On June 13, 2024, at approximately 4:30pm, death penalty lawyer and criminal justice activist Bryan Stevenson, Founder and Executive Director of the Equal Justice Initiative, will join the RISE Court at its Fourth Annual Graduation Ceremony (See attached Advisory). The ceremony will take place at 5pm on the Ground Floor Terrace of the Daniel Patrick Moynihan Courthouse (entrance at 200 Worth Street). The majority of the 60 graduates and participants at this year’s ceremony reside in the Bronx.

Stevenson is the author of the widely-acclaimed Just Mercy, which describes the exoneration of an Alabama inmate on death row. In 2019 Just Mercy was released as a major motion picture starring Michael B. Jordan and Jamie Foxx. Over a long career Stevenson and the Equal Justice Initiative have reversed 140 death penalty convictions.

To date, only one of the RISE Court’s 92 graduates has been rearrested.

The RISE Partnership is the non-profit organization that will assist any jurisdiction that has, or wishes to have, a reentry court.

“Bryan Stevenson has made an indelible contribution to American criminal justice,” noted RISE Partnership President Orin McCluskey, “It is the goal of the RISE Court to do the same in the Southern District of New York.”

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: 

Orin McCluskey, President
The RISE Partnership

347-628-2498