Movement Gains in 2001

  • Moratorium bills passed the Nevada Senate and the Maryland House of Delegates. A moratorium amendment lost by only 3 votes in the Connecticut House, while Texas bills passed committees in both legislative houses.
  • Arizona, Connecticut, Florida, Missouri, and North Carolina enacted legislation banning the execution of the mentally retarded.
  • 17 states improved access to post-conviction DNA testing.
  • Investigative reports examining fairness in death sentencing ran in the Houston Chronicle, the Tennessean, and the Seattle Post-Intellegencer.
  • Oklahoma City police chemist Joyce Gilchrist was fired after an F.B.I. report revealed that her work went “beyond the acceptable limits of forensic science.”
  • The Council of Europe threatened to revoke the United States’ Observer Status if we did not halt executions immediately.
  • Chile, Yugoslavia, and the Ukraine joined the majority of world nations by eliminating executions.
  • Five wrongly convicted death row prisoners were exonerated, bringing the total to 98 since 1973.
  • U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor publicly acknowledged, “the system may well be allowing some innocent defendants to be executed.”

By Shari Silberstein

Since 2000, Shari Silberstein has dedicated her career to transforming the justice system from one that harms to one that heals. Under her leadership, and using campaign strategies she helped develop, Equal Justice USA has helped end the death penalty in nine states, built first-of-its-kind conservative and evangelical coalitions for justice reform, secured millions in state funding for healing services to families of murder victims, launched an innovative model for training and dialogue between police and communities on trauma and race equity, and strengthened dozens of local organizations across the nation working for justice, violence reduction, and healing. Shari has been a national voice in helping to break down the silos between criminal justice reformers and crime survivor advocates. Her expertise has been a source in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the New Yorker, and Harper’s Magazine, and she has written op-eds for an array of media outlets, including Fox News, the Marshall Project, and U.S. News and World Report. Shari has a bachelor's degree in film from New York University and a master's degree in Middle Eastern studies from the University of Texas at Austin.