Louisiana Reaches Ten Years Without an Execution

On January 7, 2020, Louisiana marked the pas­sage of ten years since its last execution. 

As a result of the mile­stone, two-thirds of U.S. states have now either abol­ished the death penal­ty or gone at least a decade with­out an exe­cu­tion. Twenty-one U.S. states have judi­cial­ly or leg­isla­tive­ly abol­ished cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. With Louisiana join­ing their ranks, 12 of the 29 states that still autho­rize the death penal­ty (41.4%) have gone more than a decade with­out car­ry­ing out an exe­cu­tion. (Click here to enlarge map.)

Louisiana last car­ried out an exe­cu­tion on January 7, 2010, putting Gerald Bordelon to death by lethal injec­tion. His exe­cu­tion was the 28^th in Louisiana in the mod­ern era of the death penal­ty. Prior to Bordelon’s, Louisiana had not exe­cut­ed any­one since 2002. 

As the state approached the anniver­sary of Bordelon’s exe­cu­tion, advo­cates for the abo­li­tion of the death penal­ty planned a vig­il out­side the head­quar­ters of Resurrection After Exoneration, a non-prof­it found­ed by death-row exoneree John Thompson. Citing high costs, wrong­ful con­vic­tions, and declin­ing pub­lic sup­port for cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, Michael Cahoon of the Promise of Justice Initiative, called the 10-year exe­cu­tion hia­tus ​“indica­tive that the sys­tem is bro­ken beyond repair.” The Promise of Justice Initiative, which rep­re­sents Louisiana death-row pris­on­ers and advo­cates for death-penal­ty abo­li­tion, was one of the spon­sors of the event. 

According to State Public Defender James Dixon, the Louisiana Public Defender Board spent more than $100 mil­lion on defense costs for death-penal­ty cas­es between 2008 and 2019. The fig­ure does not include oth­er death-penal­ty costs, such as pros­e­cu­tion, incar­cer­a­tion, and court costs. 

Louisiana has exon­er­at­ed 11 peo­ple from death row, mak­ing it fourth in the U.S. for num­ber of death-row exon­er­a­tions. Three of those exon­er­a­tions took place in the decade since the state last car­ried out an exe­cu­tion. Among Louisiana’s notable exon­er­a­tions are John Thompson, who was exon­er­at­ed in 2003 after an inves­ti­ga­tor dis­cov­ered that pros­e­cu­tors with­held evi­dence, and Glenn Ford, who, at the time of his 2015 exon­er­a­tion, was the nation’s longest-serv­ing death-row exoneree. Thompson’s case gained noto­ri­ety after a jury award­ed him $14 mil­lion in a law­suit against the office of the pros­e­cu­tor whose mis­con­duct had result­ed in his wrong­ful con­vic­tion. The U.S. Supreme Court over­turned the rul­ing, grant­i­ng pros­e­cu­tors con­di­tion­al immu­ni­ty from civ­il lia­bil­i­ty for mis­con­duct. In dis­sent, Justices Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor and Kagan argued that the evi­dence ​“estab­lished per­sis­tent, delib­er­ate­ly indif­fer­ent con­duct for which the District Attorney’s Office bears responsibility.” 

As in oth­er states, the dif­fi­cul­ty of obtain­ing lethal-injec­tion drugs has also played a role in the decline in exe­cu­tions. However, the ten-year gap in exe­cu­tions is not the only indi­ca­tion that Louisiana’s death penal­ty is in decline. The state imposed 14 new death sen­tences in the decade of the 2010s, and only one in the past four years. The two death sen­tences imposed in the sec­ond half of the 2010s were 26 times few­er than the state imposed dur­ing Louisiana’s death-sen­tenc­ing peak between 1995 – 1999. The state imposed 52 new death sen­tences dur­ing that peri­od, for an aver­age of 10.4 new death sen­tences per year. 

In 2019, a bipar­ti­san team of leg­is­la­tors pro­posed bills to abol­ish the death penal­ty. Bills passed com­mit­tees in both the House and the Senate, but the Senate bill failed a floor vote and the House bill was with­drawn. The effort gained strong sup­port from reli­gious lead­ers in Louisiana. 

Louisiana is one of a num­ber of death-penal­ty states to be reach­ing no-exe­cu­tion mile­stones. In December, Indiana marked its tenth year with­out an exe­cu­tion. On June 18, 2020, Utah also will reach a decade with­out an execution.