Opinions of the Louisiana Supreme Court and other appellate courts - The Advocate

LOUISIANA: La. death penalty examined -- Review of court records leads to call for moratorium

During the past 5 years, twice as many condemned inmates have walked free from Louisiana's death row than have been executed.

A review of court records since 1999 shows that, of the last 22 inmates removed from death row when their sentences were finally resolved:

-12 had their death sentences reversed and were ordered to serve lesser sentences;

-6 were released after the courts ordered the 1st-degree murder charges dismissed;

-1 died of natural causes; and,

-3 were executed.

2 of the 3 who were executed were represented by attorneys no longer allowed to practice law, according to the Louisiana Office of Disciplinary Counsel. One of the lawyers was disbarred after being found to have participated in a laundry list of improper behavior involving several cases. The other lost his license because of mental health problems.

Several death-penalty experts say the data is so shocking that Gov. Kathleen Blanco should suspend executions. They say the governor should name a panel to study the issues, as the Republican governor of Illinois unilaterally did.

"I would think that Gov. Blanco would be in favor of a study in the form of a moratorium to find out why is it that we have these kinds of numbers and what can we do to instill confidence in capital punishment," said Nick Trenticosta of New Orleans.

He is director of the Center for Equal Justice, which represents some death-row inmates.

During her campaign last year, Blanco said she would consider a moratorium if statistics indicated problems.

Blanco did not return calls to respond to these findings, but she authorized her spokeswoman Denise Bottcher to say Tuesday that the governor wanted to see the "evidence that a moratorium on the death penalty needs to be called."

Attorney General Charles Foti, the state's chief legal officer, did not return calls, but after five days, he said through spokeswoman Kris Wartelle that he would have no comment.

The lawmaker whose committee considers changes to the state's capital punishment laws says he's open to the idea of suspending executions.

"I'm here to be convinced that we need a moratorium," said state Rep. Daniel R. Martiny, R-Metairie, who chairs the House Committee on Criminal Justice.

"But I think we should have a moratorium only if we can show that innocent people are being executed," Martiny said. "I might agree more with the critics of that situation if we were sentencing them to death and 2 months later we were executing them. - I'm glad to see these people were exonerated, that's the way the system is supposed to work."

Prosecutors also see the findings as proof that Louisiana's capital punishment scheme is working fine.

"The system is designed to catch any error, no matter how small. That's the way the system is supposed to work, and those numbers show that we're not executing people willy-nilly," said Pete Adams of Baton Rouge, director of the Louisiana District Attorneys Association.

"Human endeavor is imperfect," said 19th Judicial District Attorney Doug Moreau of Baton Rouge. "Our system is designed to eliminate as much imperfection as possible."

Moreau said statistics have little meaning in a criminal justice context because each case is unique.

"It may very well be that (what) appeared a proper result to one person is improper to another," he said.

"That 27 percent of all capital convictions led to exonerations is shocking," said Stuart P. Green, an LSU Paul M. Hebert Law Center professor specializing in constitutional and criminal justice issues.

"I can't see how any criminal justice system can tolerate that level of error, particularly in the matter of the death penalty," Green said. "It is unacceptable."

Denise LeBoeuf, director of the Capital Post-Conviction Project of Louisiana, says she has studied carefully each of the cases of the 22 condemned inmates whose cases have been resolved because her agency represented most of them during their final court reviews.

She says the numbers are actually more startling because of the way "finally resolved" is defined by national and international organizations that collect data on death row cases. Final resolution means no further legal proceedings are possible, meaning the inmate was either executed or his death sentence was dismissed.

Another five Louisiana inmates had their death sentences overturned by the courts, but those cases have not been finalized, she said. Those 5 inmates still face new trials; therefore, their cases have not been finally resolved.

Even without including those fives cases in the calculation, approximately one Louisiana death sentence in 10 leads to an execution, LeBoeuf says.

This means that Louisiana has an 86.4 % error rate, she said.

Between 1977 and 2003, 36 % of the 7,061 people sentenced to death in the 38 states with capital punishment had their sentences overturned, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

"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 LeBoeuf, who joined the call for a moratorium.

Richard Dieter is director of the Death Penalty Information Center. He said that, when confronted with similar statistics, the Republican governor of Illinois ordered a halt to executions until the issue could be studied.

Dieter's Washington, D.C.-based group takes no position on capital punishment, but is critical of the way it is applied.

Illinois had a death-row population of 159 - nearly double Louisiana's 87. Then Illinois Gov. George Ryan halted executions because he was troubled by a system that released 13 death-row inmates in 20 years.

Louisiana has released 6 death-row inmates in 5 years.

Maryland, Indiana and Nebraska also launched government studies that reviewed their states' death-penalty procedures from start to finish.

The State Bar of Louisiana adopted a resolution in January 2000 asking the governor to halt executions while re-examining the process. A month later, then-Gov. Mike Foster refused.

Condemned to death, then freed

Shareef Cousin, convicted in 1996, charges dismissed in 1999.

The then-16-year-old had been convicted and sentenced to death for the 1995 murder of a man outside a French Quarter restaurant based on the eyewitness testimony of the victim's date. The Louisiana Supreme Court in 1998 overturned his conviction because of Orleans Parish prosecutors' "flagrant misuse" of evidence used to impeach testimony that Cousin was videotaped playing basketball at the time of the crime. The district attorney opted to retry Cousin and dismissed all charges.

Michael Graham, convicted in 1987, charges dismissed in 2000.

Albert Burrell, convicted in 1987, charges dismissed in 2000.

Graham and Burrell were sentenced to death for the 1986 murders of an elderly couple in Union Parish. An appellate court threw out their convictions because of suspect witness testimony and a lack of physical evidence used at trial. DNA tests proved that blood found at the victims' home did not belong to either Burrell or Graham. The trial attorneys appointed to defend Burrell were disbarred later for reasons unrelated to this case. The state Attorney General chose not to retry the case and dismissed the charges.

John Thompson, convicted in 1985, acquitted in 2003.

5 weeks before his scheduled execution for a 1984 murder during a mugging, evidence was discovered that New Orleans prosecutors withheld a crucial blood analysis. The Louisiana Supreme Court in 1998 reduced his sentence from death to life in prison. An appellate court ordered a new trial in 1999. The new trial in May 2003 included testimony that had been withheld years before. The jury took less than an hour to acquit.

Ryan Matthews, convicted in 1999, charges dismissed in 2004.

The Louisiana Supreme Court on March 24 found that DNA testing results available during trial were not properly used by the 17-year-old's lawyer. When re-processed years later, the DNA excluded Matthews as the murderer of a Bridge City convenience-store owner during a 1998 robbery. The DNA evidence, however, pointed directly to another person who had bragged of the murder at the time and was later convicted of a similar robbery-murder. Jefferson Parish prosecutors opted not to retry Matthews and dropped all charges on Aug. 9.

Dan L. Bright , convicted in 1996, charges dismissed in 2004.