Equal Justice Initiative

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 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.

At a November 7, 2007, conference on the right to the effective assistance of counsel and the Supreme Court's 1984 decision in Strickland v. Washington, judges, prosecutors, defense lawyers, legal scholars, and other experts discussed the challenge of ensuring effective counsel to indigent defendants, especially in capital cases.