Post by pumpkinpie on Jan 22, 2010 10:34:20 GMT -5
Louisiana has seen dramatic decline in executions, in line with national trend
By Laura Maggi, The Times-Picayune
January 10, 2010, 6:20AM
Staff writer Katy Reckdahl also wrote this story.
In 1987, eight men were electrocuted at the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola within the span of eleven weeks, during a decade when 18 state inmates were executed for crimes they committed.
But the past 10 years, have been quiet ones for Louisiana's death row, with three inmates put to death by lethal injection. The most recent, Thursday's execution of Gerald Bordelon, happened only because the convicted killer waived his appeals, hastening his death by many years. His was the first execution since 2002, when Leslie Dale Martin was executed for the rape and murder of a Lake Charles woman in 1981.
AP Photo/The Advocate, Liz Condo,Gerald J. Bordelon was executed by lethal injection Thursday, in the execution chamber of the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola, La. He was the first prisoner to be put to death in Louisiana since 2002.The dramatic decline in Louisiana executions since 1987, when the state briefly led the nation in that statistic, comes at a time when, nationally, both executions and the imposition of new death sentences have waned significantly.
For victim's families, the long wait between conviction and lethal injection -- during which inmates are given several layers of appeals -- can be interminable, advocates say. They question why the appeals process isn't in some way sped up: Texas, after all, still executes convicts at a steady clip.
"It shouldn't take them that long to decide whether somebody was really and truly found guilty," said Beverly Siemssen, president of Victims and Citizens Against Crime, pointing to cases that take more than decade to wind through the appeals process. "That is a lot of time to put a family through."
Lawyers for death row inmates counter that the reversal rate for death sentences in Louisiana is significant, underscoring the need for caution. Fifty percent of cases considered by federal judges since 2000 have been sent back to the state court for new trials, said Sarah Ottinger, executive director of the Capital Appeals Project.
The advent of DNA technology, which has exposed wrongful convictions -- including many from death rows across the country -- has changed some people's confidence in death penalty verdicts. Since 1989, seven men have left Louisiana's death row as free men after they were exonerated based on DNA and other evidence.
State is reviewing its process
A committee created by the Louisiana Supreme Court last year plans to examine the entire process for post-conviction appeals, both for defendants in capital cases and those serving other prison sentences.
"There is an obvious concern with trying to expedite the process, so that error can be identified as quickly as possible," said Cheney Joseph, an LSU law professor who serves on the panel. "If a conviction is a valid one, it will be affirmed and the law would take its course."
Chief Justice Catherine "Kitty" Kimball, in an interview with the Baton Rouge Advocate last fall, emphasized that the committee's aim is not to "hurry up and execute people."
"I think it is our goal to know that if someone has been sentenced that they may languish for years and years and years without being able to finalize their conviction or to find out that the conviction is not good," she said.
Appeals have more resources
The lengthy appeals process in Louisiana is not anomalous. Death-row inmates in the U.S. now usually spend at least a decade awaiting execution, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. In Louisiana, nearly 85 percent of the inmates on death row have been there for six or more years. More than half have been held there for 11 or more years, according to data provided by Angola.
During 2009, 11 states executed 52 inmates, with Texas accounting for nearly half of them. Since the death penalty was re-implemented by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1976, nearly 38 percent of the 1,188 executions in America have been carried out by Texas.
The change in the execution rate in Louisiana between the 1980s and now is explained, in part, by the fact that more and better-financed lawyers are handling the appeals process for these inmates, said Denny LeBoeuf, an attorney who actively handled death row appeals in Louisiana for many years.
"In the 1980s, we had no lawyers or very few lawyers working with no resources or time," said LeBoeuf, who is now the director of the ACLU's John Adams Project in New York.
Since the United States reinstated the death penalty in 1976, Orleans Parish juries have condemned 38 defendants to death. But a recent tally by attorneys for death-row inmates calculated that courts have found errors in 25 of those sentences, or nearly two-thirds. In some cases defendants were retried, resulting in convictions on lesser charges, while in others defendants were released.
Many of these reversals occurred during "post-conviction" appeals, which typically occur at least several years after conviction. The direct appeal, during which lawyers can only challenge decisions made during the trial, is the first level of review by the courts.
During the post-conviction process, defense attorneys obtain the entire case file, allowing them to see whether prosecutors or law enforcement withheld any evidence that might have helped the defense. These files can be voluminous, requiring thousands of hours to work through, said Gary Clements, director of the Capital Post Conviction Project of Louisiana.
The less-thorough appeals process in Texas is one Louisiana shouldn't strive to emulate, Clement said, pointing to the 2004 execution of a man who forensic experts later concluded wasn't responsible for a house fire that killed his three children.
"They don't give their lawyers time to do the things that need to be done," he said.
Sometimes, arguments brought up during state appeals are, years later, embraced by federal judges. This was true in the 1987 case of Robert Tassin, whose Jefferson Parish murder conviction and death sentence was overturned two years ago by a federal judge on the same grounds raised before state courts for years, Ottinger said
Fewer death penalties
But Cynthia Killingsworth, first assistant district attorney in Lake Charles and a veteran of many death penalty cases and appeals, said she believes the process could be shortened while still holding onto safeguards to ensure people are treated fairly.
"I think a lot of it is redundant," she said about the appeals process.
Of Louisiana's current death row roster, totaling 83, nearly 20 percent -- 16 -- came from East Baton Rouge Parish. Thirteen condemned convicts are from Caddo Parish, while 10 are from Jefferson and seven are from Orleans.
John Holdridge, director of the ACLU's Capital Punishment Project, said one of the most significant changes in the death penalty has been the nationwide reduction in death sentences, which had once reached more than 300 annually. Last year, there were just over 100 new death sentences.
The change reflects not only juror attitudes, but a steep reduction in the number of cases in which prosecutors seek the death penalty.
In Calcasieu Parish, Killingsworth said her office has sought fewer capital charges over the years.
The change owes to many factors, she said, including the burden it can put on victim's families when a case is reversed and needs to be retried.
"We do consider how this is going to affect them," she said.
In Jefferson Parish, there hasn't been a defendant condemned to death since 2004. An Orleans Parish jury in August broke a 12-year period of local juries rejecting death sentences, finding that Michael Anderson should die from lethal injection for the 2006 massacre of five teenagers in Central City. Anderson has not yet been formally sentenced and is still in Orleans Parish jail.
www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2010/01/louisiana_has_seen_dramatic_de.html
By Laura Maggi, The Times-Picayune
January 10, 2010, 6:20AM
Staff writer Katy Reckdahl also wrote this story.
In 1987, eight men were electrocuted at the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola within the span of eleven weeks, during a decade when 18 state inmates were executed for crimes they committed.
But the past 10 years, have been quiet ones for Louisiana's death row, with three inmates put to death by lethal injection. The most recent, Thursday's execution of Gerald Bordelon, happened only because the convicted killer waived his appeals, hastening his death by many years. His was the first execution since 2002, when Leslie Dale Martin was executed for the rape and murder of a Lake Charles woman in 1981.
AP Photo/The Advocate, Liz Condo,Gerald J. Bordelon was executed by lethal injection Thursday, in the execution chamber of the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola, La. He was the first prisoner to be put to death in Louisiana since 2002.The dramatic decline in Louisiana executions since 1987, when the state briefly led the nation in that statistic, comes at a time when, nationally, both executions and the imposition of new death sentences have waned significantly.
For victim's families, the long wait between conviction and lethal injection -- during which inmates are given several layers of appeals -- can be interminable, advocates say. They question why the appeals process isn't in some way sped up: Texas, after all, still executes convicts at a steady clip.
"It shouldn't take them that long to decide whether somebody was really and truly found guilty," said Beverly Siemssen, president of Victims and Citizens Against Crime, pointing to cases that take more than decade to wind through the appeals process. "That is a lot of time to put a family through."
Lawyers for death row inmates counter that the reversal rate for death sentences in Louisiana is significant, underscoring the need for caution. Fifty percent of cases considered by federal judges since 2000 have been sent back to the state court for new trials, said Sarah Ottinger, executive director of the Capital Appeals Project.
The advent of DNA technology, which has exposed wrongful convictions -- including many from death rows across the country -- has changed some people's confidence in death penalty verdicts. Since 1989, seven men have left Louisiana's death row as free men after they were exonerated based on DNA and other evidence.
State is reviewing its process
A committee created by the Louisiana Supreme Court last year plans to examine the entire process for post-conviction appeals, both for defendants in capital cases and those serving other prison sentences.
"There is an obvious concern with trying to expedite the process, so that error can be identified as quickly as possible," said Cheney Joseph, an LSU law professor who serves on the panel. "If a conviction is a valid one, it will be affirmed and the law would take its course."
Chief Justice Catherine "Kitty" Kimball, in an interview with the Baton Rouge Advocate last fall, emphasized that the committee's aim is not to "hurry up and execute people."
"I think it is our goal to know that if someone has been sentenced that they may languish for years and years and years without being able to finalize their conviction or to find out that the conviction is not good," she said.
Appeals have more resources
The lengthy appeals process in Louisiana is not anomalous. Death-row inmates in the U.S. now usually spend at least a decade awaiting execution, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. In Louisiana, nearly 85 percent of the inmates on death row have been there for six or more years. More than half have been held there for 11 or more years, according to data provided by Angola.
During 2009, 11 states executed 52 inmates, with Texas accounting for nearly half of them. Since the death penalty was re-implemented by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1976, nearly 38 percent of the 1,188 executions in America have been carried out by Texas.
The change in the execution rate in Louisiana between the 1980s and now is explained, in part, by the fact that more and better-financed lawyers are handling the appeals process for these inmates, said Denny LeBoeuf, an attorney who actively handled death row appeals in Louisiana for many years.
"In the 1980s, we had no lawyers or very few lawyers working with no resources or time," said LeBoeuf, who is now the director of the ACLU's John Adams Project in New York.
Since the United States reinstated the death penalty in 1976, Orleans Parish juries have condemned 38 defendants to death. But a recent tally by attorneys for death-row inmates calculated that courts have found errors in 25 of those sentences, or nearly two-thirds. In some cases defendants were retried, resulting in convictions on lesser charges, while in others defendants were released.
Many of these reversals occurred during "post-conviction" appeals, which typically occur at least several years after conviction. The direct appeal, during which lawyers can only challenge decisions made during the trial, is the first level of review by the courts.
During the post-conviction process, defense attorneys obtain the entire case file, allowing them to see whether prosecutors or law enforcement withheld any evidence that might have helped the defense. These files can be voluminous, requiring thousands of hours to work through, said Gary Clements, director of the Capital Post Conviction Project of Louisiana.
The less-thorough appeals process in Texas is one Louisiana shouldn't strive to emulate, Clement said, pointing to the 2004 execution of a man who forensic experts later concluded wasn't responsible for a house fire that killed his three children.
"They don't give their lawyers time to do the things that need to be done," he said.
Sometimes, arguments brought up during state appeals are, years later, embraced by federal judges. This was true in the 1987 case of Robert Tassin, whose Jefferson Parish murder conviction and death sentence was overturned two years ago by a federal judge on the same grounds raised before state courts for years, Ottinger said
Fewer death penalties
But Cynthia Killingsworth, first assistant district attorney in Lake Charles and a veteran of many death penalty cases and appeals, said she believes the process could be shortened while still holding onto safeguards to ensure people are treated fairly.
"I think a lot of it is redundant," she said about the appeals process.
Of Louisiana's current death row roster, totaling 83, nearly 20 percent -- 16 -- came from East Baton Rouge Parish. Thirteen condemned convicts are from Caddo Parish, while 10 are from Jefferson and seven are from Orleans.
John Holdridge, director of the ACLU's Capital Punishment Project, said one of the most significant changes in the death penalty has been the nationwide reduction in death sentences, which had once reached more than 300 annually. Last year, there were just over 100 new death sentences.
The change reflects not only juror attitudes, but a steep reduction in the number of cases in which prosecutors seek the death penalty.
In Calcasieu Parish, Killingsworth said her office has sought fewer capital charges over the years.
The change owes to many factors, she said, including the burden it can put on victim's families when a case is reversed and needs to be retried.
"We do consider how this is going to affect them," she said.
In Jefferson Parish, there hasn't been a defendant condemned to death since 2004. An Orleans Parish jury in August broke a 12-year period of local juries rejecting death sentences, finding that Michael Anderson should die from lethal injection for the 2006 massacre of five teenagers in Central City. Anderson has not yet been formally sentenced and is still in Orleans Parish jail.
www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2010/01/louisiana_has_seen_dramatic_de.html