New Louisiana Legislation Will Limit Post-Conviction Appeals, Endangering Innocent Prisoners in an Attempt to Expedite Executions

Recent leg­is­la­tion signed by Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry dras­ti­cal­ly restricts the abil­i­ty of pris­on­ers to chal­lenge their con­vic­tions, which those opposed to the law have argued could lead to the exe­cu­tion of inno­cent pris­on­ers. HB 675, signed into law in June 2025, impos­es strict time lim­its on post-con­vic­tion relief appli­ca­tions and intro­duces ​“aban­don­ment” rules that cut off appeal options for pris­on­ers who fail to meet the law’s strict dead­lines. The law goes into effect on August 1, 2025, and applies to all of Louisiana’s 55 death row pris­on­ers, as well as near­ly 5,000 peo­ple serv­ing life sentences. 

This leg­is­la­tion rep­re­sents a cor­ner­stone of Gov. Landry’s cam­paign promise to resume exe­cu­tions in Louisiana after more than a decade-long pause. Attorney General Liz Murrill, who cham­pi­oned the new law, has simul­ta­ne­ous­ly peti­tioned the state supreme court to expe­dite exe­cu­tions for a hand­ful of death row pris­on­ers. Defending the leg­is­la­tion, AG Murrill said that “[f]or decades, fam­i­lies and the vic­tims of the most heinous crimes imag­in­able have been denied the jus­tice that was promised to them by the State.” She argues that pris­on­ers will ​“no longer have the right to delay their appeals indef­i­nite­ly.” In March 2025, Louisiana car­ried out its first exe­cu­tion in fif­teen years with the nitro­gen gas exe­cu­tion of Jessie Hoffman. 

Under HB 675, pris­on­ers must file com­plete post-con­vic­tion relief appli­ca­tions with­in two years of their direct appeal deci­sion or for­feit their right to ever do so. The law pro­vides no excep­tions for new evi­dence, includ­ing poten­tial­ly exon­er­at­ing DNA evi­dence, which often only emerges years lat­er. The law also grants the attor­ney gen­er­al the author­i­ty to file pro­ce­dur­al objec­tions to pris­on­ers’ claims and to move to dis­miss cas­es. This shift in del­e­ga­tion author­i­ty is unusu­al, as the respon­si­bil­i­ty is tra­di­tion­al­ly left to the local dis­trict attor­ney respon­si­ble for rep­re­sent­ing the state in a given case. 

Criminal legal reform advo­cates have seri­ous con­cerns with this new leg­is­la­tion, par­tic­u­lar­ly in light of Louisiana’s doc­u­ment­ed his­to­ry of wrong­ful con­vic­tions. According to the National Registry of Exonerations, since 1989, Louisiana has wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed 87 indi­vid­u­als, a dozen of whom were sen­tenced to death. Testifying in a hear­ing on this leg­is­la­tion, Innocence Project of New Orleans exec­u­tive direc­tor Jee Park told leg­is­la­tors ​“it takes so much time to uncov­er new evi­dence,” and empha­sized that two years would not allow for enough inves­ti­ga­tion. Court files take months for coun­sel to obtain and files from the dis­trict attor­ney and police, when still exis­tent, may be too expen­sive for pris­on­ers to access. Ms. Park’s orga­ni­za­tion has a queue of near­ly 7,000 indi­vid­u­als await­ing assis­tance in their cas­es. The last indi­vid­ual the orga­ni­za­tion helped exon­er­ate had been incar­cer­at­ed for 35 years by the time they could assist him. 

What’s at stake became clear even as the leg­is­la­tion was advanc­ing through the leg­is­la­ture. In April 2025, a judge set aside the con­vic­tion and sen­tence Jimmie Duncan, who was sen­tenced to death in 1998 for the mur­der of his girlfriend’s almost two-year-old daugh­ter. Judge Alvin Sharp point­ed to new tes­ti­mo­ny that bite mark analy­sis pre­sent­ed by foren­sic experts at the orig­i­nal tri­al is ​“no longer valid” and ​“not sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly defen­si­ble.” Mr. Duncan’s con­vic­tion was based large­ly on evi­dence from foren­sic odon­tol­o­gist Dr. Michael West and pathol­o­gist Dr. Steven Hayne, whose work has since been dis­cred­it­ed. Over the past three decades, nine pris­on­ers have been set free after being con­vict­ed in part because of inac­cu­rate evi­dence giv­en by Drs. West and Hayne, with three of those men on death row. Mr. Duncan has main­tained his inno­cence for more than three decades, claim­ing Haley Oliveaux’s death an accidental drowning. 

Since this rul­ing, Haley’s fam­i­ly has come for­ward in sup­port of Mr. Duncan, say­ing the pros­e­cu­tors fight­ing to pre­vent Mr. Duncan’s release are not speak­ing for the fam­i­ly. In a pub­lic com­ment, Allison Layton Statham, Haley’s moth­er, has called on pros­e­cu­tors to allow Mr. Duncan to go free dur­ing an upcom­ing sched­uled bail hear­ing in late July 2025. Ms. Statham told Mississippi Today that ​“this inno­cent man is on death row,” and added, ​“jus­tice needs to be done.” Prosecutors have argued that Mr. Duncan pos­es both a flight risk and risk to the safe­ty of Haley’s fam­i­ly and the pub­lic. Ms. Statham dis­agrees and has asked the pros­e­cu­tion to make all the evi­dence against Mr. Duncan pub­lic. ​“Authorities are still want­i­ng to bury the truth…What they did was rail­road him,” said Ms. Statham. 

Jim Boren, a cap­i­tal defense attor­ney in Louisiana, says Mr. Duncan’s case exem­pli­fies con­cerns and dan­gers with the new law: ​“Here’s a man who, by all accounts, at least in my view of it, is com­plete­ly inno­cent of the charges — and he’d be dead if the attor­ney gen­er­al had their way.” Mr. Boren said, “[w]hat this bill would like to do is keep any more inno­cent peo­ple on death row from hav­ing ade­quate hear­ing and tri­als post-con­vic­tion to deter­mine if their tri­al was fair — or based on fraud like Jimmie Duncan.” 

When the new law takes effect, any pris­on­er with a post-con­vic­tion relief appli­ca­tion filed before July 2023 will be forced to file final peti­tions with­in the next year. The law’s impact will extend beyond Louisiana’s death row, affect­ing thou­sands serv­ing life sen­tences who may also have legit­i­mate inno­cence claims or con­sti­tu­tion­al vio­la­tions in their cas­es. Many of those opposed to this leg­is­la­tion argue that in the state’s rush to resume exe­cu­tions, it is increas­ing the risk of exe­cut­ing inno­cent peo­ple and deny­ing jus­tice to those who have been wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed. Ms. Park told leg­is­la­tors dur­ing a hear­ing that the bill ​“will pre­vent inno­cent peo­ple from coming home.”