Entries tagged with “Equal Justice Initiative”
Feb 20, 2025
Article of Interest: New Equal Justice Initiative Report Shines a Spotlight on Historic Patterns of Jury Discrimination and the Role of Non-Diverse Juries in Wrongful Convictions
A new report from the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI), Unreliable Verdicts: Racial Bias and Wrongful Convictions, explores the history of racial bias in jury selection in the United States, including the last 40 years of racially-discriminatory preemptory jury strikes, and highlights the growing body of research showing that jury bias is reduced and the deliberative process enhanced when juries are more diverse. Looking at the pool of documented death penalty…
Issues
Jun 18, 2024
Equal Justice Initiative’s Freedom Monument Sculpture Park Will Open to the Public on Juneteenth
On June 19th, or Juneteenth, the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) will celebrate the opening of the Freedom Monument Sculpture Park, its latest museum in Montgomery, Alabama. The 17-acre site displays contemporary artworks, first-person narratives, and historical artifacts which tell the stories about the more than 10 million Black people who were enslaved in the United States. Visitors to the park will embark on a unique narrative journey that explores the nation’s history of enslavement and…
Issues
Mar 31, 2023
Bryan Stevenson Honored with the National Humanities Medal
Prominent death penalty attorney, founder and Executive Director of the Equal Justice Initiative, Bryan Stevenson (pictured with President Joe Biden), was awarded the National Humanities Medal on March 21, 2023 at the White House. The president commended Stevenson for his long-term efforts to represent the impoverished and exonerate the wrongfully convicted, in addition to founding the Legacy Museum and the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, both located in Montgomery,…
Executions
Botched Executions
,Nov 23, 2022
Alabama Governor Halts Executions After Latest in Series of Execution Failures
Alabama Governor Kay Ivey (pictured) has halted executions and ordered a “top-to-bottom review” of the state’s execution procedures, five days after failures by corrections personnel to establish an intravenous execution line caused Alabama to call off the November 17, 2022 execution of Kenneth…
Issues
Sep 13, 2022
Alabama Court Upholds Fifth Non-Unanimous Death Sentence Imposed on Intellectually Impaired Man Over the Course of Six Penalty Trials for the Same Crime
An Alabama appeals court has upheld a fifth non-unanimous death sentence imposed on a death-row prisoner who has faced six capital sentencing trials for the same offense and was once found to be ineligible for the death penalty because of intellectual…
Issues
Mar 31, 2022
More Than a Century After it Was First Proposed, President Biden Signs Historic Law Making Lynching a Federal Crime
After more than a century of efforts by civil rights leaders to make lynching a federal crime, President Joe Biden on March 29, 2022 signed into law historic anti-lynching…
Issues
Aug 09, 2021
Alabama Appeals Court Reverses Lower Court Ruling and Restores Death Sentence in Case in Which 10 of 12 Jurors Voted for Life
The Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals (CCA) has reversed a lower court ruling and ordered the court to reinstate the death penalty against a Birmingham man whose trial judge had sentenced him to death even though the jury had voted 10 – 2 to recommend a life…