Louisiana Supreme Court Grants New Trial Based on Prosecutorial Misconduct while New Governor Landry Moves to Expand Methods of Execution and Restart Executions

On January 26, 2024, the Louisiana Supreme Court grant­ed a new tri­al to death-sen­tenced pris­on­er Darrell Robinson based on egre­gious pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct. The Court held that Mr. Robinson ​“did not receive a fair tri­al, or a ver­dict wor­thy of con­fi­dence.” Mr. Robinson’s quest to prove his inno­cence advances at the same time that Governor Jeff Landry seeks to expand the state’s meth­ods of exe­cu­tion and restart exe­cu­tions. During a tumul­tuous 2023 in which out­go­ing Governor John Bel Edwards sup­port­ed clemen­cy review for Louisiana’s entire death row, only to be blocked by then-Attorney General Landry and the Louisiana Board of Pardons and Committee on Parole, Mr. Robinson was the only one of 57 death-sen­tenced pris­on­ers not to file for clemen­cy. Mr. Robinson is now the only one to receive relief from his sentence.

Mr. Robinson was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death for the 1996 shoot­ing mur­ders of Billy Lambert and three of his fam­i­ly mem­bers. Mr. Robinson had been stay­ing with Mr. Lambert after both men were released from a Veterans Affairs alco­holism treat­ment pro­gram, but Mr. Lambert had told rel­a­tives that he planned to kick Mr. Robinson out for drink­ing again. Mr. Robinson’s con­vic­tion hinged on cir­cum­stan­tial evi­dence show­ing that he fled in Mr. Lambert’s truck and his shoe had blood from one of the vic­tims, but Mr. Robinson said that he had dis­cov­ered the scene of the crime and run away in fear. Prosecution wit­ness Leroy Goodspeed, who had shared a cell with Mr. Robinson, tes­ti­fied that Mr. Robinson had con­fessed to the mur­ders. Mr. Goodspeed ​“was not offered any­thing,” the pros­e­cu­tor told the jury at tri­al. ​“He did not ask for anything.” 

However, this was a lie: courts dropped unre­lat­ed charges against Mr. Goodspeed in the lead-up to the tri­al, and he was par­doned for offens­es that would have result­ed in manda­to­ry life with­out parole under Louisiana’s habit­u­al offend­er law. Records that the pros­e­cu­tion hid from the defense con­firmed that this lenien­cy result­ed from Mr. Goodspeed’s tes­ti­mo­ny against Mr. Robinson. The pros­e­cu­tion also sup­pressed foren­sic evi­dence iden­ti­fy­ing blood at the scene that did not match Mr. Robinson or the vic­tims, bal­lis­tics notes and dia­grams that could have drawn the state’s nar­ra­tive into ques­tion, and eye­wit­ness accounts that indi­cat­ed anoth­er car left the scene and Mr. Robinson arrived after the time­frame of the mur­ders. Recent DNA test­ing iden­ti­fied the blood at the scene as belong­ing to Mark Moras, anoth­er man who had pre­vi­ous­ly stayed with the Lambert fam­i­ly and was caught forg­ing Mr. Lambert’s checks. 

The Louisiana Supreme Court held that the low­er court had erred in deny­ing relief to Mr. Robinson by fail­ing to con­sid­er the cumu­la­tive effect of the evi­dence with­held. The Court wrote that because the case against Mr. Robinson was ​“based large­ly on cir­cum­stan­tial evi­dence,” the only evi­dence that tru­ly impli­cat­ed Mr. Robinson as the per­pe­tra­tor was Mr. Goodspeed’s tes­ti­mo­ny. The sup­pres­sion of evi­dence of favors for Mr. Goodspeed, foren­sic test­ing point­ing to anoth­er sus­pect, crime scene doc­u­men­ta­tion con­tra­dict­ing the state’s bal­lis­tics the­o­ry, and wit­ness state­ments con­tra­dict­ing the state’s time­line togeth­er jeop­ar­dized Mr. Robinson’s rights. ​“Considered sep­a­rate­ly, each item under­mines the strength of the State’s case,” the Court wrote. ​“Considered cumu­la­tive­ly they con­vince us that we can have no con­fi­dence that the jury’s ver­dict would not have been affect­ed had the sup­pressed evi­dence come to light.” 

According to DPI’s Prosecutorial Accountability research, this is the 27^th death sen­tence rever­sal for pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct in Louisiana. In oth­er cas­es, Louisiana pros­e­cu­tors have bro­ken the rules by with­hold­ing crit­i­cal evi­dence from the defense, strik­ing Black jurors based on race, and mak­ing inflam­ma­to­ry argu­ments to the jury. Studies have found that pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct is under­re­port­ed and under­en­forced. Additionally, Louisiana is cur­rent­ly tied with North Carolina and Pennsylvania for fourth-most death row exon­er­a­tions in the nation, with 12.

However, new Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry has been the archi­tect of the death penalty’s preser­va­tion and expan­sion in the state. Last year, for­mer Governor John Bel Edwards pub­licly expressed his oppo­si­tion to the death penal­ty and asked the state leg­is­la­ture to abol­ish the prac­tice. In response, every death-sen­tenced pris­on­er besides Mr. Robinson filed for clemen­cy, with advo­cates hop­ing for a mass com­mu­ta­tion. Outgoing gov­er­nors in Illinois, Oregon, and oth­er states have used their exec­u­tive author­i­ty in the past to clear their state’s death rows. However, Governor Landry, then in his role as Attorney General, issued an advi­so­ry opin­ion argu­ing that the appli­ca­tions could not be con­sid­ered under pro­ce­dur­al rules, and the effort ulti­mate­ly col­lapsed. The Louisiana Board of Pardons and Committee on Parole con­duct­ed a small num­ber of ​“admin­is­tra­tive reviews” for pris­on­ers, all end­ing in denials, and did not con­duct a full clemen­cy hear­ing for any appli­cant before Governor Landry took office this month. 

Governor Landry now plans to autho­rize addi­tion­al exe­cu­tion meth­ods and start up exe­cu­tions after a 14-year pause in the state, accord­ing to report­ing by the Times-Picayune/​The New Orleans Advocate. Louisiana’s only exe­cu­tion since 2002 occurred when Gerald Bordelon vol­un­teered in 2010. Sources told the paper that Governor Landry will ask the state leg­is­la­ture to approve new meth­ods in a spe­cial ses­sion begin­ning in late February — pos­si­bly nitro­gen hypox­ia, the fir­ing squad, hang­ings, and/​or the elec­tric chair based on his pub­lic state­ments in favor of those meth­ods as Attorney General. In 2018, Governor Landry wrote a let­ter to Governor Bel Edwards demand­ing leg­is­la­tion that approved those four meth­ods if lethal injec­tion became unavail­able or uncon­sti­tu­tion­al. The draft leg­is­la­tion allowed for the man­u­fac­ture of lethal injec­tion drugs in state facil­i­ties and increased secre­cy in executions.