Equal Justice Initiative

On December 11, 2008, the United States Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice Statistics announced that about 3.2% of the U.S. adult population, or one in every 31 adults, was incarcerated or under community supervision at the end of 2007.

The latest national Gallup poll on crime found that support for the death penalty in America is now at its lowest level in the past thirty years. From a high of 80% of Americans in favor of the death penalty in 1994, support dropped this year to 64%.

Election Day brought significant change to the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals. Two new judges were elected, and a third seat opened up when current criminal appeals judge Greg Shaw was elected to the Alabama Supreme Court.

On October 21, 2008, EJI attorneys argued that the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals should order a new trial for death row prisoner David Wilson because the Houston County prosecutor at his trial illegally eliminated every black potential juror.

Racially discriminatory practices by Alabama prosecutors, including the elimination of African American jurors because they appeared to be of “low intelligence,” were examined by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit in Atlanta, Georgia, in oral argument on October 20, 2008. Bryan Stevenson argued on behalf of Earl McGahee, who was tried by an all-white jury in a majority-black county after the State excluded every African American from jury service.

On October 6, 2008, the Alabama Supreme Court agreed to review Wesley Quick's case, in which the Court of Criminal Appeals ruled that Mr. Quick was not entitled to any credit for over seven years he spent on death row before being acquitted of capital murder. In a brief filed on October 17, 2008, Equal Justice Initiative attorneys representing Mr. Quick argued that the Alabama Supreme Court should reverse the lower court's decision and get credit for the time he served in prison.

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.

EJI has released a short preview version of the upcoming film, Cruel and Unusual: Sentencing 13- and 14-Year-Old Children to Die in Prison.

On September 17, 2008, EJI attorneys filed a complaint in Montgomery County Circuit Court alleging that the State of Alabama's application of the Community Notification Act's adult sex offender residency and notification requirements against Andrew Miller, a mentally retarded, visually impaired, and physically disabled man, violate his and his family's constitutional rights.