TEXAS DEFENDER SERVICE
Our support helped enable TDS to influence the development and the actual quality of direct legal services for capital public defender units in the State of Texas, including the regional capital public defender office in West Texas and the recently-created Office of Capital Writs for state habeas corpus representation. The creation of these two offices represent a major opportunity for improvement in the quality of capital representation by creating a system with accountability, oversight and enhanced professionalism, and will serve as a model as the state continues its progress toward indigent defense delivery systems that best ensure quality representation. Since the creation of these offices the quality of public defense in Texas has improved and the number of cases resolved with a life verdict have risen.
MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF LAW - NC RACIAL JUSTICE ACT
Our grant helped fund the Racial Justice Act Study, a comprehensive study of how the death penalty has been applied in North Carolina. Information from this study will be used to litigate claims of racial bias in NC's capital punishment system. The Racial Justice Act is exceptional because - much like civil rights laws - it allows the use of statewide or regional statistical evidence to prove racial bias, and it specifies that even unintentional bias is grounds for reexamining a death sentence. North Carolina's handling of the cases will be watched around the country, as it is the first state to undertake a comprehensive effort to sever the historical ties between race and the death penalty.
EQUAL JUSTICE INITIATIVE
We have been a long time supporter of the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI), a widely acclaimed law project that confronts the unjust use of the death penalty as well the use of life without parole sentences for juveniles. Primary among EJI's strategies are challenges to discriminatory policies and practices that target people of color and the poor, as well as efforts to redress the lack of access to effective counsel for death-sentenced prisoners. With the longstanding support of the Butler Family Fund, EJI has won relief for dozens of prisoners through litigation in state and federal courts, and is widely considered to be one of the premier human rights organizations in the nation. Just this past year, EJI successfully argued a case, Graham v. Florida/Sullivan v. Florida, in the Supreme Court which resulted in the abolition of life without parole for significant numbers of juveniles.
THE NEW MEXICO COALITION TO REPEAL THE DEATH PENALTY
Our early funding of the newly professionalized New Mexico Coalition to Repeal the Death Penalty supported a campaign which resulted in the repeal of the death penalty in New Mexico in March, 2009. After repeal, the Coalition reached out to other national and state organizations to share their best practices to advance repeal efforts in other states. The Coalition disbanded in 2010 to form The New Mexico Murder Victim Family Advocacy Project to ensure that New Mexico provides support and resources for victim family members in order to solidify the abolition victory. Members continue to monitor any death penalty reinstatement efforts.
ACLU OF NORTHERN CALIFORNIA
With our support, the ACLU-NC's Death Penalty Project is coordinating and implementing a county-by county strategy to reduce and ultimately end the use of death sentences in California. The Project has made significant progress in reducing death sentences, shifting public opinion and organizing the activist base in four target counties: Alameda, Santa Clara, Los Angeles, and San Diego. The strategy allows a locally-tailored approach to the issue that achieves tangible change in the short term, while also building statewide momentum to support eventual repeal of the death penalty.
U.S. HUMAN RIGHTS FUND
Since 2008, Butler has supported the U.S. Human Rights Fund's (USHRF) efforts to end juvenile life without parole sentencing (JLWOP) in the U.S., via its JLWOP Sub-fund. The USHRF is a partnership of donors that pools its resources to provide strategic, field-building support to domestic social justice organizations actively engaged in human rights work within the United States. The JLWOP Sub-fund takes a similar, collaborative approach to its grantmaking, providing targeted, timely funding and technical assistance to nationally- and state-based campaigns against the sentence, and serving as an active forum where donors can learn more about the real and potential impact of human rights upon JLWOP and related juvenile justice issues.
CRIMINAL JUSTICE JOURNALISTS
In 2003, Criminal Justice Journalists, a small nonprofit, sought help from us to start a daily news digest aimed at improving news media coverage of criminal justice issues. The group later obtained regular funding from John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City to keep the digest going. It now is sent by e-mail daily to several thousand subscribers and others see it on its website. As the only such comprehensive publication issued by an independent source, it is read by both journalists and criminal justice professionals.