Following Series of Denials, Louisiana Board to Hold Administrative Hearings on Clemency for at Least Two Additional Death Row Prisoners

The Louisiana Board of Pardons and Committee on Parole will con­sid­er at least two addi­tion­al appli­ca­tions for clemen­cy on November 27, fol­low­ing a tumul­tuous year in which near­ly all Louisiana death row pris­on­ers sought clemen­cy in response to out­go­ing Governor John Bel Edwards voic­ing his per­son­al oppo­si­tion to the death penal­ty. Under the Louisiana Constitution, Governor Edwards can­not grant clemen­cy with­out a rec­om­men­da­tion from the Board; he asked the Board to set hear­ings so that he could ful­fill his ​“author­i­ty and duty to con­sid­er these appli­ca­tions.” However, amidst oppo­si­tion from Attorney General and Governor-elect Jeff Landry, who will take office in January, as well as sev­er­al District Attorneys, the Board has held lim­it­ed ​“admin­is­tra­tive reviews” for a frac­tion of appli­cants and rec­om­mend­ed full hear­ings for none. Like pre­vi­ous appli­cants, Bobby Hampton and Todd Wessinger will be barred from address­ing the Board, and their attor­neys will have just 15 min­utes to make the case for a full hear­ing and a rec­om­men­da­tion of clemency.

The efforts towards mass clemen­cy began when Governor Edwards called the death penal­ty ​“so final” dur­ing a March speech, not­ing that ​“when you make a mis­take, you can’t get it back…and we know that mis­takes have been made in sen­tenc­ing peo­ple to death.” He had long iden­ti­fied as ​“pro-life” but had not pre­vi­ous­ly shared his views on cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. Then, in April, he used his final ​“State of the State” address to ask the leg­is­la­ture to abol­ish the death penal­ty. In June, 56 of 57 peo­ple on Louisiana’s death row filed clemen­cy appli­ca­tions with the Board. Governor Edwards, a Democrat, is term-lim­it­ed from run­ning for re-elec­tion. Several gov­er­nors have grant­ed mass com­mu­ta­tions of death row pris­on­ers before leav­ing office, includ­ing Governor George Ryan of Illinois in 2003, Governor Kate Brown of Oregon in 2022, and gov­er­nors of New Jersey, Maryland, and Colorado before those states abol­ished the death penalty.

However, Mr. Landry quick­ly moved to oppose mass clemen­cy in his capac­i­ty as Attorney General, as he con­tin­ued to cam­paign for Governor. Mr. Landry’s office issued a non­bind­ing advi­so­ry opin­ion argu­ing that the clemen­cy appli­ca­tions could not be con­sid­ered because they were untime­ly under state admin­is­tra­tive rules. The Board then set aside all 56 appli­ca­tions on July 24 with­out review­ing any on the mer­its. In response, Governor Edwards reaf­firmed his oppo­si­tion to the death penal­ty and direct­ed the Board on August 9 to set hear­ings for the appli­ca­tions. He described Mr. Landry’s opin­ion as ​“mis­guid­ed,” yield­ing ​“a result that is both absurd and illog­i­cal.” Mr. Landry won the gov­er­nor­ship on October 14.

Instead of set­ting full hear­ings to con­sid­er clemen­cy on the mer­its, the Board sched­uled the ​“admin­is­tra­tive reviews” for a hand­ful of appli­cants. The Board also faced a law­suit by East Baton Rouge District Attorney Hillar Moore seek­ing to lim­it the num­ber of hear­ings. On October 13, the Board denied full hear­ings for five pris­on­ers after brief pre­sen­ta­tions from defense attor­neys and vic­tims’ fam­i­lies. According to the Board’s web­site, it reviewed and denied full hear­ings for a fur­ther eight appli­cants in ear­ly November. The num­ber and names of appli­cants the Board will con­sid­er has fluc­tu­at­ed over the past several months.

On November 27, the Board will con­sid­er whether Bobby Hampton and Todd Wessinger mer­it full hear­ings on clemen­cy. Mr. Hampton and Mr. Wessinger, both Black men from impov­er­ished fam­i­lies, illus­trate many of the per­va­sive issues in the admin­is­tra­tion of Louisiana’s death penal­ty, includ­ing ​“racial dis­par­i­ty, intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty, severe men­tal ill­ness, trau­ma, inno­cence and oth­ers repeat over and over in Louisiana’s death penal­ty cas­es,” accord­ing to Executive Director of the Louisiana Capital Appeals Project Cecelia Kappel. Ms. Kappel rep­re­sents sev­er­al pris­on­ers who have filed appli­ca­tions. ​“Looking at these cas­es col­lec­tive­ly makes it clear that the sys­tem is fun­da­men­tal­ly bro­ken,” she said in June. Bill Quigley of Loyola Law in New Orleans iden­ti­fied racism as the ​“through-line” in Louisiana’s death penal­ty sys­tem. ​“Every prob­lem in the sys­tem — wrong­ful con­vic­tions, intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty, geo­graph­ic con­cen­tra­tion, sen­tenc­ing young offend­ers to death — it all skews over­whelm­ing­ly against Black peo­ple,” he said. No white per­son has ever been exe­cut­ed in Louisiana for killing a Black per­son, while Black peo­ple rep­re­sent two-thirds of death row.

In Mr. Hampton’s case, the pros­e­cu­tor with­held the grand jury tes­ti­mo­ny of two eye­wit­ness­es who iden­ti­fied a co-defen­dant as the shoot­er, then lied to the tri­al judge and the defense in open court about that tes­ti­mo­ny. On direct appeal, the Louisiana Supreme Court ruled that the tes­ti­mo­ny was clear­ly excul­pa­to­ry but the prosecutor’s mis­con­duct did not deny Mr. Hampton a fair tri­al. Justice Bernette Johnson wrote in dis­sent that the ​“facts in Brady are vir­tu­al­ly iden­ti­cal to the instant case.” Mr. Hampton’s jury nev­er heard about his severe child­hood trau­ma, includ­ing relent­less phys­i­cal abuse from his men­tal­ly ill moth­er, who scald­ed him with boil­ing water and tried to light him on fire. Charisse Coleman, the sis­ter of vic­tim Russell Coleman, vehe­ment­ly oppos­es the death penal­ty for Mr. Hampton because it ​“won’t bring Russell back, or ease her loss.” Ms. Coleman has said that ​“no oth­er event…could con­jure as potent an alche­my of dread, con­fu­sion and renewed anguish as hav­ing to face the exe­cu­tion of Russell’s murderer.”

In Mr. Wessinger’s case, two fed­er­al judges grant­ed new sen­tenc­ing tri­als due to counsel’s inef­fec­tive­ness in fail­ing to present mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence. The all-white jury nev­er heard that Mr. Wessinger has a hole in his brain from a pedi­atric stroke and severe brain dam­age from seizures; that seizures, intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty, and men­tal ill­ness are wide­spread on both sides of Mr. Wessinger’s fam­i­ly; that Mr. Wessinger suf­fered severe abuse from his alco­holic father; or that both his par­ents were born and raised in sharecropper’s cab­ins on plan­ta­tions with no elec­tric­i­ty or run­ning water. The appel­late court reversed one grant of relief, while the oth­er is pend­ing a recon­sid­er­a­tion motion by the State. Justice Sonia Sotomayor dis­sent­ed from the denial of cer­tio­rari in Mr. Wessinger’s case, writ­ing that he ​“will remain on death row with­out a jury ever con­sid­er­ing the sig­nif­i­cant mit­i­ga­tion evi­dence that is now appar­ent,” an out­come ​“deeply unjust and unfair.”

“Part of clemen­cy is real­ly about giv­ing the oppor­tu­ni­ty to the sur­vivors of these crimes to work on rec­on­cil­i­a­tion, to work on the heal­ing of the wounds that were cre­at­ed through those actions,” said Brett Malone, whose moth­er was mur­dered by Jeremiah Manning, a pris­on­er seek­ing clemen­cy. ​“I just can’t see, at this point, how exe­cut­ing some­one is going to bring any kind of clo­sure or heal­ing from the expe­ri­ence that we’ve had.”