Marshall Dayan was born in Miami, Florida, and raised in Macon, Georgia. He
was awarded a B.A. degree from the University of Georgia, and received his J.D. in 1986
from Antioch School of Law.
Dayan has been actively involved in the anti-death penalty movement since 1981,
and representing those charged with or convicted of capital crimes since 1986. He was a
staff attorney with the North Carolina Resource Center for seven years, and an assistant
appellate defender for the State of North Carolina for three years. In August, 2001, he
became an Assistant Professor of Law at North Carolina Central University School of
Law. In June, 2006, Dayan became State Strategies Coordinator of the national ACLU’s
Capital Punishment Project in Durham, N.C. After a year with the ACLU-CPP, Dayan
joined the Capital Habeas Unit of the Federal Defender’s Office in Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania, where he serves as an Assistant Federal Public Defender. He is also an
adjunct professor at Pitt Law School, where he teaches a capital punishment law class.
Dayan has had published several law review articles on the death penalty in
various journals, and has also written several pieces on capital litigation for The
Champion, the magazine of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. He
has served as Chair of the Board of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty,
as President of the NC-based People of Faith Against the Death Penalty, and as ViceChair of the Commission on Social Action for Reform Judaism, a national policy-making
board for the Union of Reform Judaism. He also served as Co-Chair of the board of
Pennsylvanians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, and continues to serve on its board
of directors. He served as President of the Pittsburgh chapter of the ACLU of
Pennsylvania, and is active in the Jewish community, having served as President of the
board of the Pittsburgh Area Jewish Committee. He also serves on the Executive Board
of Adat Shalom Synagogue in Cheswick, PA