The Justice Project works to increase fairness and accuracy in the criminal justice system. We develop, coordinate, and implement integrated national and state-based campaigns involving public education, litigation and legislation to reform the criminal justice system, with particular focus on capital punishment.
The Problem: A Broken System
Since the reinstatement of the death penalty in the 1970s, 129 people have been exonerated from death row in 26 states – roughly one for every nine executed. In fact, the most comprehensive study of capital trials ever conducted found that nearly seven of every 10 death sentences handed down by state courts from 1973 to 1995 were overturned due to “serious, reversible error,” including egregiously incompetent defense counsel, suppression of exculpatory evidence, eyewitness misidentification, false confessions, snitch and accomplice testimony, and unreliable forensic science. Read more.
The Solution: Agenda for Reform
To promote solutions to the problem of wrongful convictions and enhance protections for innocent people accused of crimes, The Justice Project has constructed a national program of eight specific reform initiatives designed to increase the fairness and accuracy of the criminal justice system. Read more.
Federal Campaigns
The Innocence Protection Act
The Justice Project led a five-year campaign to pass the Innocence Protection Act (IPA), the first piece of federal death penalty reform legislation to pass Congress, which President George W. Bush signed into law in October of 2004. The IPA includes the Kirk Bloodsworth Post-Conviction DNA Testing Program, which authorizes important funding to states to conduct post-conviction DNA testing. The bill also authorizes significant funding to states to help improve the quality of representation in capital cases. Read more.
