United against injustice
Equal justice, where injustice is met
We bring attorneys, community groups and individuals together to take on the systems that produce unjust outcomes — case by case, and by changing the law that produced them.
Current campaign
Free Willie Simmons, and end Alabama's habitual offender law
Forty-four years for nine dollars — and more than five hundred others serving life for offences that killed no one
Willie Simmons has served over forty years of a life-without-parole sentence imposed for taking $9 in 1982, under Alabama's Habitual Felony Offender Act. We are working to free him and to reach the 500-plus people serving the same sentence under the same law.
What we do
An individual case can free one person. It takes a body of cases, and people organised behind them, to change the rule that put them all there. We work on both at once, and we are candid with our volunteers about which of the two a given campaign is likely to achieve.
Excessive sentencing
Sentences that bear no relation to what was done, handed down because a statute left no one any discretion.
Wrongful conviction
Cases where the verdict is wrong, and the system has no interest in revisiting it.
Prison and jail conditions
What happens to people after sentencing is not separate from the sentence.
Children in the adult system
Children prosecuted, sentenced and imprisoned as though they were adults.
Reentry, parole and clemency
Getting out is the beginning of a second problem, not the end of the first.
Fines, fees and debt-based jailing
Court debt that turns a fine into a jail sentence for the people least able to pay.
Six ways in
Every sign-up is reviewed by a person, and every credential is checked against whoever issued it.
Attorneys
Offer pro bono work in the states and courts where you are admitted. We check each bar licence and each court roll before you are matched to anything.
Community groups
Take on advocacy in the states you organise in. Legislative visits, constituent contact, family support and local press — the work that reaches everyone a court case cannot.
Legislative representatives
Sitting members, former members and legislative staff. Tell us which chamber and in what position; we verify it against the roster.
Lobbyists
Registered lobbyists and government affairs. Your jurisdictions, your registration numbers and your clients — the last one so we can see a conflict before it becomes one.
Press
Reporters, editors, bloggers and producers get a press relationship, deliberately not a volunteer one. We would rather be a useful source than cost you the story.
Individuals
No legal background needed. Correspondence with people inside, records and case-inventory work, and local organising. Most of it can be done from home.
Start where you are
Tell us what you can do and where you can do it. We will come back to you when there is work that fits.