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.