The mission of The Tennessee Justice Project is to increase fairness and reliability in the Tennessee indigent criminal justice system, with a particular focus on the administration of the death penalty. 

The primary objective of The Tennessee Justice Project in the future is to improve the Tennessee criminal indigent defense system, particularly in the death penalty arena, in three areas:

• Improve the structure and performance of the indigent defense system.
  The overwhelming majority of criminal defendants in Tennessee are indigent and must rely on the state to provide them with legal counsel. While there are exceptions, as a general rule the quality of legal representation provided by state-appointed counsel for indigent defendants is demonstrably inferior to that provided by counsel hired by those who can select and afford to pay for their own lawyer. Public defenders in Tennessee are burdened with some of the highest caseloads in the country and are paid a starting salary that is not much more than half that paid to new lawyers in private practice. In the past, the courts often appointed the best available counsel to represent death penalty defendants. Unfortunately, the courts now increasingly tend toward the automatic appointment of the understaffed, underpaid local public defender who may or may not have the resources necessary to provide effective representation. We run the risk of executing defendants, not because they are the worst offenders, but because they have the worst lawyers. The American Bar Association has adopted the Guidelines for the Appointment and Performance of Defense Counsel in Death Penalty Cases (February 2003). The Tennessee Justice Project endorses the adoption of these ABA Guidelines. In addition, we seek the creation of a statewide independent indigent capital defense authority to administer and enforce reasonable and meaningful standards for capital defense counsel’s qualifications, performance, caseload, and resource assistance.
   
• Increase and improve resources for the indigent defense function.
  Fairness and accuracy of the Tennessee criminal justice system is jeopardized by a significant and unfair imbalance of financial and other resources between the prosecution and indigent defense functions. This imbalance of resources creates an uneven playing field which ultimately leads to greater financial and human costs and reduced public confidence in the criminal justice system. When even the most capable and hard-working attorneys lack adequate resources to do their job, there is an increased risk that innocent people will be incarcerated, guilty people may never be prosecuted, and other defendants will receive unfairly excessive sentences. To ensure a properly functioning criminal justice system, funding for indigent defense attorneys must be raised to a level that corresponds appropriately to the resources of the prosecution. We advocate for reasonable parity for indigent cases between the defense and the prosecution so that the defense counsel is included as an equal partner in the justice system.
   
• Pursue the national agenda items of The Justice Project.
  To promote solutions to the problem of wrongful convictions, The Justice Project has constructed a national program of initiatives designed to increase the fairness and accuracy of the criminal justice system. Research into exonerations of innocent people over the past decade has yielded much information on the primary causes of wrongful convictions and has identified a number of common, preventable errors. The Justice Project works to implement meaningful substantive reforms that address the legacy of wrongful conviction in this country by enhancing protections for innocent people accused of crimes.