Equal Justice Initiative

EJI has released a short preview version of the upcoming film, Cruel and Unusual: Sentencing 13- and 14-Year-Old Children to Die in Prison.

On Thursday, September 11, 2008, EJI Director Bryan Stevenson will testify before the United States House of Representatives Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security during hearings on H.R. 4300, the Juvenile Justice Accountability and Improvement Act.

Author Susan Kuklin's newest book, No Choirboy: Murder, Violence, and Teenagers on Death Row, presents the stories of individuals who were sentenced to death or life without parole for crimes committed when they were teenagers, including two EJI clients in Alabama.

On May 26, 2008, United Nations Special Rapporteur on racism Doudou Diene heard testimony from EJI Executive Director Bryan Stevenson as part of his field mission to examine racism in the United States. Mr. Stevenson detailed evidence of racial bias against African Americans, Latinos, and other racial minorities, from the administration of the death penalty to the treatment of children in the criminal justice system.

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.

A new study by EJI has documented 73 cases where 13- and 14-year-old children in the United States have been tried as adults and sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. EJI believes that sentencing young children to imprisonment until death violates international law and the U.S. Constitution, and has taken on the cases of a dozen of these 13- and 14-year-olds to challenge their sentences. The misguided practice of sentencing young kids to die in prison and the traumatic stories of condemned children are documented in EJI’s report, Cruel and Unusual: Sentencing 13- and 14-Year-Old Children to Die in Prison.

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Shortly after his 13th birthday, Antonio Nunez was riding a bicycle near his home in South Central Los Angeles, California, when he was shot multiple times in a drive-by shooting. His brother, who was 14 years old, ran to help Antonio and was shot in the head and killed. Antonio was critically injured and underwent emergency surgery to repair his intestines.