Marissa Boyers Bluestine, Esq.

Marissa Boyers Bluestine is an expert in criminal law, having worked as a public defender and, most recently, as the Executive Director for the Pennsylvania Innocence Project. She has helped free 14 Pennsylvanians convicted of crimes they did not actually commit - or even, in several cases, convicted for incidents that were not even crimes. As Executive Director, Marissa sets the course for the organization in policy and public awareness and promotes reform through public education, advocacy, and legislative reform for issues and laws related to innocence and the criminal justice system. Marissa works directly with law enforcement to train, update, and include them in investigative techniques empirically proven to exceed outdated practices. She has worked with the Philadelphia Police Department, the Montgomery County District Attorney's Office, the Pennsylvania District Attorney's Association, the Pennsylvania Association of Chiefs of Police, and many other law enforcement and judicial bodies. Marissa trains lawyers in issues related to forensic science, evidence, post-conviction law, and other issues pertaining to the reliability and accuracy of our criminal trials. As a public defender, Marissa led the charge to change Pennsylvania law to allow experts in eyewitness identifications to testify at trial to educate jurors on the vagaries of eyewitness identifications resulting in the reversal of a 40-year ban on such testimony.

Marissa is a graduate of Trinity College in Hartford (B.A.), Connecticut and Temple University School of Law (J.D., cum laude).

In April, 2010, the Legal Intelligencer, a popular law journal included Marissa in its biennial list, Women of Distinction. The Philadelphia Bar Association honored her with the Andrew Hamilton Award for Distinguished Service in Public Interest Law in 2013. A frequenter commentator on local issues, Marissa has been featured on local news affiliates, NPR, and in the Philadelphia Inquirer, and other media outlets.