---
title: "Examining Louisiana's History of Racial Violence and Capital Punishment"
description: 'To understand the modern use of the death penalty in Louisiana, it is necessary to begin with its historical foundations. Capital punishment in the United…'
canonical: 'https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/research/analysis/reports/racial-justice-reports/examining-louisianas-history-of-racial-violence-and-capital-punishment'
section: reports
date: '2026-11-12T00:00:00-05:00'
updated: '2026-11-12T10:13:57-05:00'
source: 'Death Penalty Information Center'
---

Historical Foundations: Racist Roots  [Top](#top) 
---------------------------------------------------

  ! 

To understand the modern use of the death penalty in Louisiana, it is necessary to begin with its historical foundations. Capital punishment in the United States has long been applied unevenly across racial groups, and Louisiana’s history reflects this broader pattern.

The [Equal Justice Initiative](https://eji.org/wp-content/uploads/2005/11/lynching-in-america-3d-ed-110121.pdf) (EJI) identifies Louisiana as one of twelve states with the highest number of documented lynchings in the United States. These acts of racial terror are not separate from formal systems of punishment; lynching and legal executions were used simultaneously and were often mutually reinforcing. This history provides important context for understanding how the death penalty has been, and continues to be, used in the state.

Between 1877 and 1950, 577 people were lynched in Louisiana. During this period, Louisiana was one of eight states home to the 25 counties with the highest rates of lynching of Black people. Within the state, Caddo Parish and Orleans Parish were two of the most active lynching parishes, according to EJI, and together currently account for approximately 35% of Black death sentences in the state since 1974. [Research](https://www.jstor.org/stable/25478643?searchText=&searchUri=&ab_segments=&searchKey=&refreqid=fastly-default%3A41fb528fb5fb7f5b0289229114070df9&initiator=recommender&seq=1) from Michael P. Pfeifer, author of *The Origins of Postbellum Lynching: Collective Violence in Reconstruction Louisiana,* explains that “...lynching surged in the 1890s as mob violence became a central means by which white Louisianians sought to enforce white supremacy and respond to African American resistance and alleged criminality during the Jim Crow era.”

**Racial Bias in the Administration of Capital Punishment**

Historically, capital punishment has been applied differently depending on a person’s race, particularly in southern U.S. states. [Research](https://fbaum.unc.edu/articles/SULR2022-CapitalCharging/SULR-2022-CapitalCharging.pdf) conducted by Tim Lyman, Frank R. Baumgartner, and Glenn L. Pierce supports this conclusion, finding that “...powerful racial disparit\[ies\] must be seen as a consistent feature of Louisiana’s use of capital charges and the death penalty.” Lyman, Baumgartner, and Pierce further demonstrate these disparities by finding that the odds of receiving a death sentence in a Black victim case are, on average, 97.3% lower than the odds of receiving a death sentence in a white victim case. The researchers also found that the time and energy expended on a capital case in Louisiana varies significantly by race. Looking at 431 capital-eligible cases in Caddo Parish between January 1, 1988, and December 31, 2008, the researchers counted the number of pages in each prosecutor’s file and found that case files were more expansive in cases with Black defendants and cases with white victims; the strongest predictor of file size was whether the victim was a white woman.

Additional [research](https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2770761) conducted by Baumgartner and Lyman reveals more about Louisiana’s racially disparate relationship with capital punishment and the [Race of Victim Effect](https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/what-to-know-race-of-victim-effect-and-the-death-penalty#entry:1820824@1:url). Analyzing 241 capital cases from 1976 to 2015, they found death sentences were imposed in **0.52%** of cases involving **Black male defendants and Black male victims**, but in **15.56%** of cases involving **Black male defendants and white female victims**—making the latter **30 times more likely** to result in a death sentence. Regardless of the defendant’s race, cases with white victims are **more than 6 times** more likely to result in the death penalty than cases with Black victims, and **14 times** more likely to result in an execution.

Evidence of [racial bias in capital sentencing](https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/research/analysis/reports/in-depth/enduring-injustice-the-persistence-of-racial-discrimination-in-the-u-s-death-penalty#entry:200300@1:url) extends beyond state systems to federal capital proceedings, where there are “...[troubling indicia](https://digitalcommons.mainelaw.maine.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1163&context=faculty-publications) of the continuing influence of race in the federal death penalty system.” Federal death sentences and executions in the modern era have been concentrated in a small number of federal districts and judicial circuits, most of which are in states that historically upheld slavery. According to [research](https://digitalcommons.mainelaw.maine.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1163&context=faculty-publications) published in 2024 by Professor John Nidiry and Ruth Friedman, 65% of then-current federal death sentences were imposed in just three of the twelve federal judicial circuits: the Fourth, Fifth, and Eighth. These circuits include many states and territories that upheld slavery, including Louisiana, which is part of the Fifth Circuit.

In a 2010 [study](https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1539892), researchers G. Ben Cohen and Robert J. Smith concluded that the Eastern District of Louisiana was one of the most active districts for federal capital sentencing after capital punishment was restored for federal crimes in 1988. In the Eastern District of Louisiana, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) authorized 10 federal capital prosecutions in Orleans Parish—all against people of color. Three of the four defendants who proceeded to trial and were sentenced to death were Black men.

**No white person has ever been executed in the modern era for killing a Black person in Louisiana. The last time a white person in Louisiana was** [**reportedly**](https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/09/opinion/louisianas-color-coded-death-penalty.html) **executed for a crime against a Black person was in 1752, when a white soldier named Pierre Antoine Dochenet was hanged after attempting to stab two enslaved Black women to death with his bayonet.**

### *John Wayne Johnson*

John Wayne Johnson, a Black man, was convicted and sentenced to death in 2009 in Orleans Parish for the murder of an Orleans Parish Criminal Deputy Sheriff. He was the second person to be capitally charged in New Orleans federal court after capital punishment was restored for federal crimes in 1988. Mr. Johnson filed a [Motion for Order of Additional Discovery Concerning Race Based Decision Making](https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCOURTS-laed-2_04-cr-00017/pdf/USCOURTS-laed-2_04-cr-00017-7.pdf) with the District Court of Louisiana, arguing that the U.S. Attorney’s Office made a race-based decision to federally prosecute him in order to obtain a predominantly white jury venire from all 13 parishes of the Eastern District of Louisiana, which had a 31% Black adult population at the time. The motion noted that if Mr. Johnson had been charged in Orleans Parish Criminal District Court as a state offense, the venire would have been drawn only from Orleans Parish, where the adult Black population was 56% at the time of trial. Many Black defendants sentenced to death on the federal level were tried in predominantly white federal districts, despite the crime occurring in a county with a large minority population; as a result, [the shift to federal courts results in a far whiter jury pool.](https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1539892)

At the time of Mr. Johnson’s death sentencing, all 42 defendants charged with federal capital offenses in New Orleans were people of color.

The jury that sat in Mr. Johnson’s case consisted of 10 white jurors and 2 Black jurors, with 2 jurors from Orleans Parish and the remainder from surrounding parishes. The jury unanimously sentenced him to death. Although the court stated that it “...does not doubt that conscious or, more insidiously, unconscious racism can influence decision making, from an initial arrest by police through a final decision by a jury,” it ultimately denied the motion, finding that Mr. Johnson’s claim lacked evidence of both “a discriminatory effect” and a “discriminatory purpose.”

 Arbitrariness and Reversals  [Top](#top) 
------------------------------------------

Louisiana’s death penalty is staggeringly error-prone and racially biased. Louisiana ranks among the top five states for death-row exonerations. Researchers Frank Baumgartner and Tim Lyman [state](https://download.ssrn.com/16/04/26/ssrn_id2770761_code1603675.pdf?response-content-disposition=inline&X-Amz-Security-Token=IQoJb3JpZ2luX2VjEEUaCXVzLWVhc3QtMSJHMEUCIQC2VNTvYw8%2FzUhQoqewktm8EdUbY9EptOz4HzFPiYDPQgIgCgtuYgWJ4WJjrXd0AaJZaG2BkGMoeKu5kU3xR17e7aAqvQUIDhAEGgwzMDg0NzUzMDEyNTciDB6V0lRXe8Dm0hlnIyqaBW261mqHj0BY%2Fx0ItvgQ4Qoilzg3eMxtma56j3jugYQlfj7P72xb3sVYkgSzznvYrEAjyEKFno2Y9xb2%2FNIWh%2FjLnbv3Zhbssl45sCAHu98DBqWKkgcZbthirbGyx7ZUcZFUgkHJlsBEHnwV3VaWjYkm3mZZjHoPiCgBVLHzcts0FP3PD9WxhLOe%2BGDlC%2BeHpMNPanQKW6UcR%2F1EwWYu%2FEclxtR%2BZ2y20Tn0juP5Gqle69AqxwWtPdS5PlwiaTfS8Jzas9s1pkZK6WbCZwxIwKbA50Je2KDM5esRUYkqCOEYN92lrvVm4dzmzeZVkzWU1EuEY0%2B4cXFHlj03nqfhnb3fiNKNtAcHDTAGZc21OenjP2MvE4vt7r6LV93XM0SQuVCYxnmzggtv%2Bw9pMf3k4wfdE3oN2AzVEOwkVE52pcemjEBIkIuneFnaoQTMG2v4fi8a03TMV%2Fc0FDeX5AxQT3QJ75YB5JedpiR2B6u%2BGFUyeMz25fBdy7G8s2mkFkcln3HZoVO9PSLcGrfXMn%2FBhSgbQ4tLEm%2FL2U9xi1mSNjYBd8Ygdeg8%2BUHF8%2F9dNJ9fPXcQXBdD2Y46yhvqcmw2xtfRiqUyaDq7Vn5SubpEiFsyC2QpeVoJ2N0aa7xBiaYkNfzxVDcdbmS4idpG5sms0WHD3ZcRIO5Tm6sm73R3Tnf9o3V%2FVNrVApREtqbTy5BhCr%2Fme4R%2BlmzfCa4%2BisInBfOvYvMkYLjFh7XpsviW%2FdYWwYIqbcMc8nVgSc%2Fho34zIXWiSOQiebxFR%2B3KipoiypAvmQqpHF6WpO%2FdSiNJlOmLITl82ug8s75Vo0eRu7T8JwG%2B1Ly9DU6oVnMk9V3AewLVXf9Q3FV%2FFsPxgCPCVoV7dejK7pCEqsCYijDLw8fTBjqxAbf0o%2Fn5EdflyNsqSFo0KzFZrxjVXnvQCOkQ3Qm%2BAd7rOqukyX0iTePvC%2BRLVBKBXSLD805f3ul8A95WSRfhVeGHcFaGJ1%2BJ%2FOdNGxdv2RRFYT9G2lcD0IuiYmz13ij1fMh0o%2Fg6QSjaOax9iH6rBiKOzNnq397vvMlZnKBbxAnnV8SNlMQc30MXKp%2F4k9CFNWdGZpHkjUIa2H1M9vBOkZmiBDJvsjR4qNNLwCjT%2BEc3tg%3D%3D&X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Date=20260804T132114Z&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&X-Amz-Expires=300&X-Amz-Credential=ASIAUPUUPRWE3IOXP4XK%2F20260804%2Fus-east-1%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Signature=54d5dcf63e0636ace59065ccda450e2ffc6bf020495347a165b1acb922842126&abstractId=2770761) that, “Since 1976, Louisiana’s experience with capital punishment has been deeply dysfunctional, with a significantly higher case reversal rate than the national average, and marked disparities in sentencing, reversals, and executions depending on the race and gender of the victim and accused.” They found that among 155 Louisiana death sentences that reached a final disposition between 1976 and 2015, there were 127 reversals and 28 executions.

[**Nine of the twelve people sentenced to death and subsequently exonerated in Louisiana have been Black.**](https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/policy-issues/policy/innocence/innocence-by-the-numbers#entry:26954@1:url)

**DPI has found that nearly 60% of death sentences in Louisiana in the modern era have been reversed, and that 66% of those reversals involved Black defendants.**

[According to the Innocence Project](https://innocenceproject.org/news/study-shows-death-sentences-handed-louisiana-reversed/), the high number of reversed death sentences in Louisiana reflects serious flaws in the state’s capital punishment system.

 Personality Driven Death Penalty  [Top](#top) 
-----------------------------------------------

### *Rodricus Crawford* 

> “On death row in Louisiana, you see exactly who the system is built to punish."
> 
>  
> 
>  Rodricus Crawford, *60 Minutes* interview 2017

   ![Rodricus Crawford Headshot](https://cdn.craft.cloud/c08a8cf8-1de1-4da0-8525-321ca2c16992/assets/images/legacy/RodricusCrawfordHeadshot.png?fit=contain&width=208&s=9OGwLG9AMZCvi_KtpohZYH9nBPsAHiSx7OQShOe5u2M) 

Rodricus Crawford was sentenced to death in 2013 at age 22 in Caddo Parish for the alleged murder of his one-year-old son. Based on trial testimony from a local doctor, prosecutors argued that Mr. Crawford’s son had been suffocated. However, autopsy results, along with four medical expert reports, indicated that the child may have died of pneumonia. During jury selection, prosecutor Dale Cox used five of the prosecution’s seven peremptory strikes to exclude Black jurors.

Dale Cox has been [criticized for his aggressive approach to capital sentencing](https://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/08/us/louisiana-prosecutor-becomes-blunt-spokesman-for-death-penalty.html). Between 2011 and 2015, he secured one-third of the death sentences imposed in the state. In a 2015 interview with the [*Shreveport Times*](https://www.shreveporttimes.com/story/news/local/2015/03/27/glenn-ford-dale-cox-charles-scott-caddo-parish-death-penalty-execution-marty-stroud/70529188/), DA Cox said, “I think we need to kill more people…I think the death penalty should be used more often.” At the time, DA Cox was serving as a prosecutor in Caddo Parish, where the population was 48.9% Black.

The Louisiana Supreme Court ultimately reversed Mr. Crawford’s conviction and sentence, holding that prosecutors had violated the constitutional prohibition established in *Batson* against excluding jurors based on race. Prosecutors formally dropped the charges against Mr. Crawford on April 17, 2017, exonerating him. He was the 158th person exonerated from death row in the United States since 1973 and the 12th person exonerated from Louisiana’s death row since 1981.

### *Glenn Ford*

The Brennan Center for Justice describes the conviction and death sentence of Glenn Ford as “punctuat\[ing\] some of the [worst troubles of Louisiana’s justice system](https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/glenn-ford-end).” Mr. Ford, who was Black, was sentenced to death in 1984 in Shreveport, Louisiana, by an all-white jury for the murder of his white employer. His case was marked by serious [flaws](https://eji.org/news/glenn-ford-exonerated-released-after-30-years-louisiana-death-row/): the state’s main witness admitted at trial that police had helped her make up her story; lead counsel and co-counsel had never tried a case to a jury and had no experience in criminal law; and during state postconviction proceedings, new lawyers presented evidence that the state had suppressed information corroborating Mr. Ford’s claim that he was not present at, or involved in, the murder. Suppressed evidence, including a police report and evidence related to the murder weapon, implicated the true perpetrator. Three expert witnesses also presented evidence that undermined the state’s “expert” trial testimony, but the trial court denied relief and the Louisiana Supreme Court affirmed the conviction. In March 2013, both the state and Mr. Ford’s lawyers filed motions to vacate his conviction and sentence. On March 10, 2014, the same judge who had denied him postconviction relief in 2009 ordered Mr. Ford’s release. After nearly 30 years on death row, Mr. Ford was exonerated. He was, however, denied compensation for his wrongful conviction and died just fifteen months after his release.

Mr. Ford was Louisiana’s longest-serving death row prisoner and one of the longest-serving death row prisoners in the United States.

A.M. “Marty” Stroud III, the lead prosecutor in Mr. Ford’s 1984 trial, publicly accepted responsibility for his role in the case. He admitted: “I was arrogant, judgmental, narcissistic and very full of myself. I was not as interested in justice as I was in winning.” Mr. Stroud continued to reflect on the case in an interview with the [Huffington Post.](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/marty-stroud-prosecutor_n_6988752)

> “...death penal­ty pros­e­cu­tions are a badge of show­ing how out-of-touch we are with oth­er civ­i­lized soci­eties.…\[w\]e can’t trust the gov­ern­ment to fix pot­holes. Why should we believe they can design a death penal­ty sys­tem that’s fair?”

Mr. Stroud also reflected on Louisiana’s error-prone capital punishment system.

> "I think the number of people exonerated since '72 should say something...if I were going to fly on a plane and went up and bought a ticket and asked, ‘How is your safety record?’ and they said, ‘We had 142 crashes since 1972, but don't worry about it,' I don’t think I’m going to get on that plane.”

Mr. Ford died of lung cancer on June 29, 2015, at age 65. Hours after his death, Justice Stephen Breyer cited Mr. Ford’s case in his dissenting opinion in [*Glossip v. Gross*](https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/576/863/) as “striking” evidence “that the death penalty has been wrongly imposed.” Justice Breyer identified innocence, prosecutorial wrongdoing, the length of time many people spend on death row, and the unreliability of capital convictions as among the reasons he had come to “believe it highly likely that the death penalty violates the Eighth Amendment.”

 Geographic Disparities: Caddo Parish and East Baton Rouge Parish [Top](#top) 
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Four parishes—Caddo, East Baton Rouge, Orleans, and Jefferson—are responsible for 60% of the individuals on Louisiana’s death row.

  ! 

*Formerly known as “Bloody Caddo,” the 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. Inside that courthouse, 80% of defendants sentenced to death between 2010 and 2015 were Black, and no white person has ever been executed for killing a Black person in Caddo Parish.*

**Caddo Parish**, Louisiana, is described by the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) as a “lynching stronghold.” According to an EJI [report](https://eji.org/news/study-documents-racially-biased-jury-selection-caddo-parish-louisiana/), Louisiana rewrote its constitution in 1898 to disenfranchise Black people, including by allowing non-unanimous jury verdicts. That rule meant a jury with at least ten non-Black members could return a verdict without regard to the votes of Black jurors. The report also notes that majority-white juries in Caddo Parish have sentenced mostly Black defendants to death at record rates.

**Between 2010 and 2014, Caddo Parish sentenced more people to death per capita than any other county in America.**

DPI reports that the death-sentencing rate per homicide in [Caddo Parish, Louisiana](https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/outlier-counties-legacy-of-racism-persists-in-caddo-parish-which-had-nations-second-highest-number-of-lynchings#entry:8365@1:url) was nearly eight times greater between 2006 and 2015 than in the rest of the state, making a parish with only 5% of Louisiana’s population responsible for 38% of the death sentences imposed statewide. Caddo currently has more people on death row than any other parish in the state.

Another [study](https://www.prisonpolicy.org/scans/reprieve_australia/Blackstrikes_Caddo_Parish_August_2015.pdf) found that prosecutors in Caddo Parish excluded Black people from jury service at three times the rate of white potential jurors. In 93% of criminal jury trials, prosecutors excluded Black prospective jurors at a higher rate than non-Black prospective jurors. The study also found that no defendants were acquitted by juries with two or fewer Black jurors, while 19% were acquitted when five or more jurors were Black. In an interview with [The New York Times](https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/17/us/politics/exclusion-of-blacks-from-juries-raises-renewed-scrutiny.html?smid=pl-share), Carl Stokes, a Black man who was excluded from jury service in a 2009 Caddo Parish death penalty case, recalled walking past the towering Confederate memorial outside the courthouse and said, “It dashes your hopes...it has its roots in the ideology of white supremacy.”

**Felton Dejuan Dorsey**, a Black man, was sentenced to death in Caddo Parish on July 7, 2009. During jury selection, a prospective juror whose race is not identified was removed from the venire after objecting to holding the trial at a courthouse that displayed a Confederate flag. Mr. Dorsey was ultimately sentenced to death by a jury of 11 white jurors and one Black juror for the alleged murder of a white firefighter. Citing a [study](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-9221.2010.00797.x), [researchers Cecelia Trenticosta and William C. Collins noted](https://download.ssrn.com/11/01/03/ssrn_id1734397_code1595945.pdf?response-content-disposition=inline&X-Amz-Security-Token=IQoJb3JpZ2luX2VjECMaCXVzLWVhc3QtMSJGMEQCIGLjL5UkZObczoZ7dT%2BeFuVDRNcFVKwdYTRlJ8nuCwATAiB35RxE%2B4q6%2FDYvtk0MG3MH1%2F2IkIL6tFXmev8O41mrGirGBQjr%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F8BEAQaDDMwODQ3NTMwMTI1NyIM1zN6RDkSHUrM7ctNKpoFH9Tn46%2FowQw3mZf8sTcR8KGLKGy2DGOuwTdFzQcA%2Fs9cZ1waaGPg8BDtFIYnRSOlRLg%2B0FB084tje9GK6rHlAiXpb%2FK9OzRTwO30uabJozF3LPig1UnpdVqvUZO3P8CxdXQmCl2w88mMyTaH1NIgJHgIIIo7AhlXfQg0j5WLZAkmc3ImgRTKNqoTADAt9cdhfk9fR81cLd3m3eWlqIBBocLpX%2BoHpVRTmhqbkVrCF1uks5dDqZ%2BYRdsHBAl%2BnkWmMrVrEZXgWDKaIjB95hrZoqBVSlQtB2AxcvNpmu6lCLUnOTGbjJQL2qg%2BJLKNJD4eUJJBXo5nxvT%2FDMu8FsqDdUDKAidkfBMPLDToMe6RSrjyeAkWtuDBhA9HNorh5%2FeU7u%2FNLRVkd5QdzvyvVlLOcjKn0e3KPjnWhdrcYe61cCcjtxbJLGeyNHRrLhiX083CKyFesBJPBIMyA%2BD5hJno0FrSQLaXpeVfXwnggPo7uEMKfbGDqjx3YNSggjS1yduschFLTDm1FRSk32U%2BewaIOc%2FpN1%2BEG0gvi8j0B4hY%2BB3hEjHbOiDvzOINf5z8O2piZPPG8zW6qLwQEp6k1XdIm%2B%2BeZFkGR818r4EX9dOHsRuMz6mLVpML0gsSiLq1COq1P%2F98Cg3QYoR3asL3MFOZ4ptGTSeikLoUQO4XpUzK0GhF%2FkQ7DnSgLKz42NA%2Fwfho8l0wQh8yP8IwvlZePhXpbNzUaucPW8I0oQejzgl38xaeDf8mfyBpKvMA%2FRgxhFH1PMiIALyVohAumzXFY0lgF5AxOnjgW4EE69GP52Ao1AlYp3sI6UXqII7t%2FiKqZJaF4OyksHmtUMxJsFXGPOB9%2Bdyfz%2FwKwj6vJToxisRdZEvydT5lgtK%2BIXMTMIGR%2BNMGOrIBpKDP72X92yC3RUxNn0UIRGKYeCBtMsC8opqYpMoqcCBqQ1cNGMrMs%2Bwr41NPLW0iI8T5iZ5huv3ZCnvwbf%2BVI%2BhH%2B3Bza%2BCHXK5Y9%2F8PceExgGodOKep9%2B9sXA3aZWfQ58hcOKlz7LXf%2B4Yg3pzyko%2F6OMIIm2NwjVC%2B2%2FrCC7VxmbrO6pgGs4Ks1LEnU%2FngIdvZk1hEGyRrDyThOM5IWjXUEY4vLgRrg%2BXvaG32844Rmw%3D%3D&X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Date=20260813T184729Z&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&X-Amz-Expires=300&X-Amz-Credential=ASIAUPUUPRWE7R6NHGVT%2F20260813%2Fus-east-1%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Signature=25d1c6bbca62f9685af7d65ef96f71a9f694c8a99eec37acaff6fa82e3321fc8&abstractId=1734397) that, “The Confederate flag impermissibly primes the expression of negative views towards African-Americans...\[and\] exposure to the Confederate flag increased the expression of negative attitudes toward African Americans among white \[people\].”

Caddo prosecutors have a [history](https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/outlier-counties-legacy-of-racism-persists-in-caddo-parish-which-had-nations-second-highest-number-of-lynchings#entry:8365@1:url) of seeking death against vulnerable Black defendants. **Lamondre Tucker** and **Laderrick Campbell** were 18 years old at the time of their offenses and both had IQs in the intellectually disabled range. **Corey Williams** was 16 when he was sentenced to death and was released in May 2018 after serving 20 years, entering a plea agreement that vacated his murder conviction and credited him with time served. His case also involved evidence that his confession was coerced and that others committed the offense for which he was condemned.

**East Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana** provides another example of how race of victim and geography shape who is sentenced to death in the state. Looking at 114 cases in which the defendant was convicted of first-degree murder between 1979 and 1984, [research](https://digitalcommons.law.lsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=6367&context=lalrev) by Margaret Fae Klemm found that nearly 47% of cases with white victims resulted in death sentences, compared with nearly 23% of cases with Black victims. The study also found that all but five death penalty cases came from southern Louisiana parishes. Research on homicides committed in East Baton Rouge between 1990 and 2008 similarly found that cases with white victims were 2.6 times more likely to result in death sentences than cases with Black victims. Even after researchers controlled for other variables, including the number of aggravating circumstances, concurrent felonies, and the number of homicide victims, race of victim remained a significant predictor of death sentencing in the parish. The researchers noted that these findings were consistent with David C. Baldus’ study presented in *McCleskey v. Kemp*, in which the Supreme Court rejected as relevant the powerful statistical evidence of racial bias presented by death-sentenced  Warren McCleskey.

> Race correlates strongly with other serious problems in Louisiana’s death penalty system, including wrongful conviction, intellectual disability, youth, and geographic disparity.
> 
>  
> 
> Louisiana Capital Appeals Project

   ![Modern Era Death Sentences Imposed on Black Defendants in Louisiana's High-Black Population Parishes (Symbol map)](https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/ylY56/full.png)  

 By the Numbers [Top](#top) 
----------------------------

  ! 

In an observational study published in 2026, Tim Lyman referenced research examining case files from eight of Louisiana’s twelve largest judicial districts between 1976 and 2014. The study found that Black people with white victims were sentenced to death at a rate of 41%, compared with 31% for white people with white victims, 26% for Black people with Black victims, and 2% for white people with Black victims.

In Louisiana, a Black man is 30 times as likely to be sentenced to death for killing a white woman as for killing a Black man. Regardless of the offender’s race, death sentences are six times as likely — and executions 14 times as likely — when the victim is white rather than Black[1](#fn-1)

 Notable Rulings [Top](#top) 
-----------------------------

[*Stanislaus Roberts v. Louisiana (1976)*](https://case-law.vlex.com/vid/roberts-v-louisiana-30-895212962?_gl=1%2A1cbzatz%2A_up%2AMQ..%2A_ga%2AMTg5Njg2NDI3OS4xNzg1OTQ1OTc0%2A_ga_VZEM72P2C6%2AczE3ODU5NDU5NzQkbzEkZzAkdDE3ODU5NDU5NzQkajYwJGwwJGgw)

Stanislaus Roberts’ death sentence was one of five capital cases the Supreme Court decided on July 2, 1976, the same day it ruled in *Gregg v. Georgia* that the death penalty was not inherently cruel and unusual punishment.

Mr. Roberts, a Black man, was sentenced to death in 1974 for the killing of a gas station attendant in Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana. He brought his [case](https://law.justia.com/cases/louisiana/supreme-court/1975/319-so-2d-317-1.html) to the Supreme Court of the United States, arguing that his sentence violated the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. He also argued that the jury was not instructed on lesser charges of manslaughter and second-degree murder, offenses that did not carry a death sentence in Louisiana. Although the Court held that “the death penalty is not unconstitutional per se,” it struck down Louisiana’s mandatory capital punishment statute because it did not allow jurors to consider [mitigating factors](https://www.justia.com/criminal/aggravating-mitigating-factors/) or exercise mercy before imposing death.

Mr. Roberts was resentenced to life without parle.

*Roberts v. Louisiana (1977)*

Harry Roberts, a Black teenager (and no relation to Stanislaus Roberts), was sentenced to death in Orleans Parish in 1974 at age 19 for the killing of a white police officer. On appeal, Mr. Roberts relied on the decision in Stanislaus Roberts’ case and argued that Louisiana could not enforce its mandatory death penalty for first-degree murder without allowing consideration of mitigating factors. The Supreme Court held that Mr. Roberts’ death sentence violated the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments.

[*Snyder v. Louisiana*](https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/552/472/) *(2008)*

Allen Snyder, a Black man, was sentenced to death in Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, in 1996. During his trial, the prosecution used [peremptory strikes](https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/black-history-forty-years-after-supreme-court-upheld-death-qualification-of-juries-data-consistently-shows-disproportionate-racial-exclusion#entry:1767379@1:url) to exclude five prospective Black jurors, resulting in an all-white jury. On appeal, Mr. Snyder argued that the exclusion of Black jurors was racially biased and violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment under the standard established in [*Batson v. Kentucky*](https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/476/79/), the landmark Supreme Court case holding that racial discrimination in jury selection deprives the accused of important Constitutional rights and undermines public confidence in the justice system.

Mr. Snyder raised a *Batson* challenge after the prosecution struck Jeffrey Brooks, a Black college senior and student teacher. The prosecutor claimed Mr. Brooks was excluded because "he looked very nervous” throughout questioning and because the prosecutor feared he might vote for a lesser verdict to avoid a penalty phase. But the Court described the comparison between Mr. Brooks and Roland Laws, a white juror, as “particularly striking.” Like Mr. Brooks, Mr. Laws cited work and “demanding family obligations” as barriers to service, but the prosecution did not exclude him. Writing for the Court, Justice Samuel Alito explained that “\[i\]f the prosecution had been sincerely concerned that Mr. Brooks would favor a lesser verdict than first-degree murder in order to shorten the trial, it is hard to see why the prosecution would not have had at least as much concern regarding Mr. Laws.”

The prosecutor in Mr. Snyder’s case, James Williams, also made [comparisons](https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/cert/06-10119) between Mr. Snyder and O.J. Simpson during trial, referring to the case as “his O.J. Simpson case.” Authors William Grimshaw and Stephen Markus wrote that Mr. Williams was “arguably appealing to racial bias by invoking ‘the most racially divisive event . . . in recent American history.’”

In a 7-2 opinion, the Supreme Court found the prosecution’s race-neutral explanation for excluding Mr. Brooks “unconvincing” and concluded that it “suffice\[d\] for the determination that there was *Batson* error.” Mr. Snyder’s death sentence was reversed, and he was resentenced to life in prison in 2012.

 Youth [Top](#top) 
-------------------

  ! 

Louisiana has a history of employing the death penalty against Black youth in a racially discriminatory manner. Since 1956, Louisiana has sentenced 18 Black youth aged 18 or younger to death. Fourteen of the 18 had at least one white victim.

[Dalton Prejean](https://www.facingsouth.org/1990/08/southern-voices-its-hard-emotions), a 17-year-old Black teenager, was sentenced to death in May 1978 for the murder of a white police officer. He was tried and convicted by an all-white jury after the prosecutor used peremptory challenges to exclude every potential Black juror from the venire. After nine stays of execution, Mr. Prejean was executed in Louisiana on May 18, 1990. Jonathan Eig, then a reporter for *The New Orleans Times-Picayune*, witnessed the electric-chair execution at Angola State Penitentiary and reported seeing “...his chest heave, his fists clench and his right wrist twist outward. A spark and a puff of smoke shot from the electrode attached to his left leg.” That reporting drew the attention of attorneys and prison journalists, prompting further investigation. *The Angolite*, the news magazine run by people incarcerated at Louisiana State Penitentiary, later reported on the electric chair and published photographs showing the seared flesh of a man executed in the state’s electric chair. In 1991, the Louisiana legislature banned the electric chair and required future executions to be carried out by lethal injection. On March 5, 2024, however, Governor Jeff Landry [signed](https://apnews.com/article/louisiana-crime-execution-landry-3d8eeb4990e1960f0629a2d47fdd4e92) legislation authorizing additional execution methods, making lethal injection the primary method and nitrogen gas and electrocution available as backup methods if lethal-injection drugs are unavailable.

### *Willie Francis* 

> “Let me breathe”
> 
>  
> 
> The words Willie Francis gasped during his botched execution

Willie Francis, a Black teenager, confessed to the November 8, 1944, murder of Andrew Thomas, a white man. After the prosecution and defense exhausted their challenges for cause and peremptory challenges, the jury consisted of twelve white men. On September 14, 1945, [Willie was sentenced “to suffer death in the manner provided by law.”](https://via.library.depaul.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=2258&context=law-review)

The state’s first attempt to execute Willie was botched when the electric chair malfunctioned, and Governor Jimmie Davis ordered a second execution only hours later. Willie’s new attorney, Bertrand DeBlanc, challenged the second execution before the Louisiana Board of Reprieves and Pardons and the Louisiana Supreme Court, but both unanimously refused to intervene. DeBlanc then appealed to the governor, who also declined to stop the execution.

On June 4, 1946, Willie sought relief from the U.S. Supreme Court, filing a petition for a writ of certiorari and requesting a stay of execution. Justice Hugo L. Black issued a stay of execution that day, and on June 10, the Court granted a review. DeBlanc called Francis’s trial “a farce and travesty on justice.”

The Court denied relief and four justices—Harold H. Burton, William O. Douglas, Frank Murphy, and Wiley Rutledge—dissented from the Court’s decision. They argued that subjecting Mr. Francis to a second electrocution after the first attempt had failed would constitute cruel and unusual punishment under circumstances “unique in judicial history.” Justice Burton rejected the argument that the accidental nature of the first attempt placed the second execution beyond the constitutional prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. “The intent of the executioner cannot lessen the torture or excuse the result,” he wrote. “It was the statutory duty of the state officials to make sure that there was no failure.”

Justice Burton also questioned whether the state could disregard the suffering caused by its failed execution simply because that suffering was unintended. He then asked: “How many deliberate and intentional reapplications of electric current does it take to produce cruel, unusual and unconstitutional punishment?”

  ! 

"[Gruesome Gertie](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gruesome_Gertie)," Louisiana electric chair, now on display within the Angola Prison Museum, Angola, Louisiana.

Despite the dissent, Louisiana ultimately carried out the second execution. On May 9, 1947, 18-year-old Willie Francis died in the  electric chair.

 Human Impact [Top](#top) 
--------------------------

### Jessie Hoffman

  ! 

Jessie Hoffman

Courtesy of Attorneys for Jessie Hoffman

Louisiana exe­cut­ed Jessie Hoffman, a Black man with a white victim, on March 18, 2025. Mr. Hoffman’s exe­cu­tion marked both the state’s first exe­cu­tion in 15 years and the state’s first exe­cu­tion using nitro­gen gas — only the sec­ond state to use this new method. In an [Op-Ed marking the one-year anniversary of Mr. Hoffman’s execution](https://promiseofjustice.org/news/one-year-after-jessie-hoffmans-execution) Samantha Kennedy, executive director of the Promise of Justice Initiative in New Orleans, Louisiana reflected:

> “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.”

   ![Images](https://cdn.craft.cloud/c08a8cf8-1de1-4da0-8525-321ca2c16992/assets/images/images_2026-11-12-145809_ulyo.jpeg?fit=contain&width=208&s=znA6V-7Aztt7M-bqnivVxYfHoThI3HMQffCAwA41Xig)  

 Political Power and Death Sentencing in Louisiana [Top](#top) 
---------------------------------------------------------------

In March 2023 Louisiana Governor John Bell Edwards announced his opposition to the death penalty. He [explains](https://www.knoe.com/2023/03/30/gov-john-bel-edwards-life/) “It’s very final, not because it’s perfect, but because it ends in someone’s death, and we know that there are far more exonerations off of our death row over the last 20 years, than actual executions, which has been one.” At the time of Governor Edwards’ statement, 67% of Louisiana’s death row population were people of color. Soon after, 56 of the 57 defendants on Lousiana’s death row filed clemency petitions with the Louisiana Board of Pardons and Parole, which can hold hearings on the applications for clemency by the power of the governor. However, after political pressure and litigation from the state’s prosecutors, the Board avoided holding most of those hearings.

  ! 

Author Austin Sarat highlights this as [a troubling pattern of racial disparities and prosecutorial misconduct.](https://verdict.justia.com/2023/07/31/louisiana-governor-john-bel-edwards-says-he-is-a-death-penalty-opponent-now-he-has-a-chance-to-prove-it) The Board asked for an advisory opinion from the State Attorney General’s office—which is not a requirement and is “...almost guaranteed to tilt the playing field against the people seeking to have their death sentences commuted...”. Then-Attorney General Jeff Landry, who later became Governor of Louisiana in 2024, rejected the clemency petitions, that many of which cited racial bias, prosecutorial misconduct, and youth, among other factors supporting clemency —with support from Hillar Moore, the District Attorney of East Baton Rouge Parish.  Just before AG Landry’s election as governor, he publicly criticized part of the post-conviction appeal process— specifically, a new law called Act 104, signed by then-Governor Edwards, that expanded legal procedures for incarcerated people to file claims of innocence. Governor Landry [called it a “woke, hug-a-thug” policy](https://boltsmag.org/the-human-cost-of-jeff-landrys-drive-to-resume-executions/). Attorney Cecilia Kappel, who submitted most of the clemency petitions comments:

> “There are Black men on death row now who were sentenced to death by all-white juries, and there is evidence that jurors in some cases openly discussed race during their deliberations...the people on our death row are not there because these are the worst of the worst crimes. They are there because they are poor, Black, young, mentally ill, or disabled."

   ![260608 PJI 85 jpg](https://cdn.craft.cloud/c08a8cf8-1de1-4da0-8525-321ca2c16992/assets/images/260608_PJI_-85.jpg.webp?fit=contain&width=208&s=JACwTDcx8pYiF7u3lmRrW9ZQVauNPMgyYGmiFg-u0Dc) 

### *Feltus Taylor Jr.*

It has been 26 years since anyone from East Baton Rouge has been executed. After 5 stays of execution, Feltus Taylor, a Black man with 2 white victims, was sentenced to death by an unanimous all-white jury—even though Black residents made up about one-third of the parish’s population at the time. Mr. Taylor [contented that prejudice was introduced into his proceedings](https://www.casemine.com/judgement/us/5914bd06add7b0493479fd9f) because “\[an all-white jury\] could not be expected to deliver a verdict free from bias." But all challenges alleging racial discrimination in his trial were denied, and Mr. Taylor was executed by lethal injection on June 6, 2000.

In April 2026, Louisiana State University (LSU) graduate Monique Morrison released Mr. Taylor’s memoir titled “Waiting to Die: One Man’s Journey on Death Row”. According to a press release from [The Advocate](https://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/crime_police/lsu-manship-school-press-conference-memoir-convicted-murderer/article_a5fab08f-704b-4b48-b410-b66491f6a61e.html), the memoir includes letters Mr. Taylor mailed to LSU School of Social Work faculty member Dr. Cecile Guin and centers around the question: *“Does the worst thing you’ve ever done define who you are?”*

### *Allen Robertosn*

Allen Robertson, a Black man, was sentenced to death in East Baton Rouge in 1998 after a trial tainted by juror bias and the dismissal of his intellectual disability claims.

In 2024, District Attorney Hillar Moore acted to remove Mr. Robertson from death row and resentence him to life without parole. But after consulting with Louisiana Attorney General, Liz Murrill—despite no legal requirement to do so—the Attorney General intervened to block that decision. In 2013, [DA Moore advocated for progressive prosecution](https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2017/04/how-to-tell-if-a-prosecutor-is-only-pretending-to-be-a-criminal-justice-reformer.html) and criminal justice reform. However, through the consultation of the governor and attorney general, DA Moore is seemingly pulling back on these reforms and seeking death sentences in a parish that has a 45% Black population.

Alannah Odoms, Executive Director of ACLU Louisiana provides perspective on the death penalty in Louisiana:

> “In Louisiana, the death penalty is rife with errors, racial bias, and official misconduct...If we are to move into a brighter, better future together, Louisiana must put this fundamentally cruel punishment, which brings neither safety nor justice for anyone, behind us.”

   ![AO Headshot 31 768x959](https://cdn.craft.cloud/c08a8cf8-1de1-4da0-8525-321ca2c16992/assets/images/AO-Headshot_31-768x959.jpg?fit=contain&width=208&s=3KrCF2_M6b4MBc4CiyDmYi7GaHVh5jF6RM7t0QG5ZtY) 

Footnotes

1. 

    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>.