Law making more people eligible for death penalty passes Louisiana Legislature

The Louisiana Legislature on Monday made it easier for prosecutors to seek the death penalty, as the House signed off on a bill with last-minute amendments that have been cast as a response to the Mall of Louisiana shooting.

House Bill 102, by state Rep. Jeff Wiley, R-Maurepas, now expands the definition of first-degree murder to include killings carried out in public places when the defendant puts at least three people at risk of great harm. It also adds killings committed by people with illegal firearms and by people out on bail, probation or parole.

The legislation still needs Gov. Jeff Landry’s signature to become law, but that appears to be a foregone conclusion, since Landry has already signaled is support. The governor’s office requested the amendments, according to Wiley.

Supporters say the bill would help deter crimes like the April 23 mass shooting at the Mall of Louisiana, which resulted in the death of Martha Odom, a 17-year-old high school student from Lafayette.

“I promised the people of this State and the city of Baton Rouge action after the tragic shooting at the Mall of Louisiana,” Landry said last week in a statement, adding that HB102 would help deliver “true justice” for victims.

The Senate passed those amendments last week after little debate.

In a statement, Cecelia Kappel, a defense attorney who handles capital cases, disputed the notion that HB102 would have made a difference in the mall shooting.

“The public has been led to believe this law is needed to address public shootings, but those cases are already first degree murder under Louisiana law,” she said. “In reality, this bill reclassifies almost any homicide as potentially capital murder. That expansion will drive up costs, invite over charging, and strain the justice system, while doing nothing to actually increase public safety.”

Wiley’s bill received broad support, with Republicans stepping forward to vouch for it. But a handful of Democrats raised objections to the measure. They said it would be costly to the state, which pays for defense attorneys who handle capital cases, and they complained that it came about suddenly and without a full vetting by the Legislature.

Currently, there are between 1,200 and 1,300 open second-degree murder cases across the state, Kyla Romanach, the chief public defender for the 19th Judicial District Court in East Baton Rouge, said in an interview. She estimated that 90% of those could have qualified as first-degree murder cases if the HB102 had been in effect.

“We wouldn’t even have capacity currently to staff all those cases,” she said. “This would be incredibly disruptive to the system. There was just no forethought” to this change.

Prosecutors do not have to pursue the death penalty in first-degree murder cases, but capital defense attorneys say that anyone who is charged with the crime is entitled to a special capital defense team until the prosecutor rules out the death penalty.

Capital cases are typically expensive to defend, and the state generally contracts with specialized attorneys to handle them.

In Louisiana, for a killing to be prosecuted as first-degree murder, it needs to be committed “with specific intent to kill or inflict bodily harm” and meet one of a long list of conditions laid out in state statute.

For example, defendants can face the charge if the victim is a child or firefighter, or if the crime is carried out during an act of terrorism or in the middle of a rape or burglary.

Defense attorneys argue Louisiana’s current definition of first-degree murder is already broader than other states’. For example, they say it does not require a killing to be premeditated.

Originally, HB102 created the crime of second-degree cruelty to the elderly and people with infirmities; it did not deal with first-degree murder until it was amended in committee.

That amendment only slightly broadened the definition of first-degree murder so that it would include killings that occurred while someone was committing second-degree cruelty as defined by the new statute. It wasn’t until the bill was on the Senate floor and in the final stages of the legislative process that lawmakers added the more wide-reaching amendments.

Source: nola.com, Megan Friedmann, May 12, 2026

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but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."
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