Human Rights (Q3 2012)

Featured beneficiary in the HUMAN RIGHTS category for third quarter 2012:

EQUAL JUSTICE INITIATIVE

The Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) is a private, nonprofit organization located in Montgomery, Alabama that provides legal representation to defendants and prisoners who have been denied fair and just treatment in the legal justice system. The organization was established by Bryan Stevenson, Harvard Law School graduate, and recipient of many awards including the MacArthur Foundation "Genius" Award. EJI litigates on behalf of prisoners condemned to death, children in adult prisons, people wrongly convicted or charged with violent crimes, poor people denied effective representation, and other individuals who have gone through trials that have been marked by racial bias or prosecutorial misconduct.

Currently, over 3200 people are on death row in the United States. Since the reinstatement of the death sentence in 1976, 1266 people have been executed in the United States. For every eight people sentenced to die, one innocent person has been identified and exonerated. Many states have suspended executions because of fallibility of this system, but many southern states, (especially Alabama), have continued sentencing prisoners to death without hesitation. The EJI is working to make sure that innocent people are protected from wrongful prosecution and set free before an undeserved sentence.

Recently EJI won two United States Supreme Court cases banning mandatory life sentences without the possibility of parole for juveniles. This is a huge victory for children who were convicted of homicide without their age or other mitigating factors being taken into account. The Foundation Beyond Belief is proud to support this organization in their effort to make the American legal system work for all human beings in an equal and fair manner.