We are thrilled to announce our inaugural Conservatives Concerned Advisory Council!
This incredible group of advocates will provide valuable guidance and strategic insight as our organization continues to grow. Their expertise stems from state legislatures, federal government, policy, advocacy, nonprofit management, and powerful personal experiences. We are grateful for their commitment to advancing public safety solutions grounded in accountability, human dignity, and responsible use of government power and stewardship.
Tarrah Callahan has spent more than two decades advancing criminal justice reform in North Carolina, grounded in conservative principles of individual liberty, limited and accountable government, due process, and public safety. Her work began in 2008 with the North Carolina Coalition for a Moratorium, a bipartisan effort to pause executions after several men on the state’s death row were exonerated. She later established the North Carolina chapter of Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty. In 2016, she founded Conservatives for Criminal Justice Reform, and she has served as its Executive Director since 2017. Under her leadership, CCJR helped advance North Carolina’s Raise the Age reform and the unanimously passed Second Chance Act. Today, she partners with the NC Chamber and business leaders to expand second chance employment opportunities, guided by a simple principle: a strong justice system holds people accountable while placing meaningful limits on the power of government itself.
Heather Fazio is a dedicated policy advocate with a strong track record of advancing reform in Texas. Guided by a deep commitment to individual liberty and limited government, she has worked since 2009 to protect privacy and civil liberties, reform criminal justice policy, and empower grassroots advocates to make their voices heard.
Her work has included leadership roles and collaborations with a range of organizations, including Texans for Accountable Government, the Libertarian Party of Texas, Young Americans for Liberty, and the Texas Cannabis Policy Center. She served on the board of Just Liberty, a criminal justice reform group. Heather has played a key role in organizing training events, legislative briefings, lobby days, and educational exhibits that equip citizens to engage effectively in the policymaking process. Heather is passionate about community building and about coalition building across party lines, bringing together people who may disagree on much but share a belief that government power must be limited and accountable. Through years of advocacy, she has become a trusted voice in Texas policy, bridging the gap between the public, lawmakers, and stakeholders to foster informed decision-making and meaningful reform.
Heather is committed to ending the death penalty, making the case that a government should be careful with its power, wise with taxpayer dollars, and humble about its capacity for error when life is at stake. Her commitment to justice runs in the family. Her fourth great-grandmother, Anna Morrison Reed, was an advocate for many causes relating to justice, including calling for the abolition of the death penalty as early as 1904.
Brett Harrell is a former Georgia Republican State Representative and Chair of the Ways and Means Committee. He authored HB 702 in the 2019-2020 Session of the General Assembly that had it become law, would have repealed the death penalty in Georgia.
Sam Hooper is a legislative attorney based in Austin, Texas, and the founder of Sam Hooper Legislative Affairs LLC. His work focuses on property rights, housing reform, economic liberty and free speech, and he drafts and advances model legislation in statehouses across the country. Sam began his policy career as a drafting attorney at the Texas Legislative Council and later served as legislative counsel at the Institute for Justice before opening his own practice in 2026. He is a member of the AEI Leadership Network. Sam writes about state legislation on his Substack, On the Lege, and can be found on social media @legelawyer.
Patrick Purtill is Executive Vice President & General Counsel of Unify.US and serves as the Charles Evans Hughes Lecturer in Politics and Co-Director of the Washington Study Group at Colgate University. Previously, he was Director of Legislative Affairs at Faith & Freedom Coalition and practiced law advising corporations on formation, transactions, corporate governance, and compliance issues. In the George W. Bush Administration, he spent three years as Special Assistant to the Deputy Attorney General where he managed drafting and implementation of regulatory reforms and served on the Attorney General’s Prisoner Reentry Working Group, the President’s Prisoner Reentry Initiative Group, and the Strategic Management Council’s Subcommittee on Violent Crime and Gangs. He spent another two years in the Office of the U.S. Secretary of State as Director of New Partner Outreach for PEPFAR where he created and implemented the New Partners Initiative, a $200 million program to deliver HIV/AIDS programming in 15 countries. Additionally, Patrick served as CEO of two Washington-based NGOs: the National Council For Adoption and the Washington Scholarship Fund. Patrick holds a J.D. from the College of William and Mary Law School, and a master’s and bachelor’s degree in political philosophy from the University of Dallas.
Christal Martin has served as a dedicated advocate with Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty for roughly five years, bringing a deeply personal perspective to criminal justice reform. As a lifelong pro-life conservative, her commitment to the dignity of human life shapes her advocacy for restorative justice and ending capital punishment. Having lost both her mother in 1993 and her husband in 2014 to violent crime, she speaks from a place of profound personal tragedy, frequently sharing her story to highlight the need for a system focused on true healing and victim-centered accountability. Beyond her advocacy work, she is a proud mother of three and stays busy enjoying life with her five fur babies and five grand-fur babies.
Chelsea Murphy is a Campaign Strategist at The Clean Slate Initiative, working directly with state campaign partners to pass and implement Clean Slate policies. Chelsea has been immersed in politics for nearly two decades and has advocated on behalf of various clients ranging from Fortune 500 companies, trade associations, nonprofits, and local governments. More recently, Chelsea was the Florida State Director for Right on Crime and the Texas Public Policy Foundation. She helped work to pass the Florida First Step Act, raise Florida’s felony theft threshold from $350 to $750, and Florida’s Criminal Justice Data Transparency System, among other impactful criminal justice reforms. Along with her many accomplishments, Chelsea brings a personal passion to this work: as someone who’s been directly impacted by the legal system, she knows first-hand the importance of helping people break free from their past mistakes. Chelsea is based in Tallahassee, Florida where she lives with her two children.
