On March 31, 2009, EJI honored Kenneth Frazier, Executive Vice President and President, Global Human Health, Merck & Co., Inc., and Randy Hertz, New York University School of Law Professor and Director of Clinical and Advocacy Programs with its Equal Justice Champion award. The event celebrated the release from Alabama’s death row of James “Bo” Cochran and of Phillip Shaw, who was released from prison in Missouri after having been sentenced to die in prison for an offense when he was just fourteen years old.

Kenneth Frazier led the team of volunteer lawyers who secured James “Bo” Cochran’s release from death row in Alabama. In 1976, Mr. Cochran, who is African American, was wrongly accused of killing a white man in Birmingham, Alabama. Despite the weakness of the State’s evidence, a jury of eleven whites and one African American convicted Mr. Cochran and he was sentenced to death.

Mr. Cochran spent 19 years on death row before his conviction was overturned after federal courts found his jury had been illegally selected in a racially biased manner. On re-trial, he was acquitted. Thanks to the tireless efforts of Ken Frazier and his team, Mr. Cochran was released from prison in 1997.

Mr. Frazier’s work confronting injustice and inequality as a passionate advocate and leader in the legal community stands out as an example of the critical role volunteer lawyers can play in defending poor people convicted of crimes in Alabama, which provides no legal assistance to people like Bo Cochran.