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Oregon Public Defense Commission

Commission Members

Jennifer Nash is a Corvallis attorney who represents clients in criminal, family, and juvenile law matters. She was a member of the Public Defense Services Commission from 2022-2023 and served as its chair beginning in August 2023.  She is a former public defense provider and has previously served on the Governor's Task Force on Indigent Defense, the Oregon Criminal Defense Lawyers Association Public Defense Reform Task Force, and its Pay Parity Committee.  She administered the public defense contract in Benton County from 2000-2016 and was a member of the Willamette Criminal Justice Council, a statutory body that coordinates local criminal justice plans and policies in Benton County.

Jennifer has worked on the issues of Oregon public defense reform for decades.  Since joining the Public Defense Services Commission in 2022, she has worked tirelessly to bring compensation parity for public defense providers and accountability to the system.  She is committed to ensuring that every Oregonian who qualifies for a public defense lawyer has access to a qualified lawyer to help them during some of the most difficult moments in their lives.  She wants to continue that work as a Commissioner for the Oregon Public Defense Commission. ​

​Susan is Distinguished Professor of Law Emerita at Northwestern School of Law, Lewis & Clark College. Before joining the law school faculty, she was a trial and appellate attorney with the public defenders' offices for Multnomah County and the federal courts and an associate with a Portland law firm. She is co-author of a treatise on the subject of environmental crimes and has written various articles on the same topic and on criminal law and procedure generally. She has taught law in Spanish both as a Fulbright professor of law in Venezuela and as a guest lecturer at the Faculty of Law, University of the Basque Country in San Sebastian (Donostia), Spain. She is a member of the Oregon State Bar.

Susan has dedicated her professional life to studying, improving, and training students to participate in the criminal justice system in Oregon and the federal courts. She has a deep commitment to doing what she can to make Oregon's criminal justice system as fair, equitable, and accurate as possible.

As a member of the commission, she wants to work to ensure that no one charged with a crime in Oregon courts should have to face the power of the state without the prompt assistance of a competent, well-trained, well-resourced advocate.

Biography coming soon...

Alton Harvey, Jr. has dedicated his life to social service and giving back. Alton is the Lead Mentor for Portland Oregon's Volunteers of America Federal Parole & Probation and holds a CADC 1 certification. He has partnered with many community leaders, including members of the Portland Police Bureau, Beaverton Police Bureau, members of the Judicial system, including, the Multnomah Department of Community Justice ​to establish and enhance better relationships with the community. Alton is a member of the Portland Police Steering Committee, has served as the Board President of the START (Service Thru Accountability, Restitution, and Treatment) Drug Court Alumni Group, and was most recently the lead mentor for START Court. Alton is also a Folktime Board member, which is a peer driven mental health organization, and the lead facilitator of the H.E.A.T (Habitual, Empowerment, Accountability, and Therapy), a culturally specific group for African American Men 18-29 years old impacted by gangs, addiction, and trauma. Having been previously represented by public defense attorneys himself, he brings a valuable and unique perspective to the Oregon Public Defense Commission.​

Biography coming soon...

Brook Reinhard grew up in Eugene, graduated from Springfield High School and the University of Oregon's School of Journalism, and then worked as a reporter for several daily newspapers before attending Willamette University College of Law. Brook has been a public defender for the past 14 years, first in Roseburg and then in Eugene. He currently serves as the executive director of Public Defender Services of Lane County, where he helps protect the rights of people in our community who are accused of crimes and cannot afford an attorney of their own.  Brook's past governmental service includes the city of Roseburg as a planning commissioner, member of the Oregon Legislature's Police Profiling Task Force, and currently, as a member of the Prison Forecasting Advisory Committee and as an elected director for Willamalane Parks and Recreation District in Springfield. He is a member of the Lane County Public Safety Coordinating Council, on the Oregon State Bar's Criminal Law executive committee, and formerly served as a board member for OCDLA and the Lane County Bar Association.

Brook serves as an adjunct law professor at University of Oregon School of Law and Willamette University College of Law. He and his wife live in Springfield and have a small farm's worth of children and animals.


Floyd was first elected to the Oregon Legislature in 1994. He served in the House of Representatives between 1995 – 2000 and 2003. Floyd was appointed to represent Oregon Senate District 4 in 2003. He was elected in 2004 to complete the current term and has been reelected since 2006.

​ Floyd graduated from Texas A&M University and later earned a law degree from the South Texas College of Law. An avid cyclist and home-brewer, he lives in Eugene with his wife. During the interim, Floyd works as a municipal prosecutor and serves on various legislative committees, workgroups and commissions.

Biography coming soon...

Jennifer Parrish Taylor is the Director of Advocacy and Public Policy for the Urban League of Portland. She brings over a decade of community and political organizing experience in communities of color. Jennifer grew up in Portland, Oregon, an experience that shaped and informed her outlook and served as the catalyst of her passion to commit herself to issues of social justice. Upon her graduation from Smith College, she held several different positions on the Obama for America campaign and would later serve in the Obama Administration as a Special Assistant at the Peace Corps. After a decade in Washington D.C., she returned to her native Portland to work as an organizer with Working America and was part of an effort to advance both Paid Sick Leave and raising Oregon's minimum wage to $15. As the State Affiliate Political Organizer for American Federation of Teachers, Oregon, she worked closely with members and local union leaders to advance their political programs.

Jennifer wanted to be a member of the commission because as a previous commissioner, she believes that there continues to be a need for a community voice to remain on the commission, especially one from the population that should be centered as there is talk about reform and shaping the system we want to see moving forward. She is a strong believer that the master's tools will not dismantle the mater's house (Audre Lorde) and that the same “solutions" will not meet the need and urgency of this moment; I believe that community holds those solutions.

Biography coming soon...

​​​​Peter Buckley is a former State Representative from Ashland and co-chair of the Ways & Means Committee. He retired from the legislature in 2017 and has more than 20 years' experience in managing non-profit entities. He works for Southern Oregon Success and continues to be involved in mental health and public safety issues related to people in addiction and the services needed to support them. As a legislator and budget-committee co-chair, he helped protect public defense by authorizing diverting court-generated revenues to OPDS, which provided additional funding during a period of dramatic budget reductions in all state services.

Biography coming soon...

​Tom grew up in Southern Oregon.  He is the Orlando J. and Marian H. Hollis Professor at the University of Oregon School of Law, where he teaches criminal procedure and other subjects.  He has served by gubernatorial appointment as the chair of the Oregon Criminal Justice Commission, and he was elected to the Lane County Board of Commissioners.  Tom has worked as a plaintiffs' attorney handling civil rights cases and environmental clean-up litigation, among other categories of cases.  He has also worked as federal prosecutor.

Immediately after graduating from law school, Tom accepted an employment offer from the public defender's office in Oakland, California.  He had to move before starting that job, however, so his wife could pursue an employment opportunity in another state.  Tom has never worked full-time as a criminal defense attorney, but from time to time he has given pro bono assistance to criminal defense attorneys in state and federal cases, including Supreme Court litigation.

As a member of the commission, he wants to help make sure that Oregon protects the right to counsel, and that Oregon takes proper steps to improve working conditions, compensation, and incentives for the attorneys who represent indigent defendants in criminal cases.