Louisiana Justice Recused From ​“Angola 5” Death-Penalty Appeal After Radio Interview Commenting on the Case

Louisiana Supreme Court Justice Scott Crichton (pictured) will not participate in deciding the appeal of a prisoner sentenced to death in a controversial, high-profile prison killing, after Crichton publicly commented on the case during an appearance on a local radio program. On November 21, Crichton recused himself from the pending appeal of death-row prisoner David Brown, one day after Brown’s lawyers sought his removal from the case because of Crichton’s on-air comments about the “Angola 5” case and the judge’s derrogatory references to capital appeals. Brown is one of the five men charged in the murder of prison guard, Capt. David Knapp at the Angola State Penitentiary in 1999. Crichton’s “notice of self-recusal” provided no explanation for his decision. However, Brown’s lawyers had argued in their recusal motion that, during an October 23 talk-radio appearance on the KEEL Morning Show with Robert and Erin, “[Crichton] and his interviewer agreed that inmates with life sentences ‘have nothing to lose’ and that murders by prisoners, like ‘the Angola 5 in South Louisiana,’ prove that the death penalty is a deterrent because inmates who have been executed cannot then harm prison guards.” The lawyers also argued that Crichton had expressed personal opinions about the death penalty both on the October 23 program and in other recent radio interviews that violated the Code of Judicial Conduct and disqualified him participating in Brown’s death-penalty appeal. In addition to his comments about the Angola 5 case, Justice Crichton—a former death-penalty prosecutor and judge in Caddo Parish, where the rate of death sentences per homicide was nearly 8 times greater between 2006 and 2015 than in the rest of Louisiana—disparaged death-penalty appeals, saying that it “boggles my mind” when an “inmate who has committed capital murder who is on death row is begging for his life. Think about the fact that the victim gets no due process.” In 2014, a trial court had reversed Brown’s death sentence after finding that Hugo Holland—another former Caddo Parish prosecutor who had been appointed as a special prosecutor to handle the case—had withheld evidence that a prisoner interviewed in connection with the murder had told prosecutors that two of the five men charged in the killing had admitted to him that only they had committed the murder. The Louisiana Supreme Court later reinstated Brown’s death sentence, ruling that the suppression of this evidence was not “material” to the jury’s sentence. Crichton had complained in previous appearances on the talk show about the appeal process in the death-penalty case of Nathaniel Code, against whom Crichton had obtained a death sentence in the 1980s: “He’s been on this crazy post-conviction relief status,” Crichton said. “He had 18 years of [post-conviction appeals] in the state system, which is absurd, obscene, and hideous.”

(J. Simerman, “Louisiana Supreme Court justice recuses self from ‘Angola 5’ death penalty appeal over radio interviews,” The New Orleans Advocate, November 21, 2017; “Justice pulls out of death penalty case after radio remarks,” Associated Press, November 21, 2017; R. Balko, “The ‘lawyer dog’ Louisiana Supreme Court justice has also made controversial comments on talk radio,” Washington Post, November 22, 2017; R. Balko, “How a fired prosecutor became the most powerful law enforcement official in Louisiana,” Washington Post, November 2, 2017.) You can view a video of Justice Crichton’s radio interview here. See Deterrence and Prosecutorial Misconduct.