Formerly known as “Bloody Caddo,” Caddo parish had the second highest number of lynchings of any county in the nation. The Confederate flag flew in front of the courthouse steps until 2011, where a monument to the Confederacy still stands.
The Death Penalty Information Center’s new report on race and the death penalty in Louisiana examines the state’s capital punishment system within the broader history of racial and state-sanctioned violence, documenting how these historical patterns continue to shape the administration of the death penalty today. Released in November 2026, Examining Louisiana’s History of Racial Violence and Capital Punishment details nearly 146 years of documented state-sanctioned violence that has disproportionately affected Black communities across Louisiana.
The report is the latest in a series examining race and the death penalty, exploring how the legacy of extrajudicial racial terror continues to influence contemporary systems of punishment. Three parishes — Caddo, East Baton Rouge, and Orleans —illustrate this continuity: together, they account for 65 documented racial terror lynchings1 and 51% of the state’s death sentences imposed against Black people in Louisiana since 1974.
The report examines how youth sentencing, political power, geographic distribution, prosecutorial practices, and the Race of Victim Effect have contributed to the racially biased application of the death penalty in Louisiana. In Louisiana, a Black man is 30 times more likely to be sentenced to death for killing a white woman than he would be for killing a Black man. Regardless of the defendant’s race, death sentences are six times as likely — and executions 14 times as likely — when the victim is white rather than Black.2
“They didn’t care about the truth. They just saw a Black man, and they wanted a conviction. On death row in Louisiana, you see exactly who the system is built to punish.”
The report also describes individual cases that demonstrate the racial disparities and systemic concerns of Louisiana’s death penalty. Among them is the case of Jessie Hoffman, a Black man who was executed on March 18, 2025 for the murder of a white victim. His execution was the first in the state in 15 years.
Samantha Kennedy, executive director of the Promise of Justice Initiative in New Orleans, Louisiana, reflected on the significance of Mr. Hoffman’s case:
“Jessie represents everything that is wrong with Louisiana’s death penalty system…[o]ur state’s death penalty system is a relic of the racist practice of lynching, exploits marginalized people, has shockingly little reliability in its convictions due to rampant prosecutorial misconduct and an 80% reversal rate. Louisiana has the highest reversal rate in capital cases in the country, and has the highest per capita exonerations from death row.”
Click below to read the full report
Racial Justice Reports
Examining Louisiana’s History of Racial Violence and Capital Punishment
Read More- Bonner, T. (2026, November 12). NEW DPI Racial Justice Report Examines Racially Disparate Impact of the Death Penalty in Louisiana. Death Penalty Information Center. Retrieved November 12, 2026, from https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/new-dpi-racial-justice-report-examines-racially-disparate-impact-of-the-death-penalty-in-louisiana
- Bonner, Taylor. “NEW DPI Racial Justice Report Examines Racially Disparate Impact of the Death Penalty in Louisiana.” Death Penalty Information Center. November 12, 2026. Accessed November 12, 2026. https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/new-dpi-racial-justice-report-examines-racially-disparate-impact-of-the-death-penalty-in-louisiana.
- Bonner, Taylor. “NEW DPI Racial Justice Report Examines Racially Disparate Impact of the Death Penalty in Louisiana.” Death Penalty Information Center, 12 Nov. 2026, https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/new-dpi-racial-justice-report-examines-racially-disparate-impact-of-the-death-penalty-in-louisiana. Accessed 12 Nov. 2026.
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Data from New York Times Editorial Board, “Louisiana’s Color-Coded Death Penalty,” New York Times, May 9, 2016, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/09/opinion/louisianas-color-coded-death-penalty.html.
