Louisiana | Pardon Board acts quickly to comply with John Bel Edwards' request for clemency hearings

Acting one day after Gov. John Bel Edwards asked them to do so, the Louisiana Pardon Board on Thursday scheduled hearings for 20 of the 56 death row inmates seeking life sentences rather than a possible date with the executioner.

Among those who now have clemency hearing dates in October and November are some of the state’s most notorious murderers.

The board is planning to hear 5 cases on each of the 4 new dates.

The Louisiana District Attorneys Association quickly condemned the move.

“It is unfortunate that the survivors and their families are being thrust into this chaos,” Loren Lampert, the group’s executive director, said in a statement. “Rest assured that district attorneys, and their staff, are steadfastly working at this very moment to determine the best course of action on how to make sure that the victims are heard, and justice prevails.”

Edwards, a devout Catholic, wants to empty death row because of his opposition to capital punishment on pro-life grounds.

He is asking the Pardon Board to accelerate the process in order to complete their work before he leaves office in January.

It’s not clear when or if the 5-member board will schedule hearing dates for the other 36 death row inmates who have filed clemency cases.

It’s up to the board, not the governor, to decide whether to grant the clemency requests, on a case-by-case basis.

“I am grateful that the board has acted so quickly in scheduling the cases for a hearing," said Cecelia Kappel, executive director of the Capital Appeals Project, a New Orleans-based group that helped organize the mass appeal by death row inmates in June. "We are confident that, given the many problems inherent in Louisiana's broken death penalty system, the board will recommend clemency for many of these cases."

The members of the board are: Sheryl Ranatza, Tony Marabella, Bonnie Jackson, Curtis “Pete” Fremin and Alvin Roche Jr. It takes a vote by at least 4 of them to grant clemency. The governor appointed the board members.

The scheduled hearing dates – Oct. 13, Nov. 7, Nov. 13 and Nov. 27 – meet the 60-day notice requirement for the district attorneys and families of the victims.

Among the high-profile inmates who will get hearing dates are Antoinette Frank, a then-New Orleans police officer who, with a nephew, gunned down 3 people inside a Vietnamese restaurant late one night in 1995, including her former patrol partner. Her case will be heard Oct. 13.

Henri Broadway, who has a Nov. 13 hearing date, was convicted in 1995 of killing Betty Smothers, a Baton Rouge police corporal and mother of 6, including Warrick Dunn, later a running back in the NFL.

Nathaniel Code is another one. He was convicted of killing 4 people in Shreveport in the 1980s. His case will be heard on Nov. 27.

Thursday’s statement by the district attorneys’ association marked the second straight day that the 42-member group, consisting of Democrats, Republicans and political independents alike, has voiced its strong displeasure with Edwards’ efforts to clear out death row.

“It is unconscionable to force any victims to relive the most horrific events of their lives under what is clearly a manufactured crisis,” the district attorneys said. “This is unprecedented in our history, and it is disingenuous at best to couch this as the normal order of things. These are the most horrific and complex cases in our system, and they are being rushed through – jumping ahead of 440 previously filed applications” by other inmates.

In his letter to the Pardon Board on Wednesday, Edwards noted that there have been 6 exonerations of people sentenced to death in Louisiana over the past 20 years in explaining his opposition to the death penalty.

He noted that death row inmates have been convicted of “horrible offenses” but questioned “whether a state-sanctioned execution meets the values of our pro-life state.”

Edwards sought to win legislative approval this year to eliminate the death penalty in Louisiana, but the bill went nowhere.

“Commuting the sentences of those on death row will eliminate the very real risk of executing the innocent in Louisiana,” said Barry Scheck, co-founder of The Innocence Project.

Others have noted that it costs the government millions of dollars a year in legal and corrections costs for the death row inmates.

Among those supporting the clemency hearings is New Orleans Archbishop Gregory Aymond, who also said, "We continue to pray for the victims and their families and for their healing and for an end to violence in our communities.”

The last execution in Louisiana occurred in 2010.

Source: nola.com, Staff, August 10, 2023

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