Massachusetts. Upon transitioning to capital work in 2010, Ms. Sutton aimed to bring a queer lens to mitigation investigation and capital litigation. Since that time, Ms. Sutton has co-authored the first manual for representing trans people facing the death penalty and has published scholarship on prosecutorial narratives that weaponize individuals’ sexuality and gender identity and expression to obtain a conviction and death sentence. Ms. Sutton has consulted on trial and post-conviction cases involving women and queer clients in numerous jurisdictions, including Idaho, Missouri, Nebraska, California, Louisiana, Oklahoma, North Carolina, Ohio, Nevada, and Texas. She regularly serves as a testifying expert as to the standard of care in representing queer clients and provides direct representation to women and gender diverse folks who have been sentenced to death. Ms. Sutton serves as an adjunct professor and a case consultant with the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.

Joy Zuccarello is a Senior Mitigation Specialist and Investigator at Phillips Black, Inc. Before joining Phillips Black, she worked as a fact investigator and mitigation specialist in private practice in Kansas City, Missouri. She has been appointed as a mitigation specialist in habeas corpus cases, conducted fact investigations for indigent defendants with innocence claims, and provided re-sentencing advocacy for individuals sentenced to life without parole as juveniles (JLWOP). Ms. Zuccarello is also trained in Defense Victim Outreach and has extensive experience in internet-based social media and digital investigations, including the use of novel techniques. She specializes in working with marginalized populations, including female clients and individuals within the 2SLGBTQ community. Ms. Zuccarello earned her bachelor's degree with the highest distinction from the University of California, Berkeley, where her studies in the Department of Sociology focused on race, poverty, and stratification.

Kristin Swain is a senior associate attorney with Phillips Black, a non-profit, public interest organization dedicated to representing individuals facing the severest punishment under law. In this role, Ms. Swain has represented individuals sentenced to death, juveniles sentenced to life without parole, and those wrongfully convicted in state and federal habeas proceedings since 2015. She has also represented individuals seeking parole and commutation. Throughout her career, Ms. Swain has provided supervision and mentorship to law students throughout the United States on post-conviction cases. She has served as an adjunct professor at Saint Louis University School of Law where she taught a death penalty seminar. 

Additionally, Ms. Swain has specialized experience in representing women and LGBTQ individuals under severe sentences including death. She has co-authored the article “Death by Dehumanization: Prosecutorial Narratives of Death-Sentenced Women and LGBTQ Prisoners” appearing in St. John’s Law Review. The article has since been incorporated into regional and state public defender manuals. 

Monnette Blue is an Associate Mitigation Specialist at Phillips Black, Inc. She received her master's degree in paralegal studies at Webster University in Kirkwood, Missouri, and her bachelor’s degree in criminal justice at Saint Louis University in St. Louis, Missouri. She has worked with death, non-death, and juvenile cases for over a decade.  Monnette has been instrumental in creating DEI conversations during her tenure at the Missouri State Public Defender's office, including being Chairperson of the People of Color ERG group, DEI committee, and training advocacy hiring team. Monnette has spoken at Women's Retreats about the art of self-advocacy at work and in everyday life. Monnette is a member of the Black Public Defender's Association, National Association of Public Defense, and mentee turned Mentor of the Scharlette Holdman Mitigation Program.  Monnette sits on the board of the historical Fox Park Neighborhood Association and Family Resource and Community Connections, Inc., member of the Community Advisory Group of city of St. Louis Sustainability and climate plan committee. Monnette sat on the Professional Organization of African American Women board for 7 years and is an advocate at Missouri Against Death Penalty rallies and vigils. Outside of community outreach presence and fighting for justice in legislation, Monnette is a mother of 2 adult children and a fur grandmother of 2.escription

Nathalie Greenfield is an associate attorney and mitigation specialist at Phillips Black, Inc. She has represented women facing the death penalty across the US and in sub-Saharan Africa, working in state, federal, and international courts. Ms. Greenfield has expertise in women and gender nonconforming people’s capital cases, a topic on which she publishes, teaches, and trains advocates in the US and internationally. She is a researcher at Cornell Law School, where she works with an interdisciplinary team to design novel approaches for identifying bias in women’s criminal cases, and as a result has authored numerous written works on gender and capital punishment. Ms. Greenfield is also a consultant for capital teams working on women’s cases with the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and she consults on international cases through the Cornell Center on the Death Penalty Worldwide and Reprieve. Ms. Greenfield has served as an Adjunct Professor at Cornell Law School, where she teaches on gender and human rights.