A review of Louisiana’s death penal­ty in recent years revealed that twice as many con­demned inmates have walked free from death row than have been exe­cut­ed. Since 1999, of the 22 peo­ple whose cas­es were final­ly resolved, 12 had their death sen­tences reversed and were ordered to serve less­er sen­tences, 6 were freed after courts ordered their charges dis­missed, 1 died of nat­ur­al caus­es, and 3 were exe­cut­ed. Of the three who were exe­cut­ed, two were rep­re­sent­ed by attor­neys no longer allowed to prac­tice law. One of the dis­barred lawyers was found to have par­tic­i­pat­ed in a long list of improp­er behav­ior over sev­er­al cas­es, and the oth­er attor­ney lost his license because of men­tal health prob­lems. ​“That 27% of all cap­i­tal con­vic­tions led to exon­er­a­tions is shock­ing. I can’t see how any crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem can tol­er­ate that lev­el of error, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the mat­ter of the death penal­ty. It is unac­cept­able,” said Stuart Green, a Louisiana State University law pro­fes­sor spe­cial­iz­ing in con­sti­tu­tion­al and crim­i­nal jus­tice issues.

Four years ago, the State Bar of Louisiana adopt­ed a res­o­lu­tion ask­ing the gov­er­nor to halt exe­cu­tions while state death penal­ty statutes were reviewed. At the time, then-Governor Mike Foster refused to take that step, but cur­rent Governor Kathleen Blanco has stat­ed that she would con­sid­er a mora­to­ri­um if sta­tis­tics indi­cat­ed prob­lems. Backed by the num­bers of mis­takes, many attor­neys and legal experts are urg­ing Blanco and oth­er law­mak­ers to impose a mora­to­ri­um and autho­rize a cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment review in order to ensure the fair­ness and accu­ra­cy of the sys­tem. ​“No mat­ter how you feel about the death penal­ty, peo­ple of integri­ty want to make sure that we take par­tic­u­lar care when the sen­tence is death. These num­bers say we are not care­ful,” said Denise LeBoeuf, direc­tor of the Capital Post-Conviction Project of Louisiana. (The Advocate, November 29, 2004). See Representation and Innocence.

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