Equal Justice Initiative

The United States Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered a new trial for Juan Smith, who was convicted of first-degree murder after New Orleans prosecutors illegally failed to disclose evidence that the prosecution's key eyewitness told police he could not identify anyone involved in the crime.

This week a federal court ruled that Alabama death row prisoner Billy Joe Magwood has been illegally sentenced to death and is now entitled to relief. The ruling from the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit comes after Mr. Magwood spent over three decades on Alabama's death row for the 1979 shooting death of an Alabama law enforcement officer. State and federal courts denied relief to Mr. Magwood for years until the United States Supreme Court ruled in 2010 that the case required closer review.

Manuel Valle spent 33 years on death row in Florida before he was executed on September 28, 2011, at the age of 61. In a dissent from the United States Supreme Court's decision not to review his case, Justice Stephen Breyer wrote, "I have little doubt about the cruelty of so long a period of incarceration under sentence of death."

The State of Alabama continues to deny the right to vote to citizens who have served and completed sentences for felony convictions. Alabama's disenfranchisement rate of one in 14 residents is triple the national average.