Court Order: No Executions in Louisiana For Another Year

A Louisiana federal court judge has ordered that executions in the state be stayed for at least another year. On July 16, 2018, in proceedings brought by Louisiana death-row prisoners challenging the state’s lethal-injection protocol, U.S. District Court Judge Shelly Dick granted a request by state officials to extend by one year the temporary stay of execution that has been in effect in Louisiana since 2014. Jeffrey Cody, the state’s lawyer in the case, told the court that continuing the lethal-injection litigation now would be “a waste of resources and time.” He asked for the one-year extension “because the facts and issues involved in this proceeding continue to be in a fluid state.” The request for an extension has triggered a partisan dispute among Louisiana state elected officials. Jeff Landry, the state’s Republican Attorney General, blamed Democratic Governor John Bel Edwards for Louisiana’s inability to execute prisoners and for facilitating a court ruling further delaying executions. In a July 18 letter to the Governor that Landry simultaneously distributed to the media, the attorney general said he was withdrawing his office from participating in the lethal-injection lawsuit and would no longer represent the Department of Corrections in that case. Landry claimed that Edwards was “unwilling[ ] to proceed with any executions” and called that “the biggest obstacle” to resuming executions in the state. Edwards called the attorney general’s actions “political grandstanding,” saying “[h]e issued this release today without trying to contact me at all.” He said, “[i]n the one year since the state last requested a stay, which the Attorney General signed on and supported at the time, nothing has changed – the drugs are not available and legislation has not passed to address concerns of drug companies or offer alternative forms of execution.” Louisiana currently authorizes the use of a one-drug protocol of the anesthetic pentobarbital, with a backup two-drug method consisting of the sedative midazolam and the painkiller hydromorphone. According to Department of Corrections spokesperson Ken Pastorick, the state does not have a supply of any of those drugs. The latest stay marked the fourth time since 2015 that the state has requested a delay of the lethal injection litigation. By the time Judge Dick’s order expires on July 18, 2019, it will have been nearly ten years since the last execution in Louisiana, which was carried out on January 7, 2010. Bobby Jindal, a Republican, was governor from 2010 until January 2016, after the first federal stay of execution was in effect.

(Order barring Louisiana executions is extended by 1 year, Associated Press, July 16, 2018; Julia O’Donoghue, Louisiana AG Jeff Landry blames John Bel Edwards for execution delays, New Orleans Times-Picayune, July 17, 2018; Fred Childers, Attorney General refuses to represent Gov in federal death penalty challenge case, WGMB-TV (Fox), Baton Rouge, July 18, 2018.) See Lethal Injection.