Louisiana Mass Clemency Efforts Highlight Similarities to Illinois Mass Clemency 20 Years Ago

As Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards (pic­tured) con­sid­ers the clemen­cy peti­tions filed by 51 of the state’s 57 death row pris­on­ers, advo­cates and jour­nal­ists have not­ed the sim­i­lar­i­ties between Louisiana’s death penal­ty sys­tem and that of Illinois, where Governor George Ryan com­mut­ed the sen­tences of all 167 peo­ple on death row in 2003. Both states have had high num­bers of death row exon­er­a­tions stem­ming from sys­temic mis­con­duct, death sen­tences in both states are con­cen­trat­ed in a small num­ber of juris­dic­tions, and both gov­er­nors have expressed seri­ous per­son­al con­cerns about the use of capital punishment. 

When Governor Ryan com­mut­ed all of Illinois’ death sen­tences, 13 peo­ple had been exon­er­at­ed from the state’s death row. Ten of those exon­er­a­tions involved mis­con­duct by police and/​or pros­e­cu­tors. In Louisiana, 11 peo­ple have been exon­er­at­ed from death row, and mis­con­duct played a role in all of those cas­es. Illinois’ exon­er­a­tions played a major role in Governor Ryan’s clemen­cy deci­sion. In his speech announc­ing the com­mu­ta­tions, he called the state’s record of errors an ​“embar­rass­ment.”

The geog­ra­phy of the death penal­ty in Louisiana and Illinois also rais­es con­cerns about arbi­trari­ness. In Illinois, near­ly half (49%) of all death sen­tences imposed in the state came from Cook County. In Louisiana, 42% of the state’s cur­rent death sen­tences were imposed in two parish­es – Caddo and East Baton Rouge. Even those high-use coun­ties demon­strate the decline of Louisiana’s death penal­ty – East Baton Rouge has not sen­tenced any­one to death since 2015, and Caddo’s last death sen­tence was hand­ed down in 2013. ​“We’ve been using the death penal­ty less and less,” said Cecelia Kappel, exec­u­tive direc­tor of the Capital Appeals Project, which filed the clemen­cy peti­tions for 51 of Louisiana’s death row pris­on­ers in June 2023.

Most of Louisiana’s death row pop­u­la­tion are peo­ple of col­or (74%), and near­ly half of the pris­on­ers have doc­u­ment­ed intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty. The mass clemen­cy fil­ing high­lights these and oth­er long­stand­ing sys­temic issues with Louisiana’s death penalty. 

If Governor Edwards grants the clemen­cy peti­tions, it would be the sec­ond largest mass com­mu­ta­tion in U.S. his­to­ry, after Governor Ryan’s 2003 action. In the two decades since the Illinois com­mu­ta­tions, mass com­mu­ta­tions have been issued in New Jersey, Maryland, Colorado, and Oregon. A sec­ond mass com­mu­ta­tion was also issued in Illinois: Governor Pat Quinn com­mut­ed the death sen­tences that were imposed between 2003 and 2011, when the state abol­ished capital punishment.