Louisiana District Attorney Asks Court to Halt Death Row Clemency Hearings for Three Prisoners

On September 12, 2023, East Baton Rouge District Attorney Hillar Moore filed a request for injunc­tive relief, ask­ing the 19^th Judicial District Court to vacate hear­ings sched­uled for three East Baton Rouge Parish pris­on­ers who have request­ed clemen­cy. In June 2023, 51 death-sen­tenced indi­vid­u­als filed clemen­cy appli­ca­tions with the Louisiana Board of Pardons and Committee on Parole, request­ing a com­mu­ta­tion of their death sen­tences to life with­out parole. Five addi­tion­al appli­ca­tions from death row pris­on­ers have since been sub­mit­ted to the Board. DA Moore’s motion comes in response to the Board’s deci­sion to set hear­ings for 20 of the 56 clemen­cy appli­cants, which were sched­uled at the urg­ing of Governor John Bel Edwards.

DA Moore argues that the clemen­cy process is mov­ing too quick­ly. He asks the court ​“to void the Board’s deci­sion to set these death row defen­dants for com­mu­ta­tion hear­ings and ensure that any fur­ther deci­sions are in accor­dance with estab­lished law, rules, and poli­cies.” Following the sub­mis­sion of his fil­ing, DA Moore also crit­i­cized the attor­neys rep­re­sent­ing those on Louisiana’s death row. ​“The fil­ing of these appli­ca­tions was for the ben­e­fit of indi­vid­ual defen­dants and to the emo­tion­al detri­ment of vic­tims’ fam­i­lies, and it appears that the tim­ing of the fil­ings was cal­cu­lat­ed to take advan­tage of an individual’s per­son­al opin­ion dur­ing the term of his posi­tion as gov­er­nor,” DA Moore said. In March 2023, Gov. Edwards spoke pub­licly about his oppo­si­tion to cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment at a sem­i­nar at Loyola University in New Orleans. Gov. Edwards told atten­dees that ​“the death penal­ty is so final. When you make a mis­take, you can’t get it back. And we know that mis­takes have been made in sen­tenc­ing peo­ple to death.”

The clemen­cy appli­ca­tions high­light long­stand­ing prob­lems with Louisiana’s death penal­ty sys­tem, includ­ing racial dis­par­i­ties in sen­tenc­ing, geo­graph­ic arbi­trari­ness, and the preva­lence of wrong­ful con­vic­tions. In a state­ment from Cecelia Kappel, the Executive Director of the Louisiana Capital Appeals Project, she writes that DA Moore’s ​“law­suit is just anoth­er base­less attempt to block the Pardon Board and Governor Edwards from tak­ing a close look at Louisiana’s bro­ken death penal­ty sys­tem. Mr. Moore is well aware that the cas­es involve seri­ous prob­lems, includ­ing inno­cence, intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty, seri­ous men­tal ill­ness, racism, youth, and egre­gious pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct. The Board should pro­ceed with hear­ings, and the Governor will then be able to con­sid­er any rec­om­men­da­tions of clemen­cy the Board makes.”

Since the ini­tial fil­ing of clemen­cy appli­ca­tions, the Louisiana District Attorneys’ Association, as well as Attorney General Jeff Landry, have adamant­ly protest­ed the pris­on­ers’ requests. AG Landry pre­vi­ous­ly stat­ed his objec­tions in a non-bind­ing let­ter to the Board, argu­ing that a one-year statute of lim­i­ta­tions pre­vent­ed the Board from con­sid­er­ing the appli­ca­tions. In DA Moore’s motion, he argued that it is ​“reck­less” for the Board to review the clemen­cy appli­ca­tions in three to four months when it nor­mal­ly takes a year to do so. In a state­ment fol­low­ing his fil­ing, DA Moore said that his ​“peti­tion [to halt the pro­ceed­ings] is not about the pro­pri­ety of the death penal­ty, nor an attack on the Pardon Board or Governor, but sim­ply about fol­low­ing the rule of law and not advo­cat­ing end runs around the law which under­mine our sys­tem of jus­tice and put indi­vid­u­als’ val­ues before oth­ers’ rights. The peti­tion rep­re­sents the real death row vic­tims killed over the past sev­er­al decades and whose fam­i­lies are still liv­ing with their loss.”