EJI, Race and the Criminal Justice System
Since today's death penalty news seems to be quiet, I thought it would be a good opportunity to link to the Equal Justice Initiative's informative page about Race and the Criminal Justice System. The page gives several alarming statistics, such as,
Although black people in Alabama constitute 26% of the total population, none of the 19 appellate court judges and none of the 42 elected District Attorneys in Alabama are black. Nearly 63% of the Alabama prison population is black.
The Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) litigates on behalf of criminal defendants whose convictions have been unlawfully obtained on the basis of racial discrimination. In the last ten years, 23 capital cases in Alabama have been reversed after it was proven that prosecutors illegally excluded black people from jury service. EJI won most of the cases.
EJI is headed by Bryan Stevenson. I think the work that he does, and the others as EJI, is amazing!
Posted by katherine at 07:09 PM
