Ed is committed to the pursuit of justice through public service, continued learning, and the education of others.

Ed is an Adjunct Professor at Rutgers Law School - Newark, where he teaches courses on Military Justice, Criminal Adjudication, and the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Movement. He has also taught graduate and undergraduate courses at Kean and Monmouth Universities.

He was first in his family to graduate college. He received a BA from Assumption College and a JD from Southwestern Law School. After a short time in private practice, he joined the U.S. Army as a Captain in the Judge Advocate General Corps. He served 3-years in the First Cavalry Division in Texas and Germany during peacetime, and he was awarded an Army Commendation Medal for his service. After the military, Ed spent over 33 years in public service.

Ed worked for the State of New Jersey (NJ) under the administrations of 8 Governors and 2 Acting Governors. Most of his career was in the NJ Attorney General’s office, where he held many high-level leadership positions including First Assistant Attorney General, State and County Prosecutor, and Inspector General. He also served as Chief of Environmental Prosecutions, where he tried cases, argued appeals, and handled post-sentencing hearings.

In other state positions, he was an Assistant Commissioner for Enforcement at Governor Jim Florio’s NJ Department of Environmental Protection, an assistant counsel for Governor Tom Kean, and a public defender in the Essex County courts. In his final state job, he served as a tenured Superior Court Judge in Monmouth and Mercer Counties, where he handled criminal and civil jury trials.

As a public defender, Ed tried two capital trials that resulted in unanimous jury verdicts rejecting the death penalty. He also worked on the amendment to NJ’s death penalty law that barred the execution of juveniles. After the NJ Supreme Court recognized the battered woman’s syndrome defense, he was the first to present it in a murder trial. An Essex County jury found his client not guilty of all charges. 

Ed prosecuted two major prison cases.  He tried the Trenton State Prison case, where the jury found seven correction officers guilty of official misconduct for assaulting inmates and filing false reports. As Acting Union County Prosecutor, Ed spearheaded an investigation Into the Union County Jail that led to the indictment of correction officers who assaulted immigrant detainees and conspired to cover-up the abuse. Ten were convicted. A Star Ledger columnist wrote that he took on tough cases and referred to him as the “people’s prosecutor.”

As Inspector General, Ed was placed in charge of the NJ State Police internal affairs unit to reduce its backlog and fulfill the internal affairs requirements of the federal consent decree on racial profiling. Internal affairs became the first area of the decree to achieve full compliance. His conflict-of-interest lawsuit against the Atlantic City mayor and his campaign treasurer led to a NJ Supreme Court decision voiding their $850,000 settlement with the city and ordering the officials to return those monies to the municipality.

Ed was appointed by the Chief Justice of the NJ Supreme Court to chair the Court’s Minority Concerns Subcommittee on Criminal Justice and the Minority Defendant. He served two terms as chair. He also taught judges how to handle search warrant applications, testimonial motions, and trials at judicial training sessions.

He was a certified criminal trial attorney for two decades before going on the bench, and he tried murder cases as a military lawyer, defense attorney, prosecutor, and judge.

Although retired when Hurricane Sandy struck, Ed elected to join the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to assist in cleaning-up the Jersey shore and rebuilding its public infrastructure. He received a DHS General Counsel’s Award for Excellence for his work. While serving on the bench and at FEMA, he held a top-secret security clearance.

Ed also spent 4 years volunteering to work on state programs. He volunteered to serve as a mentor in NJ’s Veterans Diversion Program, mentoring veterans facing criminal charges in Superior Court. Additionally, he served on the Advisory Board to the NJ Corrections Ombudsperson as an advocate for the humane and restorative treatment of prisoners. At present, Ed is a member of NJ’s second-chance Clemency Advisory Board, which makes recommendations to the Governor concerning the exercise of executive clemency.

Throughout his career, Ed has been active in the NJ State Bar Association. He was a member of the Board of Trustees, Chair of the Military Law and Veterans Affairs Section, and Chair of the Criminal Law Section. He spoke at numerous continuing legal education seminars on a variety of topics, and Ed participated in the High School Mock Trial Program as a coach and a judge.

He authored the Rutgers-Eagleton Institute of Politics research article entitled “Beach & Ocean Pollution Disaster: The Response of Two Governors,” and he co-authored the National Association of Attorneys General monograph entitled “Environmental Prosecutions: Investigation to Sentencing.” His opinion pieces have been published by the Star Ledger, Asbury Park Press, Trenton Times, NJ Spotlight News, NJ Law Journal, the Hill, and the Irish Echo.

Ed is a past Grand Marshal of the Belmar-Lake Como St. Patrick Day’s Parade, and he holds dual American and Irish citizenships. In 2022, when the NJ Legislature’s bipartisan Resolution designating March as Irish American Month was signed into law by the Governor, it recognized notable Irish Americans from NJ including Ed for his human rights activism.