EDITOR’S NOTE

We are proud to digitally publish a portion of the forthcoming special issue of Volume 51 of the N.Y.U. Review of Law & Social Change, accessible at this link. This special issue of Social Change is meant to provide practitioners, legal scholars, and community members with tools to address the role of systemic racism in criminal convictions and post-conviction litigation.

On Wrongful Conviction Day of 2026, in collaboration with the Innocence Project and the Center on Race Inequality and the Law, Social Change hosted a symposium on race and wrongful conviction rooted in the discussion of the post- humous exoneration and wrongful execution of Tommy Lee Walker.

The following brief was filed by the Innocence Project and Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project in 2025 on behalf of Mr. Walker, a Black man who was wrongfully executed in Huntsville, Texas in 1956. It is published here as filed in the proceedings with the Dallas County Commissioners Court with minimal edits for clarity and style. The Commissioners Court exonerated Mr. Walker by unanimous resolution on January 21, 2026.

The print issue, published in 2027, will contain articles written in response to the following brief. Please find more information on how to submit an article for consideration in this special issue on Social Change’s website via the Submissions page or at this link.

Consistent with Social Change’s previous publications of legal briefs, we have maintained the brief’s format as it was in litigation including the in-text citations and footnotes. Social Change publishes scholarship that seeks to eliminate inequalities, correct injustices, or otherwise considers the relationship between the law and individuals’ lived experiences.We are grateful to the Innocence Project and Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project for their collaboration in recruiting scholars and authors to write timely, radical articles responsive to the issues raised by Mr. Walker’s case.