Equal Justice Initiative

Today, Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico signed a bill abolishing capital punishment in that state. “If the State is going to undertake this awesome responsibility," the governor said, "the system to impose this ultimate penalty must be perfect and can never be wrong. But the reality is the system is not perfect – far from it. The system is inherently defective. DNA testing has proven that. Innocent people have been put on death row all across the country."

The United States Supreme Court today denied the State of Alabama's application to vacate the stay of Phillip Hallford's March 19, 2009, execution date.

EJI client Earl McGahee, who is African American, was tried by an all-white jury in a county where the African American population was over 55%. The prosecutor excluded all of the African Americans from jury service based on their race and what he characterized as their "low intelligence." After two decades spent challenging the race discrimination in this case, EJI won relief for Mr. McGahee yesterday when the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals reversed his capital murder conviction because the prosecutor engaged in illegal racial discrimination during jury selection.

On February 26, 2009, the Alabama Supreme Court scheduled Jack Trawick to be executed by lethal injection on June 11, 2009. This is the sixth execution date the court has scheduled for this year.

On Friday, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta rejected the State of Alabama's request to vacate the stay of execution the federal court had granted to Alabama death row inmate Phillip Hallford.

The State of Alabama executed Danny Bradley by lethal injection on Thursday, February 12, 2009, without allowing DNA testing that may have proved Mr. Bradley did not commit the crime for which he was convicted and sentenced to death.

The United States Supreme Court has asked the State of Florida to respond to EJI's petition in the case of Joe Sullivan, who was convicted for a sexual assault at age 13 and sentenced to die in prison.

The State of Alabama executed Jimmy Callahan today, after the Alabama Supreme Court and United States Supreme Court refused to review his claim that his conviction was tainted because his trial judge participated in his interrogation.

A petition filed by EJI attorneys in the United States Supreme Court asking the court to stay Jimmy Callahan's execution, scheduled for January 15, 2009, has been denied.

EJI lawyers today filed a petition asking the Alabama Supreme Court to stay the execution of Alabama death row inmate Jimmy Callahan, who is scheduled to be executed on January 15, 2009.