Death row inmates in Louisiana, who are aware of the dwindling time they have left, have collectively filed a petition to commute their death sentences to life without parole. This appeal comes as Governor John Bel Edwards, a Democrat who openly opposes the death penalty, is nearing the end of his term. However, the leading candidate to replace him in the upcoming election is Republican Attorney General Jeff Landry, who strongly supports the death penalty, as reported by the Guardian. Out of the 57 death row inmates in Louisiana, 56 (55 men and one woman) have appealed to Governor Edwards to request clemency from the state’s Board of Pardons.
Louisiana has only executed one person, Gerald Bordelon, since 2002. Bordelon waived his appeals and was executed in 2010 for the murder of his 12-year-old stepdaughter. However, if elected, Attorney General Landry plans to resume executions next year and has even suggested alternative methods such as firing squads or the electric chair due to the shortage of lethal injection drugs. The mass petition for clemency has surfaced shortly after a bill supported by Governor Edwards to abolish the death penalty failed in June.
Last month, Landry’s office dealt a blow to the clemency effort by ruling that the pardons board could not consider the requests due to procedural issues, according to the New Orleans Times-Picayune. The ruling stated that the board cannot review requests made more than a year after a judge’s appeal ruling. Advocacy groups criticized this ruling, which forced the board to disregard all 56 requests, calling it “improper and disingenuous,” as reported by the Guardian.
The mass petition was organized by Capital Appeals Project, an anti-death penalty group. According to the group, 67% of death row inmates in the state are Black, while a white man named Ronald Dominique, known as the Bayou Strangler, was not sentenced to death despite killing at least 23 Black men and boys in a killing spree that lasted until 2006. The group also highlights that 83% of death sentences imposed in Louisiana since 1976 have been overturned. (Read more Louisiana stories.)
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