Equal Justice Initiative

The Equal Justice Initiative examined death sentences imposed in Alabama counties since 1978 and found surprising differences between counties in the rate of sentencing people to death.

On April 8, 2008, EJI Executive Director Bryan Stevenson testified before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary's Subcommittee on the Constitution on "The Adequacy of Representation in Capital Cases." Using specific cases involving drunk, abusive, inexperienced and underfunded trial and appellate lawyers, he illustrated how inadequate legal representation undermines the reliability and fairness of convictions and sentences in death penalty cases.

On Monday, March 24, 2008, Oklahoma death row prisoner James Fisher won reversal of his capital murder conviction and death sentence because his trial counsel's performance failed to meet constitutional requirements.

On Monday, March 24, 2008, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri reversed the conviction and sentence of life imprisonment without possibility of parole imposed on Phillip Shaw for a crime that occurred when he was 14 years old.

Today on Pacifica Radio, Executive Director Bryan Stevenson talked about EJI's work to challenge the sentencing of 13- and 14-year-old children to life imprisonment without the possiblity of parole. EJI has identified dozens of young children sentenced to die in prison in 19 states across the country. The United States is the only country in the world to sentence children as young as 13 to imprisonment until death. Click to listen to the interview.

On March 17, 2008, EJI asked the United States Supreme Court to review the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals' decision denying relief to Eli Crawford, an Alabama inmate serving a life sentence for attempted murder. At his Birmingham trial, Mr. Crawford's court-appointed trial lawyer did not object when the judge forced Mr. Crawford to wear jail-issued clothing instead of the clothes his family brought for him, even though the Supreme Court has repeatedly held that a defendant's right to be presumed innocent is violated when he is forced to attend trial in a jail uniform.

EJI is appealing the conviction of Marsha Colby, a Baldwin County woman convicted of capital murder and sentenced to life imprisonment without possibility of parole for the death of her newborn son, despite strong evidence that the baby was stillborn.

On March 11, 2008, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the district court’s judgment granting Alabama death row prisoner James Charles Lawhorn a new sentencing trial because his trial lawyer was ineffective.

Alabama is the only state in the country that allows standardless judicial override: Alabama judges can, and frequently do, reject jury verdicts for life without parole and impose the death penalty. New research from EJI shows that more than 80 people have been sentenced to death by judges even though their juries decided that death was not the appropriate punishment. Fueled by "tough on crime" rhetoric in partisan judicial elections, judicial override in Alabama is on the rise.

Based on new data from the Bureau of Justice, Alabama leads the nation in the rate of new death sentences for the fifth straight year. Last year, Alabama sentenced more people to death than Georgia, Mississippi, Louisiana, Tennessee, Arkansas, Virginia and Ohio combined. With a population of only 4.5 million people, Alabama’s 13 new death sentences was greater than the 11 new death sentences imposed in Texas, which has a population of 23.5 million people.