346 Millennium - A Marquis Who’s Who Magazine LAW AND LAW ENFORCEMENT After receiving a BA from Brandeis University in 1967, followed by an MA in American studies from Yale University and JD from Yale Law School in 1971, Elizabeth Alexander is a significant advocate of prisoners’ rights. Early in her career, she worked in public interest offices before focusing on the defense of prisoner rights. In 1981, she joined the National Prison Project of the ACLU, where she continued to litigate on behalf of prisoners until 2009. She then opened her own law office in Washington, D.C., where she continues to litigate on behalf of prisoner rights. Most of Ms. Alexander’s cases involve prisoner class actions, which provide a mechanism to vindicate the rights of large numbers of class members effectively. She has argued three cases in the United States Supreme Court, two of which led the Court to set forth the standard for demonstrating what actions, or failures to act, violate the Eighth Amendment. Other cases she litigated have focused on multiple aspects of prisoner rights. One case in the Eighth Circuit federal court led to a decision that shackling a woman during the birthing process was a violation of the Eighth Amendment. That decision, by a closely divided panel of judges, was the first decision recognizing the dangers of requiring a woman to give birth in shackles. Of note, Ms. Alexander became involved in the case late on and persuaded most of the judges that the defendants’ actions violated the Constitution. After the decision, the plaintiff found employment and became active in seeking less destructive conditions in the nation’s prisons. Alongside litigating prisoner rights cases, Ms. Alexander educates the public on the harm that unreasonably long prison sentences afflict. She has frequently engaged in efforts to educate the public on the counterproductive effects of unnecessarily long sentences. She has spoken in educational settings on problems of the current criminal justice system and has taught at several law schools. She was a co-recipient of the 1994 Pennsylvania Prison Society’s Annual Award and was elected to the American Law Institute in 2011. She was announced among the winners of the Justice Potter Stewart Award for 2022. ELIZABETH ALEXANDER SOLE PRACTITIONER Law Offices of Elizabeth Alexander Washington, DC
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