Equal Justice Initiative

On September 4, 2009, the Alabama Supreme Court reversed the conviction and sentence imposed on Marsha Colby, who was convicted of capital murder after giving birth to what doctors believe was a stillborn baby.

On October 31, 2008, Equal Justice Initiative attorneys filed a brief in the Alabama Supreme Court on behalf of Alabama death row inmate Michael Carruth, in which it argued that Mr. Carruth is entitled to an out-of-time appeal because the lawyer appointed to represent him on the appeal of his conviction failed to file a mandatory petition for review in the Alabama Supreme Court.

J.L. Chestnut Jr., Selma's first black lawyer and lifelong advocate for equality and racial justice, died September 30, 2008, in Birmingham, Alabama, at age 77.

The federal Judicial Conference Committee on Defender Services recently released a preliminary Update on the Cost, Quality, and Availability of Defense Representation in Federal Death Penalty Cases focusing on the cost of legal representation in federal 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 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.