Biographies

2007 California Peace Prize Award Honorees

Casey Gwinn

Casey Gwinn has worked to prevent domestic violence and child abuse for more than 20 years. Previously, Gwinn served as the San Diego City Attorney, at which time he founded the San Diego Family Justice Center, a “one-stop shop” for domestic violence victims who need help navigating more than 30 city and county departments. The U.S. Department of Justice has singled out the Center as a national model.

Gwinn assists communities nationwide and internationally in developing co-located service centers for victims and their children. He is currently the chief executive officer of the YWCA of San Diego County and volunteer chief executive officer of the San Diego Family Justice Center Foundation.

Gwinn also helped form the San Diego Domestic Violence Council, the coordinating body for all county agencies involved in domestic violence intervention, and the San Diego Task Force on Domestic Violence. He founded the City Attorney’s Child Abuse and Domestic Violence Unit, which has been credited with reducing domestic violence homicides by 75 percent and has been recognized by the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges as a model domestic violence prosecution unit.

Born in Santa Cruz, California, Gwinn graduated from Stanford University and UCLA School of Law. He serves on the U.S. Attorney General’s National Advisory Committee on Violence Against Women and the American Bar Association’s Commission on Domestic Violence. He recently chaired the California Attorney General’s Task Force on Domestic Violence. Gwinn has received numerous local and national awards and was recognized by The American Lawyer magazine as one of the top 45 public lawyers in the country. He has authored numerous articles and books on domestic violence and related issues. He lives with his wife and their three children in San Diego.

Patricia Lee

Patricia Lee has served as a deputy public defender in San Francisco since 1978 and has practiced in the juvenile courts since 1981. She is currently the managing attorney of the San Francisco Public Defender’s juvenile office, and co-director of the Pacific Juvenile Defender Center, which seeks to improve the quality of representation provided by juvenile-delinquency attorneys.

Lee is a founding member of Bayview MAGIC (Mobilization for Adolescent Growth in our Communities), a collaborative of 25 agencies in San Francisco’s Bayview Hunters Point neighborhood that develops and implements strategies to reduce youth violence. She served as a technical advisor to the American Bar Association Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention for the Due Process Advocacy Program, a national program, which seeks to increase children’s access to quality counsel in juvenile delinquency proceedings. Lee also established the country’s first placement program for girls who have been victims of exploitation.

A native San Franciscan, Lee received an undergraduate degree from the University of California at Berkeley and a law degree from Lincoln University School of Law. She serves as the co-chair of the juvenile justice committee of the Asian Youth Advocacy Network. She is a member of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation’s Network on Adolescent Development and Juvenile Justice, and a member of the Family and Juvenile Law Advisory Committee of the Administrative Office of the Courts, Center for Families, Children and the Courts. Lee is also a founding member of the Center for Young Women’s Development and past president of the San Francisco Delinquency Prevention Commission. She has been honored by the National Organization for Women and the Pacific Asian American Women Bay Area Coalition. She has four daughters and currently lives in Berkeley, California.

Cora Tomalinas

A former nurse, and a current full-time volunteer and community activist, Cora Tomalinas has been an advocate for health and peace for three decades. She works with the San Jose Police Department and other community entities to combat gang crimes and provide educational opportunities for at-risk youth. Tomalinas was recently asked by city officials to serve on the City of San Jose’s delegation of the California Cities Gang Prevention Network, a collaborative in 13 cities of the National Council on Crime and Delinquency and the National League of Cities.

Tomalinas is also chair of Santa Clara County’s First 5 Commission and a board member of the San Jose Education Foundation. In her community work, she strives to connect systems and services so that they work together effectively and provide the support parents need to keep their children healthy and safe.

Tomalinas vowed to devote her life towards helping youth when her own teenage daughter (now a college graduate) became involved in drugs and other risky behaviors. With inspiration from her church, St. Maria Goretti in San Jose, she became a leader of PACT (People Acting in Community Together), an interfaith, grassroots organization that empowers everyday people to work together to solve social problems in their communities.

Born in Agoo, La Union, Philippines, Tomalinas received a BS in nursing from San Francisco State University and was a registered nurse and public-health nurse at Kaiser Permanente’s Santa Teresa Hospital. She has served on numerous boards, commissions, task forces, and community advocacy groups including: Catholic Charities; the Early Care & Education Commission; The Filipino Task Force for Domestic Violence Prevention; and San Jose Healthy Neighborhood Venture Fund Committee. She lives with her family in San Jose, California.