About Us

Since 2000, The Justice Project, Inc., a 501(c)(4) organization, and The Justice Project Education Fund, a 501 (c)(3) organization, have led several national and state-level campaigns and initiatives that have resulted in significant reforms to the death penalty system as well as the larger criminal justice system. The two separate organizations enable us to use a broad range of tools, including legislative advocacy, communications, coalition building, and grassroots mobilization, to build bipartisan support to promote fairness and accuracy in the criminal justice system. Although the work of the two organizations is closely related, only The Justice Project, Inc. engages in legislative lobbying.

Examples of our national work include:

• Ensuring Passage of the Innocence Protection Act
  We led a five-year campaign to pass the Innocence Protection Act (IPA), the first piece of federal death penalty reform legislation to pass Congress and be signed into law. The IPA includes funding for the Kirk Bloodsworth Post-Conviction DNA Testing Program, which allows for DNA testing of individuals who may have been wrongfully convicted. The bill also provides significant funds to help improve the quality of representation in capital cases. The IPA is part of more comprehensive legislation, The Justice For All Act, which also authorizes funding to states to clear their DNA backlogs and improve forensic laboratory capacity and standards across the nation. In order to pass this bill, The Justice Project engaged in direct lobbying efforts and garnered widespread grassroots support, while the Education Fund generated significant media attention and coordinated communication amongst our allies.
  
  
• Leading the Campaign to End the Juvenile Death Penalty
  On March 1, 2005, the United States Supreme Court struck down the juvenile death penalty in a landmark 5-4 decision. The Court in 2004 agreed to hear the case on the constitutionality of the death penalty for juvenile offenders. We coordinated a national campaign, entitled "Kids Are Different," which illustrated that kids are mentally, emotionally and physically different and therefore less culpable for their actions. We united the efforts of juvenile justice advocates and the criminal justice reform community with mainstream American institutions and organizations to demonstrate to the Court and to the general public that a national and international consensus against the execution of juvenile offenders had evolved. The Justice Project also supported state legislative activity to ban the practice and promoted, as evidence of a consensus, the voices of the nation's leading medical organizations, child advocates, religious institutions, former US Diplomats and Nobel Laureates.
  
  
• Partnering with National Leaders to Ensure Adequate Counsel for All
  In partnership with the Constitution Project and the National Legal Aid & Defender Association, we helped launch the National Committee on the Right to Counsel, an extraordinary group of Americans including judges, prosecutors, defenders, law enforcers and policymakers committed to improving the indigent defense system. We also work with the American Bar Association to support and implement the standards set forth in their Guidelines for the Appointment and Performance of Defense Counsel in Death Penalty Cases. Our working relationships with prestigious, credible and influential individuals and organizations present unique opportunities to discuss and highlight the need for specific improvements in counsel standards and foster a strong network of voices to support our numerous and varied reform efforts.
  
  
• Promoting a National Climate for Reform
  The Justice Project Education Fund has designed and implemented sophisticated national communications efforts, including the promotion of death row exonerations and landmark studies, including A Broken System (which found serious, reversible errors in nearly seven out of every 10 capital cases), which have generated countless articles, editorials and broadcast pieces on innocence and fairness.

Examples of our state work include:

• Illinois
  Following Governor George Ryan's announcement of a moratorium on executions in 2000, we collaborated with the Illinois Death Penalty Education Project (our sister organization) to reshape the death penalty debate in Illinois and shine a spotlight on growing concerns with the state's -- and the nation's -- capital punishment system. Our work in Illinois helped bring about Governor Ryan's sweeping commutations of Illinois' death row in 2003. We also acted as a liaison to national death penalty organizations and The Justice Project worked with state legislators to ensure overwhelming passage of major death penalty reform in November 2003. This legislation contains more than 20 measures intended to respond to the troubling history of wrongful convictions in Illinois, including giving the Illinois Supreme Court greater power to overturn death sentences, providing defendants with more access to evidence, and barring the death penalty in cases with only a single eyewitness. Significantly, the law also set up the Capital Punishment Reform Study Committee to evaluate the effectiveness of the reforms. We continue to use our experience and success in Illinois to aid reform efforts in other states.
  
  
• Texas
  We coordinate a coalition of Texas-based advocates to raise awareness of and propose solutions to systemic problems plaguing the Texas criminal justice system, with a focus on indigent defense. Our public education, litigation support and legislative reform efforts address the underlying causes that lead to wrongful convictions and highlight the need for a fair and accurate system.
  
  
• Tennessee
  We formed The Tennessee Justice Project to raise public awareness of flaws in the administration of capital punishment and the criminal justice system in the state. With special attention to the lack of adequate defense representation, the risk of executing an innocent person, and poor quality of judicial review, The Tennessee Justice Project seeks to create an environment in which state legislators and executive branch officials can support substantive reform of the capital punishment system and encourage the judiciary and governor to be more scrupulous with capital case review.
  
  
• Georgia
  During the 2003 session, based on our efforts and the recommendations of a commission appointed by the State Supreme Court, Georgia lawmakers overwhelmingly approved a bipartisan bill creating a streamlined system, the Georgia Public Defender Standards Council, for assigning and overseeing lawyers who represent poor defendants. The bipartisan bill was championed by the House speaker and supported by the state's judiciary. During the 2004 legislative session, state lawmakers approved an initial $23 million to fund the new statewide system, which was renewed in 2005. We work with the Georgia Public Defender Standards Council, the Southern Center for Human Rights, and state and local policymakers to ensure that the system lives up to its goals of quality representation for all.

The Justice Project has built its successes on the accomplishments of its founders. In 1980, these individuals started the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation, an international humanitarian organization that addresses the causes, conduct and consequences of war through programs of advocacy and service for victims of conflict around the world. In 1997 VVAF's work on the international campaign to ban landmines was recognized with the Nobel Peace Prize.