While the Southern Poverty Law Center's primary legal focus has been the civil lawsuit, it has taken on compelling capital cases, seeking justice for those too often sentenced to death because of race or a lack of funds. Cases include those of:

• Joan Little, an African American inmate accused of murdering a white jail guard in North Carolina. The guard was found dead in her cell without his pants. Little said he had tried to rape her. A jury found Little not guilty.
  
  
• Roy Patterson, a highly decorated African American Marine sergeant, facing the death penalty after shooting two white Georgia law enforcement officers who had been abusive toward him and his family. After a 12-year legal battle, SPLC attorneys finally won Patterson's freedom.
  
  
• Johnny Ross, who became the nation's youngest resident of "Death Row" at age 16 after being convicted of the rape of a white woman in Louisiana in 1975. SPLC attorneys used blood tests that should have cleared him at his original trial to prove Ross was innocent.
  
  

High court vacates death sentences
In 1980, the U.S. Supreme Court vacated the convictions of 11 death row inmates in Alabama after affirming SPLC's claim that the state's death penalty statute was unconstitutional.

Dubbed the "kill 'em or let 'em go" provision, this unique statute gave juries in capital cases but two choices: a guilty verdict that carried an automatic death penalty or an acquittal.

The Court ruled in Beck v. Alabama that the failure to give the jury the option of finding the defendant guilty of something less serious than capital murder – such as manslaughter or first-degree murder – was unfair. This lack of options created the risk that the jury would vote to convict defendants of capital murder merely to avoid setting them free.

"Such a risk cannot be tolerated in a case in which the defendant's life is at stake," the Court stated.

Sharing defense strategies
In 1976, the Southern Poverty Law Center started a project known as Team Defense. SPLC attorneys developed trial strategies for capital cases, using existing trials as laboratories for the proper use of pre-trial motions, expert witnesses, and jury selection procedures. Lessons learned were shared at seminars and in manuals that SPLC published in an effort to guide attorneys across the U.S.

Although SPLC no longer produces the death penalty manuals, it financially supports the efforts of the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI), an organization that represents death row inmates and produces capital litigation manuals and other educational materials.

The Southern Poverty Law Center also continues to represent several death row inmates in their appeals.