Equal Justice Initiative

The Dhamma Brothers documents the stories of inmates at the maximum-security Donaldson Correctional Facility in Bessemer, Alabama, as they enter into an intensive 10-day Vipassana meditation retreat. EJI supported the project and the film, which is now being screened across the country.

On August 29, 2008, Equal Justice Initiative attorneys filed a petition in the case of Alabama death row inmate Michael Carruth asking the Alabama Supreme Court to restore the right to counsel for death row prisoners on direct appeal.

After Alberta Turner's home in White Hall, Alabama, was severely damaged by storms (click here for photos of the damaged home), EJI Rural Development Manager Catherine Flowers assisted the Turner family to obtain a new home (click here for photos of the new home).

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.

EJI is challenging the ruling of a Houston County, Alabama, trial judge, which refused to shield death row prisoner Jerry Jerome Smith from execution even though he is mentally retarded.

Bobby Waldrop was sentenced to death in Randolph County, Alabama, even though his jury decided that he should be sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole, by a trial judge who said he was overriding the jury and imposing death because all of the other defendants he had sentenced to death were black.

The State of Alabama revealed yesterday that it lost DNA evidence that could exonerate death row inmate Tommy Arthur. Convicted for the 1982 murder-for-hire of Troy Wicker, Mr. Arthur has for years asked the state to test DNA evidence he says would prove his innocence. The state has refused to conduct the tests.

Today the Alabama Supreme Court granted Tommy Arthur's request for a stay of his execution. For years, Mr. Arthur has been asking the State for an opportunity to test the DNA evidence from his trial so that he could prove his claim of innocence. The order staying his execution came one day before he was to be executed.

A study entitled "State Public Opinion, the Death Penalty, and the Practice of Electing Judges" and published in the April 2008 American Journal of Political Science found significant links between public opinion and judicial decision-making in states that elect their supreme court judges.

The Alabama Supreme Court has set an execution date for Tommy Arthur on July 31, 2008. If the execution goes forward, it will be the first in Alabama using a new execution protocol adopted last fall.

In an appeal to the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals, Mr. Arthur is arguing that the court should delay his execution to give him an opportunity to challenge the constitutionality of the new lethal injection protocol.