Vigils in New Orleans, Baton Rouge mark 10th anniversary of last executions in La.

LaWeekly Staff Report – Death penalty opponents held vigils in Baton Rouge and New Orleans last Tuesday (January 7), which was the 10th anniversary of the last execution held in Louisiana. The Baton Rouge vigil was held at the state capitol, and the New Orleans vigil took place at Resurrection After Exoneration on St. Bernard Avenue (RAE).

Baton Rouge advocates cautioned that the vigil was not indicative of a cause of celebration.

“Celebration would be premature… while there hasn’t been an execution in ten years, it’s not a reprieve,” said Lorraine Davidson, who along with other advocates want to see the death penalty abolished in Louisiana.

Attorney William Snowden with the Vera Institute questioned having the death penalty written due to exoneration data and implicit bias. “If our system doesn’t work for the innocent, it won’t work for the guilty,” Snowden said at the Baton Rouge vigil.

Sister Helen Prejean, City Council-at-Large Member Jason Williams, State Representative Royce Duplessis and were among the religious and political leaders who participated in the New Orleans vigil.

Between the 1950s and 1970s, several states ended the death penalty; the Supreme Court ruled the death penalty unconstitutional and then reinstated it, according to ProCon.org. Prior to the ban, there were 632 executions in Louisiana; post-reinstatement, Louisiana has administered 28 executions since 1976, according to the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC).

Per Louisiana law, individuals convicted of first-degree murder can be sentenced to death or life imprisonment with hard labor and without the benefit of parole, probation or suspension of sentence as determined by a jury.

In Louisiana: 11 individuals have been exonerated from death row; two clemencies have been granted; and there are currently 70 individuals on death row, according to DPIC.

Gerald Bordelon was the last Louisiana convicted felon to die by lethal injection in 2010 for the rape, murder and kidnapping of his 12-year-old stepdaughter.

This article originally published in the January 13, 2019 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.