Jefferson Parish near New Orleans has sent 28 peo­ple to death row since the death penal­ty was rein­stat­ed in 1975, many of them under the cur­rent District Attorney, Paul Connick Jr., who took office in 1997. But no one has been sen­tenced to death in that parish in the past 5 years and pros­e­cu­tors haven’t even tried a cap­i­tal case in the past 4 years, despite a num­ber of high-pro­file mur­ders. This decrease in death sen­tenc­ing is not unique to Louisiana. ​“The trend in these num­bers, as across the coun­try, reflects the emerg­ing view that life with­out parole is an incred­i­bly seri­ous pun­ish­ment and that juries, pros­e­cu­tors, the pub­lic and fam­i­ly mem­bers of vic­tims are increas­ing­ly pre­fer­ring the cer­tain­ty of a life sen­tence over the con­fu­sion and delays, mul­ti­ple retri­als and high error rates that are inher­ent in cap­i­tal cas­es,” said Jelpi Picou, exec­u­tive direc­tor of the Capital Appeals Project in New Orleans. The last exe­cu­tion result­ing from a case from Jefferson Parish was in 1993 and half of those sen­tenced from the parish have had their death sentences reversed.

D.A. Connick said that his office’s approach has evolved as pros­e­cu­tors have learned more about the long-term real­i­ty of cap­i­tal pros­e­cu­tions. He indi­cat­ed that pros­e­cu­tors, defense attor­neys and judges togeth­er ​“have to do the per­fect case” to ensure death sen­tences are not over­turned. ​“It’s dif­fi­cult,” Connick said.

(P. Purpura, ​“Surge in death penal­ty pros­e­cu­tions slows in Jefferson Parish,” Times-Picayune (LA), July 6, 2009). See Sentencing.

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