Equal Justice Initiative

EJI has joined the call to have felony charges dropped against 14-year-old Tremaine McMillian, who has been charged with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest with violence - a felony - after he allegedly gave police officers a "dehumanizing stare" on a beach in Miami, Florida.

Alabama Governor Robert Bentley's refusal to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act will leave hundreds of thousands of Alabamians without health insurance and increase spending, a new study shows.

On June 4, 2013, Delaware Governor Jack A. Markell signed Senate Bill 9, which eliminates juvenile life imprisonment without possibility of release by providing for sentence review for all children who were sentenced to more than 20 years in prison.

The Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals reversed Jerry Jerome Smith's death sentence on Friday and ordered a new sentencing trial, marking the fifth time higher courts have found reversible error in his case.

Ethics experts and civil rights organizations filed a complaint of misconduct against Judge Edith H. Jones, who sits on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in Texas, alleging that her recent remarks during a speech at a law school showed racial bias against minority groups and a lack of impartiality in death penalty cases.

Alabama Governor Robert Bentley last week signed a new omnibus firearms law that expands access to and the ability to carry guns in Alabama, which has the third highest rate of gun violence in the country. Among other provisions, the new law denies employers the right to prohibit employees from bringing loaded handguns onto company property and makes it easier for people in Alabama to obtain concealed carry permits.

Since Jim Crow laws were instituted toward the end of the 19th century, African Americans in the South were forced to endure substandard, racially segregated conditions. Black travelers were forced to sit at the back of the bus and use separate waiting rooms, restrooms, and drinking fountains. Legal challenges to end racial segregation in public facilities yielded some success in the 1960s but many Southern states resisted compliance with court ordered integration.

The United States Supreme Court decided today in Trevino v. Thaler to extend the rule that allows a defendant to challenge his trial lawyer's ineffectiveness in federal court where he is unable to do so in state court.

The Connecticut House of Representatives passed legislation on Tuesday that effectively abolishes juvenile life without parole.

Congressman John Lewis and Bryan Stevenson co-authored this op-ed for a series on The State of Equality and Justice in America.