Cookie Ridolfi

Kathleen "Cookie" Ridolfi is a professor of law and the director of the Northern California Innocence Project (NCIP). Her legal career began in the 1970s when she successfully defended herself in United States v. Anderson, the case against the Camden 28, a group prosecuted for political action in opposition to the Vietnam War. In the 1980s, Ms. Ridolfi was a trial lawyer with the Defender Association of Philadelphia and an innovator in the early development and application of social science to jury selection. Cookie Ridolfi was a leader in the development of expert testimony for use in cases of battered women raising claims of self-defense.

At Santa Clara University, Professor Ridolfi teaches criminal law and criminal procedure and was voted Russell Galloway Professor of the Year. Before launching the Northern California Innocence Project, she led a group of law clinic students in the representation of a battered woman. As a result of their efforts, their client became one of the few women granted clemency by Republican Governor Pete Wilson.

For more information about Cookie and the NCIP click here.

"I need a poem, a master poem.
Once and for all I need a poem to destroy poetry and break these iron bars.
A poem to make the stars blink, a poem to trouble the sleep of the chained,
Some words and strikes of magic to be heard through all the world.
Power sounds to hurl all wrong to appropriate places."

- DELBERT TIBBS