Eva authored this guest post on Jan. 11 for the SAFE California Campaign site.

My fiancé, Steve Henry, was murdered in Kingston, Jamaica, on November 25, 1997. As bizarre as this may sound, one of the thoughts I had as the initial shock wore off, was “Well, am I still against the death penalty?” My answer then and now is a resounding “YES”. The death penalty is wrong.

I will be thinking of Steve this weekend as Rev. Jesse Jackson, the California NAACP, and civil rights leaders throughout the state come together to honor Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. We are all supporting the SAFE California campaign to end death sentences. Dr. King once said, “Life’s most persistent and urgent question is: ‘What are you doing for others?’” I plan to honor Steve’s memory and Dr. King’s passionate commitment to justice.

Will you join us to honor justice and Dr. King?

The SAFE California campaign is sponsored by a broad coalition of justice organizations who are all joined in the commitment to replace the death penalty to protect the innocent, save our very limited state resources, and improve safety in our communities. SAFE is working hard to get the hundreds of thousands of signatures needed to qualify the “Savings, Accountability, and Full Enforcement for California Act” ballot initiative in time for the November 2012 election.

I am proud to say that my organization, Equal Justice Society, sits on the SAFE California Campaign Steering Committee. We at Equal Justice Society, like Dr. King and his wife Coretta Scott King, have always been opposed to the death penalty and advocated for an end to this risky and costly punishment. I am also proud to say that many of the dedicated members of Equal Justice Society will be joining the thousands of volunteers statewide who are ready to commemorate Dr. King’s leadership by joining this historic movement over MLK weekend.

Coretta Scott King declared, “As one whose husband and mother-in-law have died the victims of murder assassination, I stand firmly and unequivocally opposed to the death penalty for those convicted of capital offenses.” I know how difficult that statement is to make and I agree wholeheartedly.

Please join me to honor the King family and all victims of senseless violence by making a commitment to justice this coming weekend.

In peace,
Eva Paterson

- Written by Eva Paterson, President and Co-Founder of the Equal Justice Society and guest blogger for the SAFE California Campaign

The San Francisco Chronicle on Jan. 1 profiled EJS President Eva Paterson in a special section on local “Change Makers.” James Bell, Nikki Fortunato Bas, Malkia Cyril and Tim Silard were also profiled. Read the intro to the section and Eva’s profile.

Anthony Graves, father of three and an African American man with no violent past, was on death row in Texas for more than a decade despite his innocence before being exonerated. Now, Anthony spends his time speaking out about the injustice of the death penalty. He is headlining a panel hosted by the Equal Justice Society on December 7, exploring how we can understand the death penalty in the context of modern-day racism in America. The panel also highlights the need to develop a cohesive legal strategy to reclaim the 14th Amendment as a tool to combat modern-day racism. We talked with Anthony about his long fight for freedom and his work to replace the death penalty with life without parole to eliminate the grave risk of executing innocent people.

Give us a brief background on your case.
In 1992, there was a crime in a little small town known as Somerville, Texas. There were six victims; four of them were children, one was a teenager, and one was a grandmother. They were shot, stabbed and bludgeoned to death, and then the house was set on fire. The guy that was thought to be a person of interest in the case was the father of one of the children. The police interrogated this man for hours, and then they told him that if he gave them someone’s name, they would let him go. He called out my name, not thinking that they were going to arrest me, because he was giving them a wild story. Well, I was arrested and I ended up on death row for 18 years for a crime I did not commit. Even after my case was overturned by the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals for egregious prosecutorial misconduct, I ended up staying at the local county jail for four more years, in isolation, because they refused to admit they made a mistake. Several prosecutors were assigned by the county to retry my case, and for one reason or another they got off the case. The last prosecutor, Kelly Siegler, was known as a tough-as-nails prosecutor because she had already put 19 men on death row. She came in and, for the first time in 18 years, my case was investigated. What she found out was very shocking to her, and she called it the criminal justice system’s worst nightmare. She went to the judge and asked the judge to sign the dismissal order because I was innocent.

What kept you fighting for 18 years? What kept you from giving up?
Living on death row was hell, because you had no control over your life. You had absolutely no say so about what you could do throughout the day. Your life was controlled by guards, 18- or 19-year-old guards fresh out of high school, who had the right to disrespect you and treat you as less than the man that you were. And you had conditions that were so inhumane that guys were giving up their appeals, committing suicide, attempting to commit suicide or going totally insane. That still is going on today on Texas Death Row. What kept me strong was that I knew I was innocent. I was naïve enough to believe that you just can’t take a man from his home for a crime that took place in another town that he wasn’t even in, falsely convict him, and then murder him. I refused to believe we had a criminal justice system like that even though I was there long enough to witness Texas executing more than 300 men. But, because I didn’t want to give up, I allowed my naiveté to keep me strong. In the meantime, they gave me two execution dates – which makes it clear to me that Texas is executing innocent people. How do I know? They tried to execute me twice for a crime I did not commit.

Three hundred people executed over 12 and half years?
Texas was breaking execution records set by Texas. They were competing with themselves to break their own records. We would be naïve to believe they never got it wrong. I used to cry about it a lot at night, and I promised myself that when I got out of prison, not only was I going to work to help the guys I left behind, I was also going to tell the rest of the world what was happening on death row. I hope and pray that I am effective enough and clear enough about how the death penalty is totally inhumane, and how inhumane it makes us look. We are the only nation, the only democratic nation, acting like a third world country when it comes to our criminal justice system. We are supposed to be the nation that leads the world. Yet, we have created a system that threatens the life of innocent people. As of today, 139 people have been exonerated from death in the United States. And, yet, we are still killing. How many did we get wrong?

Would you still call yourself “naïve” about how justice in America is carried out?
I am no longer naïve. Our criminal justice system needs to be reformed. I say to the American people, where is the outrage? It could be your son or your daughter or your father or your mother next. Do not think it can’t happen to you, because it happened to me. We have a death penalty system that is killing innocent people, not just in the state of Texas but also in other states that have the death penalty. Anyone — anyone — would be naïve to believe otherwise. It is sad to me that there is no real outrage about it, not just from people on the street but from those we vote in to office to protect and serve us.

How is life now that you are free?
I am trying to rebuild it. It is so different from the life I had before. I am on a mission to alert the American people that our criminal justice system has turned against us. They are killing us for crimes we did not commit. We need to wake up and say: No, this is not the system that we want. Now, I spend every moment of my life traveling and educating people about the injustice of the death penalty and telling people what happened to me. Sharing my story, sharing my insight. I work for a nonprofit organization that represents people on death row, and I also travel around the world to educate people. I go anywhere to talk to anyone who is willing to hear my story. My life is totally dedicated to exposing the injustice of the death penalty. The guys I left behind, some of them are innocent, some of them are mentally ill, and Texas still wants to murder them for a crime they may or may not have committed. Don’t believe me? Ask the 139 others who have walked off death row in the United States. Ask their families and their mothers. I could be doing a lot of other things with my life. Texas compensated me for this wrongful conviction. But I am here talking about the death penalty and how wrong it is simply because I know it’s true. And I just can’t stand by without telling people what I know.

Do you think the death penalty should be replaced with life without parole?
One innocent life is one too many to waste, so therefore we should not be tinkering with the death penalty. America needs to know that we are wasting a lot of money murdering precious life. We have a system that has run amok, and we are all in the way. We are spending more money to execute one person than we are to keep that person in prison for the rest of his or her life.

Thank you for sharing your story with us. What compels you to keep telling it?
I feel like if I stop, someone else is going to be murdered who is probably innocent. Knowing that, I have to keep telling my story until I can ensure that no one innocent can be executed. That drives me to tell my story, when- and wherever I can.

How can people help?
Whoever has whatever platform out there, allow me a few minutes of your time to get on your platform and share my story. It will be a tremendous help to righting this injustice. Please also consider supporting the nonprofit where I work, the Texas Defender Service.

In its brief, EJS argues that Proposal 2 violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment of the Constitution by creating procedural barriers for people of color.

“Since its founding, certain interests in America have tried to restrict access to the political process,” said Eva Paterson, President of the Equal Justice Society. “First only white male landowners could vote. The franchise was expanded after the Civil War but women could not participate. Now we see many states erecting barriers to voting that may appear harmless, but are designed to keep voters of color from helping shape their political destinies. The national civil rights community speaks in one strong voice in opposing these measures, including Michigan’s Proposal 2.”

Several organizations joined EJS in signing the brief: the California Voting Rights Institute, Public Advocates, LatinoJustice PRLDEF, the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, the National Women’s Law Center, Chinese for Affirmative Action, Worksafe, South Asian Network, the Association of Asian American Attorney and CPA Firms, the Council of Asian American Business Associations, Equal Rights Advocates, and the Asian American Justice Center and the Asian Pacific American Legal Center, the latter two both members of the Asian American Center for Advancing Justice.

Michigan voters passed Proposal 2 in 2006, amending the state’s constitution to prevent the state government from advancing equal opportunity by considering race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin. In March 2008, a federal district court judge upheld the law, but the decision was reversed this July by an appeals court panel. The case is now under consideration by the full Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals.

“We stand with our civil rights allies in opposing Proposal 2 and other similar laws that exclude racial minorities and women from the political process,” said Allison Elgart, Supervising Attorney at the Equal Justice Society. “When people of color have to amend the state constitution just to have their interests represented, the law is not protecting their right to equal protection under the law, and the court should step in.”

“Proposal 2 is the most recent example of a voter initiative that restructures the political process in a non-neutral way and places special burdens on racial minorities who want to lobby for race-conscious admissions processes,” reads the brief. “Voting changes and requirements that disproportionately impact racial minorities and provide them less opportunity than others to participate in the political process and effectuate their choices are violations of the Equal Protection Clause.”

The brief cites several reasons why Proposal 2 violates the Constitution:

The law impedes participation in the political process by people of color. After Proposal 2 passed, advocates of race-conscious admissions policies can no longer lobby admissions committees or university administrators. Their only recourse is to launch another statewide initiative, a costly process that could take years to see through to its conclusion. Advocates for other considerations in the admissions process do not face the same burden and are free to continue lobbying admissions committees without structural limitations.

People of color have historically faced hurdles that hinder participation in the political process. Participation in the political process by people of color in the past has been thwarted by literacy tests applied differently to distinct racial groups, electoral redistricting that disfavored racial minorities, and more recently by states that have established seemingly innocuous voter requirement laws that often result in racial exclusion and vote suppression. Courts have found these seemingly “neutral” laws unconstitutional if their purpose is to impede participation by people of color in the political process. Proposal 2 falls into this category.

Proposal 2 is a modern reincarnation of white primaries, literacy tests, and redistricting. Like voting, lobbying to change the admissions processes in Michigan is a way for people of color to participate in governance. The Equal Protection Clause “guarantees racial minorities the right to full participation in the political life of the community,” and therefore requires that every group has equal opportunities to participate in the decision-making process, particularly in the context of public education. Proposal 2 prevents the full participation by people of color in the decision-making process regarding admissions.

The case should be fully briefed before the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals by the end of the year and the Sixth Circuit will then set a hearing date.

The article outlines the urgent need for our courts to depart from an archaic disposition towards racism, which requires plaintiffs alleging discrimination to prove the intent to discriminate – not just that discrimination actually occurred. This standard of jurisprudence ignores the fact that racial bias in modern society is often not overt.

“Requiring proof of discriminatory intent essentially closes the courthouse doors to victims of racial bias,” writes Eva. “If there has ever been a law worth the struggle to change in modern society, this is it.” The article provides a wide-ranging overview of what led to the “Intent Standard” set by Washington v. Davis, and what we can do to overturn that decision and restore our constitutional safeguards against discrimination.

In many ways, the article is a manifesto of our work at the Equal Justice Society. Fabián Rentería, Abby Bar-Lev, Jihan Spearman and I all worked with Eva on the article.

The publication of this article fittingly coincides with the beginning of my time at EJS and the beginning of the next phase of our litigation and advocacy strategy. Before starting at EJS, I had the opportunity to visit Montgomery, Ala., for a meeting with death penalty litigators and activists.

Being in Montgomery was an eye-opening experience. We learned about prosecutors and judges (and even defense counsel) who did not want to address issues of race, or people who were never afforded the opportunity to serve on juries in their hometowns because of their race.

We talked about the disproportionate impact of the criminal justice system on people of color, both in terms of facing the death penalty and in charging and sentencing for crimes. We also explored downtown Montgomery and saw where slaves were led down Commerce Street (though there are no markers to commemorate this, or to show the auction block where they were taken).

On the way home from the trip, I was able to reflect on my time in Alabama, which had reinforced for me the fact that racism is alive and well, in both explicit and implicit forms.

But while it was discouraging to realize there is so much to be done to raise society’s consciousness about racism, it was also inspiring to stand in the spot where Rosa Parks stood as she boarded the bus, or to see the church where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., preached and where the Montgomery bus boycott was planned, and to know that the work EJS and our allies do to fight racism in all forms is crucial, and to keep hope alive that things will change.

Download a PDF of the issue.

Allison Elgart joined the Equal Justice Society as Supervising Attorney on October 4, 2011. She was formerly an associate in the San Francisco office of Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein, LLP, and previously clerked for the Hon. Robert P. Patterson, Jr., United States District Court, Southern District of New York. Allison is a 2005 graduate of Harvard Law School, where she was the Editor-in-Chief of the Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review and worked as a student attorney at the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau.