Equal Justice Initiative

Ohio is poised to become the first state in the country to change to a single-drug lethal injection. The new protocol comes in the wake of several botched executions, including the state's unsuccessful attempt to execute Rommell Broom in September.

Today EJI argues at the United States Supreme Court on behalf of Petitioner Joe Sullivan in Sullivan v. Florida, which challenges the imposition of life-without-parole sentences on young adolescents.

Nearly half of all children in the United States and 90% of African American children will rely on food stamps at some point during childhood, and fallout from the recession could push those numbers higher.

Over a dozen national and international organizations representing teachers, scientists, adolescent development experts, physicians, and corrections professionals have filed friend-of-the-court briefs in Sullivan v. Florida and Graham v. Florida, which challenge sentences to life imprisonment without parole imposed on children.

EJI lawyers Bryan Stevenson and Brandon Buskey, seated, argue before the Supreme Court.

On October 8, 2009, the Alabama Supreme Court and the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals heard oral arguments at the Cumberland School of Law at Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama, as part of the court system's outreach and education efforts. EJI attorneys were asked by the courts to participate in both oral arguments.

More questions about the reliability of the death penalty were raised when Yancy Douglas, 35, and Paris Powell, 36, were released from Oklahoma's death row on October 2, 2009, after being exonerated in the 1993 capital murder for which they have spent 14 years in prison.

Dozens of community members participated in a discussion and book-signing by acclaimed actor, producer, and human rights activist Mike Farrell on October 9, 2009, at EJI.

The State of Alabama executed Max Payne by lethal injection yesterday at Holman Prison in Atmore, Alabama. Mr. Payne was the sixth person to be put to death in Alabama this year. Alabama has executed 44 people in the modern death penalty era.

In the wake of scientific evidence documenting that the State of Texas executed an innocent man when it put to death Cameron Willingham in 2004 for the deaths of his three children in a house fire, Texas Governor Rick Perry has stirred more controversy and criticism by replacing members on a commission reviewing the arson investigation which led to Mr. Willingham’s conviction.

With state and local budget crises emerging and intensifying across the recession-wracked United States, jurisdictions are re-examining the death penalty's high price tag, growing evidence of unreliability and concerns about wrongful convictions. Alabama is a counter-example, as its execution rate increases and careful review of death penalty cases is being restricted.