"Of every five people behind bars in Louisiana, four were put there for nonviolent crimes, and the most common crime for which people in the state are incarcerated is drug possession."
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"According to a recent report by a state task force, since the late 1970s, the number of state prisoners in Louisiana has increased at 30 times faster than the state’s population. Most of these offenders aren’t violent: Of every five people behind bars in Louisiana, four were put there for nonviolent crimes, and the most common crime for which people in the state are incarcerated is drug possession. The state still hands down life sentences for juveniles, despite recent Supreme Court rulings that such sentences should be rare. Currently, Louisiana is one of a handful of states where more than 10 percent of the prison population is serving a life sentence with no chance of parole.
And then there’s the death penalty. Here too, the state suffers all the problems of other death penalty states, but on a grander scale. Start with the racial disparity: One recent study found that killers of white victims in Louisiana are over five times more likely to be sentenced to death than killers of black victims. Another recent study found that four out of every five death sentences in the state since 1976 have been reversed, and for every three people the state has executed since then, one person sentenced to death has been exonerated.
There’s also an ongoing problem of prosecutor misconduct: In 2003, the New York Times reported that some of the state’s prosecutors threw themselves parties after winning death sentences. Some wore neckties with images of nooses or of the grim reaper. In Jefferson Parish, prosecutors were rewarded for every victory in a death penalty case with a plaque engraved with a needle and the name of the condemned. One prosecutor from that parish, James Williams, kept a miniature electric chair on his desk that delivered a small shock when touched. In 1995, he showed a reporter from Esquire how he had decorated the mini-chair with photos of the five men he’d sent to death row. Four of those five would later have their death sentences overturned. Two have since been exonerated.
The New Yorker’s Rachel Aviv reported in 2016 that Louisiana has had 128 death sentences overturned since 1976 — 25 for prosecutorial misconduct. "
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2017/11/02/how-a-fired-prosecutor-became-the-most-powerful-law-enforcement-official-in-louisiana/?utm_term=.afab2a078472
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"According to a recent report by a state task force, since the late 1970s, the number of state prisoners in Louisiana has increased at 30 times faster than the state’s population. Most of these offenders aren’t violent: Of every five people behind bars in Louisiana, four were put there for nonviolent crimes, and the most common crime for which people in the state are incarcerated is drug possession. The state still hands down life sentences for juveniles, despite recent Supreme Court rulings that such sentences should be rare. Currently, Louisiana is one of a handful of states where more than 10 percent of the prison population is serving a life sentence with no chance of parole.
And then there’s the death penalty. Here too, the state suffers all the problems of other death penalty states, but on a grander scale. Start with the racial disparity: One recent study found that killers of white victims in Louisiana are over five times more likely to be sentenced to death than killers of black victims. Another recent study found that four out of every five death sentences in the state since 1976 have been reversed, and for every three people the state has executed since then, one person sentenced to death has been exonerated.
There’s also an ongoing problem of prosecutor misconduct: In 2003, the New York Times reported that some of the state’s prosecutors threw themselves parties after winning death sentences. Some wore neckties with images of nooses or of the grim reaper. In Jefferson Parish, prosecutors were rewarded for every victory in a death penalty case with a plaque engraved with a needle and the name of the condemned. One prosecutor from that parish, James Williams, kept a miniature electric chair on his desk that delivered a small shock when touched. In 1995, he showed a reporter from Esquire how he had decorated the mini-chair with photos of the five men he’d sent to death row. Four of those five would later have their death sentences overturned. Two have since been exonerated.
The New Yorker’s Rachel Aviv reported in 2016 that Louisiana has had 128 death sentences overturned since 1976 — 25 for prosecutorial misconduct. "
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2017/11/02/how-a-fired-prosecutor-became-the-most-powerful-law-enforcement-official-in-louisiana/?utm_term=.afab2a078472