04 April 2023 :

(March 29, 2023) - Governor Announces His Opposition to the Death Penalty
After years of silence regarding his views on the death penalty, Governor John Bel Edwards of Louisiana expressed his opposition to capital punishment in a seminar at Loyola University in New Orleans. On March 22, 2023, Edwards said, “The death penalty is so final. When you make a mistake, you can’t get it back. And we know that mistakes have been made in sentencing people to death.”
Edwards based his opposition to the death penalty on his religious faith and said it was “fortuitous” that a shortage of lethal injection drugs has paused all executions in the state for the past 13 years. Louisiana has carried out only one execution in almost 21 years, and that was in 2010. There have been 11 prisoners freed from the state’s death row and exonerated since 1973.
There is a bill filed by Marrero Representative Kyle Green that would end the death penalty in Louisiana. ULM Political Science Professor Pearson Cross doesn’t expect the governor’s support of the legislation will lead to legislative passage.
“Whether that bill will ultimately be supported is quite unclear given the strong Republican majority in both chambers.”
Cross says with a new governor coming in next year Conservative lawmakers would rather pass this issue to the next governor.
“They’re thinking about their re-election. They’re also thinking about who’s going to be the next governor and how the winds going to be blowing when we have a new governor.”
This is Governor Edwards’ final year in office. The 2023 legislative session begins April 10th.

https://louisianaradionetwork.com/2023/03/30/30268/
https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/news/new-voices-louisiana-governor-announces-his-opposition-to-the-death-penalty