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State & Federal

Louisiana

Timeline

1901 — The ante­bel­lum plan­ta­tion prop­er­ty Angola which was lat­er used by for­mer Confederate Major Samuel Lawrence Jones to run a con­vict leas­ing sys­tem, is con­vert­ed into Louisiana State Penitentiary. The Louisiana State Penitentiary is now used to house male death row prisoners.

1946 — At 17, Wille Francis sur­vives a botched exe­cu­tion by elec­tric chair. After his appeal failed in the U.S. Supreme Court, Mr. Francis was returned to the elec­tric chair in 1947 and executed.

1990 — Dalton Prejean is exe­cut­ed in Louisiana by the elec­tric chair for a crime he com­mit­ted at age 17. Mr. Prejean was con­vict­ed by an all-white jury and had brain dam­age, with an IQ of 71.

2001 — Michael Ray Graham Jr. and Albert Ronnie Burrell are exon­er­at­ed from death row after seri­ous pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct and the tes­ti­mo­ny of a jail­house snitch led to their wrongful convictions.

2008 — In Kennedy v. Louisiana, the U.S. Supreme Court strikes down an uncon­sti­tu­tion­al state-statute that allowed death sen­tenc­ing for the rape of a child, where the vic­tim did not die.

2010 — The Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections sues every inmate on Louisiana’s death row in an effort to block them from chal­leng­ing the state’s lethal injection procedures.

2012 — Damon Thibodeaux is freed from Louisiana’s death row after 15 years at Angola once new DNA evi­dence was tested.

2013 — A fed­er­al mag­is­trate rules that the Louisiana Department of Safety and Corrections must reveal the details of the state’s lethal injection protocol.

2014 — One week in advance of a sched­uled exe­cu­tion, Louisiana obtains hydrocodone from a phar­ma­cy at Lake Charles Memorial Hospital after false­ly claim­ing the med­ica­tion was need­ed for a ​“med­ical patient.” Hydrocodone is one of the drugs used in Louisiana’s lethal-injection protocol.

2015 — A Louisiana fed­er­al judge delays five exe­cu­tions until 2016, fol­low­ing state offi­cials’ strug­gle to deter­mine how to con­duct exe­cu­tions using lethal injec­tion. The Department of Safety and Corrections’ sup­ply of lethal injec­tion drugs has now expired.

2016 — Louisiana delays exe­cu­tions until 2018 after a new court order issued with the con­sent of the par­ties in fed­er­al pro­ceed­ings chal­lenges the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of Louisiana’s lethal injec­tion process. Louisiana’s pro­to­col allows for either a one-drug exe­cu­tion using pen­to­bar­bi­tal, or a two-drug exe­cu­tion pro­ce­dure using mida­zo­lam and hydro­mor­phone, but the state does not have the drugs nec­es­sary for either option.

2017 — Rodricus Crawford is exon­er­at­ed from Louisiana’s death row amid evi­dence of racial dis­crim­i­na­tion, pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al over­charg­ing, and his innocence.

2018 — A Louisiana fed­er­al court judge orders anoth­er years of stayed exe­cu­tions to allow the pro­ceed­ings to con­tin­ue in the death row pris­on­ers’ chal­lenge to the state’s lethal injection protocol.

2023 — The Louisiana Board of Pardons and Parole sets aside all 56 clemen­cy appli­ca­tions filed by near­ly every death-sen­tenced pris­on­er in Louisiana with­out review­ing the mer­its of any of them. The peti­tions raise claims of severe men­tal ill­ness, racial injus­tice, intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty, pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct, among many others.

Famous Cases

Connick v. Thompson, 563 U.S. 51 (2011)

John Thompson was con­vict­ed of rob­bery and mur­der, and spent 18 years in prison, 14 of which were spent on death row, before being exon­er­at­ed. Shortly before Thompson’s sched­uled exe­cu­tion, an inves­ti­ga­tor dis­cov­ered that pros­e­cu­tors had hid­den blood evi­dence that exonerated Thompson.

Mr. Thompson sued the Orleans Parish District Attorney’s Office, the District Attorney, Harry Connick, in his offi­cial and indi­vid­ual capac­i­ties, and sev­er­al assis­tant dis­trict attor­neys in their offi­cial capac­i­ties under 42 U.S.C § 1983 in a Louisiana fed­er­al dis­trict court. The jury award­ed Mr. Thompson $14 mil­lion against Mr. Connick in his official capacity.

In a 5 – 4 deci­sion, the US Supreme Court held that a pros­e­cu­tor’s office could not be held liable for the ille­gal con­duct of one of its pros­e­cu­tors when there has been only one vio­la­tion result­ing from that defi­cient train­ing. In dis­sent Justices Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor and Kagan argued that the evi­dence ​“estab­lished per­sis­tent, delib­er­ate­ly indif­fer­ent con­duct for which the District Attorney’s Office bears respon­si­bil­i­ty under §1983.”

Kennedy v. Louisiana, 554 US 407 (2008)

Kennedy v. Louisiana barred the death penal­ty from being used in non-homi­cide offens­es. In a 5 – 4 deci­sion the Court held that the Eighth Amendment bars states from impos­ing the death penal­ty for the rape of a child where the crime did not result in the child’s death. The major­i­ty opin­ion found that apply­ing the death penal­ty in such a case would be an exer­cise of ​“cru­el and unusu­al pun­ish­ment” in vio­la­tion of a nation­al con­sen­sus on the issue.

Roberts v. Louisiana, 428 U.S. 325 (1976)

Stanislaus Roberts v. Louisiana was one of the five death penal­ty cas­es the Supreme Court decid­ed on July 2, 1976 when it ruled in Gregg v. Georgia that the death penal­ty did not invari­ably con­sti­tute cru­el and unusu­al pun­ish­ment. However, in a 5 – 4 vote, the Court declared that Louisiana’s cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment statute, which made the death penal­ty manda­to­ry for cer­tain mur­ders was uncon­sti­tu­tion­al because it did not allow for con­sid­er­a­tion of mit­i­gat­ing fac­tors or the exer­cise of mer­cy to spare a defen­dan­t’s life. The Supreme Court took up anoth­er Louisiana case in 1977 to deter­mine whether a manda­to­ry death sen­tence could be imposed in the lim­it­ed cir­cum­stance of the mur­der of a law enforce­ment offi­cer dur­ing the per­for­mance of his or her offi­cial duties. In a 5 – 4 deci­sion in Harry Roberts v. Louisiana, 431 U.S. 633 (1977), the Court held that the pro­hi­bi­tion against manda­to­ry death sen­tences encom­passed mur­ders of police officers.

Notable Exonerations

Curtis Kyles was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death in 1984 after his first tri­al end­ed in a hung jury. The U.S. Supreme Court reversed his con­vic­tion in the case Kyles v. Whitley, 514 U.S. 419 (1995). The Court cit­ed pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct: the state had with­held cru­cial infor­ma­tion about a paid infor­mant who may have been the actu­al mur­der­er. He was retried three times, but each jury dead­locked. After Kyles’ fifth tri­al, pros­e­cu­tors dropped the charges against him. He was released from prison in 1998.

Other Interesting Facts

Intellectual dis­abil­i­ty (for­mer­ly known as men­tal retar­da­tion) is deter­mined by the jury in the penal­ty phase of a cap­i­tal tri­al fol­low­ing con­vic­tion for first-degree mur­der: http://​www​.legis​.state​.la​.us/​l​s​s​/​l​s​s​.​a​s​p​?​d​o​c​=​1​91015

Sister Helen Prejean began her work against the death penal­ty in Louisiana when she vis­it­ed Patrick Sonnier on Death Row at Angola and accom­pa­nied him to his exe­cu­tion. Her account is doc­u­ment­ed in the book and movie Dead Man Walking.

Resources

  • Louisiana Coalition for Alternatives to the Death Penalty
  • Capital Post Conviction Project of Louisiana – Provides indi­gent cap­i­tal defen­dants with rep­re­sen­ta­tion in state post-con­vic­tion and fed­er­al habeas corpus
  • Capital Appeals Project – Provides indi­gent cap­i­tal defen­dants with rep­re­sen­ta­tion on direct appeal
  • Louisiana Capital Assistance Center – A resource cen­ter for indi­gent cap­i­tal defense at the trial level
  • Department of Corrections
  • Prosecutors
  • Victims’ ser­vices

Louisiana Execution Totals Since 1976


News & Developments


News

Apr 28, 2025

Louisiana Judge Sets Aside Jimmie Duncan’s Conviction and Death Sentence Based on ​“No Longer Valid” Bite Mark Evidence

On April 24, 2025, Louisiana District Court Judge Alvin Sharp set aside Jimmie Duncan’s first-degree mur­der con­vic­tion and death sen­tence. Mr. Duncan was sen­tenced to death for the 1993 death of his girlfriend’s tod­dler large­ly based on faulty bite mark evi­dence. Judge Sharp, in a deci­sion that came after a September 2024 evi­den­tiary hear­ing, held that expert tes­ti­mo­ny pre­sent­ed dur­ing this hear­ing demon­strat­ed the bite mark analy­sis used against Mr. Duncan is​“no…

Read More

News

Apr 25, 2025

Premature Execution Warrants in Louisiana Deny Death-Sentenced Prisoners Due Process and Fair Consideration of Constitutional Claims

The Supreme Court has con­sis­tent­ly held that​“death is dif­fer­ent”: the​“qual­i­ta­tive dif­fer­ence between death and oth­er penal­ties calls for a greater degree of reli­a­bil­i­ty when the death sen­tence is imposed.” As a result, cap­i­tal defen­dants pur­sue a series of manda­to­ry and dis­cre­tionary appeals to ensure that mis­takes of con­sti­tu­tion­al sig­nif­i­cance are iden­ti­fied and cor­rect­ed. However, death-sen­­tenced pris­on­ers in Louisiana recent­ly argued that the…

Read More

News

Mar 24, 2025

Four Executions in Three Days Spotlight Constitutional Concerns About Death Penalty

In a three-day span from March 18 to March 20, four men were exe­cut­ed in four dif­fer­ent states. Two of the men put to death, in Louisiana and Arizona, were the first exe­cut­ed in their state in years. While the close tim­ing of the exe­cu­tions result­ed from inde­pen­dent state-lev­­el deci­sions and indi­vid­u­al­ized legal devel­op­ments rather than any coor­di­nat­ed nation­al effort, all four exe­cu­tions raised seri­ous con­sti­tu­tion­al con­cerns. ### March 18: Jessie Hoffman (LA) On…

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News

Mar 19, 2025

Louisiana Resumes Executions After 15-Year Hiatus with First Nitrogen Gas Execution

After a series of last-minute legal chal­lenges, cul­mi­nat­ing with a denial of stay from the U.S. Supreme Court, Louisiana exe­cut­ed Jessie Hoffman 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. State offi­cials acknowl­edged that Mr. Hoffman exhib­it­ed​“con­vul­sive activ­i­ty” as he inhaled nitro­gen gas through a mask while…

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News

Mar 12, 2025

Courts Put Upcoming Texas, Louisiana Executions on Hold

On March 11, in sep­a­rate deci­sions, a fed­er­al court in Louisiana and the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (TCCA) stayed the upcom­ing exe­cu­tions of David Wood (sched­uled for exe­cu­tion in Texas on March 13) and Jessie Hoffman (sched­uled for exe­cu­tion in Louisiana on March 18). In Mr. Wood’s case, the TCCA grant­ed a stay of exe­cu­tion to allow the state more time to address the eight claims Mr. Wood assert­ed in his state habeas claim. In Mr. Hoffman’s case, the U.S. District Court for the Middle…

Read More
View More

View Information by State

Additional Information


  • Death Penalty: Yes
  • Number of Executions Since 1976: 29
  • Number of Executions Before 1976 (may include fed­er­al and military executions): 65
  • Current Death Row Population: 63
  • Women on Death Row: 1
  • Number of Innocent People Freed From Death Row: 12
  • Number of Clemencies Granted: 2
  • Date of Reinstatement (fol­low­ing Furman v. Georgia): July 2, 1973
  • First Execution After Reinstatement: 1983
  • Location of Death Row/​Executions (Men): Louisiana State Penitentiary, Angola
  • Location of Death Row/​Executions (Women): Louisiana Correctional Institute for Women, St. Gabriel
  • Capital: Baton Rouge
  • Region: South
  • Population: 4,657,757*
  • Murder Rate (per 100,000 population): 11.7
  • Is Life Without Parole an Option?: Yes
  • Can a defen­dant get death for a felony in which s/​he was not respon­si­ble for the murder?: No
  • Method of Execution: Lethal Injection, Electrocution or Nitrogen Gas
  • How is Sentence Determined?: Jury
  • Clemency Process: Governor has author­i­ty to grant clemen­cy with non­bind­ing advice of Board of Pardons and Paroles
  • Governor: Jeff Landry
Upcoming Executions

Upcoming Executions

Information about scheduled executions around the country

Innocence

Innocence

For every 8.2 peo­ple exe­cut­ed in the Unit­ed States in the mod­ern era of the death penal­ty, one per­son on death row has been exon­er­at­ed.

State-By-State

State-By-State

States With and Without the Death Penalty

DPI Fact Sheet

DPI Fact Sheet

PDF handout with facts about the Death Penalty

More Information


Innocence Database

Execution Database

Death Penalty Census Database

Death Penalty Information Center
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