Equal Justice USA was launched in 1990, building on several years of Quixote Center work opposing the death penalty in our home state of Maryland. Our purpose was to build public scrutiny and protest of human rights in the U.S. legal system abolishing the death penalty being a top priority.

Since its start, Equal Justice USA's public education has focused on the injustices perpetrated against the accused and convicted under our legal system. We continually highlighted the corrupting effects of poverty and racism in our tabloid USA, A Look at the Reality: A Human Rights Monitor.

Choosing to illustrate the inequities in the death penalty by putting a public face on its abuse, Equal Justice USA highlighted the case of death row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal from 1993 to 1998. The project quickly blossomed, building a nationwide grassroots anti-death penalty constituency of over 12,000. Equal Justice USA was instrumental in making Mumia the most well known death row prisoner in the world.

More specifically, in 1994 Equal Justice USA was responsible for getting National Public Radio (NPR) to feature radio commentaries by Mumia, produced by the Quixote Center's Prison Radio Project. When NPR, under tremendous pressure from Senator Robert Dole and the Fraternal Order of Police, cancelled the commentaries, the ensuing controversy made Mumia front page national news for the first time. Since then, Mumia's commentaries have been aired on hundreds of radio stations nationally and internationally. Equal Justice USA also initiated and extensively promoted Live from Death Row, Mumia's best-selling book published by Addison-Wesley Press. The project was also responsible for securing a contract for Race for Justice, a book by Mumia's defense attorney, Leonard Weinglass, published by Common Courage Press.

In June of 1995, the governor of Pennsylvania, Thomas Ridge, signed Mumia's death warrant, jump-starting an international support campaign for Mumia. At the same time, Mumia's appeal went before Judge Albert Sabo, the notorious "hanging judge" who presided over Mumia's original trial. Equal Justice USA provided vital support during the appeal hearing and mobilized public support. In particular, we answered thousands of phone calls and mail requests asking for information on Mumia's case. We solicited support statements from hundreds of prominent people such as Alice Walker, Nelson Mandela, Rev. Jesse Jackson, and 22 members of the Congressional Black Caucus. And we were instrumental in placing articles about Mumia in such mainstream publications as The New York Times, Newsweek, People magazine and Esquire.

In addition to attending all the court sessions before Judge Sabo in the summer of 1995, Equal Justice USA also provided crucial help in securing pro bono services for Mumia's lawsuit in Federal District Court seeking access to the courts, counsel and the press for Pennsylvania's prisoners. In December 1996, the court found in favor of Mumia, ruling that Pennsylvania prison authorities violated his Sixth Amendment right to legal representation when they opened and photocopied his legal mail. Also in 1996, the project initiated legal proceedings against NPR in an attempt to get NPR to air or release Mumia's commentaries, co-produced by the Prison Radio Project, which it has been holding in a vault since 1994.

In its role as a public educator, Equal Justice USA has published a number of investigative reports. Over twenty thousand of each of these reports have been distributed: Green County Supermax: Pennsylvania's Human Rights Nightmare; Trampling the Public Trust: Philadelphia Police Abuses; The Judge Who Became Death Row's King: Philadelphia's Judge Sabo; and How Racism Riddles the U.S. Death Penalty. In 1997, the project took its educational function to a new level by publishing a web page (www.ejusa.org), where reports, as well as Moratorium Now! materials, can be found.

In the summer of 1997, Equal Justice USA launched a direct challenge to this nation's fast and flawed march to death - a campaign to mobilize widespread political pressure for a halt on executions. Building on a constituency 12,000 strong, the Moratorium Now! campaign has been steadily mounting grassroots pressure for a nationwide moratorium on all executions. The central challenge is to create a new political and moral climate where public pressure will ultimately end this barbaric practice. And the tide has, indeed, been turning.

We are urging grassroots groups and local governments to pass their own moratorium resolutions urging their governors, state and congressional representatives, and the Bush Administration to enact moratorium legislation. The campaign is a solid first step towards turning the tide of public support for the death penalty, opening a door towards total abolition. It offers the educational opportunity to bridge the gap between those on both sides of the issue exposing the inherent biases in the death penalty's application.

The moratorium movement picked up considerable steam in 2000, after Gov. Ryan enacted the nation's first moratorium in Illinois. Since then, public opinion polls have demonstrated majority support for a moratorium nationwide and in many individual states. In the coming years, Moratorium Now! will invest even more of our resources towards pursuing legislative campaigns in states where we see the greatest potential for moratoria to be realized.

Since the launch of the Moratorium Now! campaign, Equal Justice USA has grown exponentially. In 1999, the DC Area Books to Prisons Project joined Equal Justice USA. The Books project provides reading materials to prisoners for their education and entertainment, and works as a critical link between those who are incarcerated and those outside the prison walls. And in 2000, we launched the Grassroots Investigation Project, an effort to unite activists and lawyers in investigating death row cases. The project kicked off with the launch of the groundbreaking report, Reasonable Doubts: Is the U.S. Executing Innocent People?, and plans to create a training program for activists across the country who will work with lawyers to investigate cases of people currently on death row.

See the Quixote Center's financial audit (.pdf)

For more information about any of our programs, please look around our website, or contact us! We hope you'll become involved in our work!

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