Louisiana’s death penalty is overwhelmingly imposed on people of color. 42 of the 57 people under a death sentence are people of color, including 38 Black people. This means that 74% of those under a death sentence in Louisiana are people of color, and 67% are Black. Yet only 33% of Louisiana’s population is Black.

Many of the cases of the Black people on Louisiana’s death row carried racial overtones. There are Black men currently on the row who were sentenced to death by all-white juries, and there is evidence that jurors in some cases openly discussed race during their deliberations.

Louisiana’s death row population also reflects the well-documented reality that those who are convicted of killing a white person are significantly more likely to be sentenced to death than are those who kill Black people. Today, there are only two white people under a death sentence for killing Black victims. At the same time, 63% of the people on Louisiana’s death row (36/57) were convicted of killing a white person.

No white person has ever been executed for killing a Black person in Louisiana. Twenty-four of the 28 people executed since 1976, including all four of those executed since 1999, were convicted of killing a white victim.

As will be seen below, race correlates strongly with other serious problems in Louisiana’s death penalty system, including wrongful conviction, intellectual disability, youth, and geographic disparity.

Louisiana’s death penalty system is woefully error-prone, with an 83% reversal rate in capital cases since 1976. Since 1999, when people on death row in Louisiana finally gained a right to counsel in post-conviction proceedings, nine people have been exonerated following wrongful capital convictions and death sentences.

The racial disparity in Louisiana’s death penalty is reflected in its wrongful capital convictions. Six of the nine innocent people exonerated from death row are Black, while three are white. Seven of the nine were falsely convicted of killing white victims.

The United States Supreme Court has made clear that the Constitution forbids the execution of people with intellectual disability. This rule recognizes that people with intellectual disability lack the moral culpability required for capital punishment, and that they are uniquely vulnerable to being manipulated by accomplices or pressured into false confessions.

And yet, there are at least 23 people under a death sentence in Louisiana – fully 40% of the state’s death row population – who have a documented intellectual disability. In this respect as well, Louisiana imposes capital punishment in a racially skewed manner. Nineteen of these 23 prisoners with evidence of intellectual disability are Black, and four are white.

The Supreme Court has acknowledged that scientific advancements regarding late-adolescent brain development must change our understanding of young offenders’ culpability, particularly that of young men. Nevertheless, 27 of the 57 people on Louisiana’s death row were 25 or younger at the time of the crime, and nearly half of those were 21 or under.

Moreover, 22 of those 27 people are Black and one is Hispanic; only four are white. Even more disturbing, 14 people in this young group have documented intellectual disability, and 13 of those are Black. This disparity reflects the criminal justice system’s entrenched unwillingness to give young Black men, including those with intellectual disability, the kind of second chances that younger white offenders often receive.

Louisiana’s death penalty is heavily concentrated in just two parishes, Caddo and East Baton Rouge, which account for 42% of the state’s current death sentences. Moreover, just seven of Louisiana’s 64 parishes (Caddo, East Baton Rouge, Jefferson, Ouachita, Calcasieu, Orleans, and Rapides) account for 70% of the State’s current death sentences and are the only parishes that have imposed three or more active death sentences.

Significantly, there has not been a new death sentence in East Baton Rouge Parish since 2015, or in Caddo Parish since 2013. Louisiana’s death row thus is a relic of a past era of prosecutorial overreach in capital cases.

The seven high-use parishes have overwhelmingly imposed death sentences on Black people. Eleven of the 13 death sentences from Caddo Parish and all 11 of those from East Baton Rouge Parish were imposed on Black people. All four people sentenced to death from Jefferson Parish are people of color (three Black men and one Hispanic man), and all three people on death row sentenced from Orleans Parish are Black. Together, the seven high-use parishes prosecuted 31 of the 38 Black people on Louisiana’s death row.

The job of a prosecutor is to serve the people and do justice. But, as the significant number of exonerations from Louisiana’s death row indicates, this principle is often subordinated to a “win at any cost” mentality. Many of the people on Louisiana’s death row today were convicted and sentenced in cases where prosecutors withheld favorable evidence, presented false testimony – often of unreliable jailhouse snitches – or relied on flawed and misleading forensic evidence.

A majority of the people on Louisiana’s death row (39/57) have been diagnosed with serious mental illness and/or brain damage. A similar number are known to have suffered extensive childhood trauma, including horrific and prolonged physical, emotional and sexual abuse, poverty, neglect, domestic and community violence and more. These individuals are not the “worst of the worst.” They are vulnerable people who were failed by the caregivers and institutions intended to protect them.

The true rate of mental illness, brain damage and extreme childhood trauma on Louisiana’s death row is likely even higher than these numbers indicate. Many people who are incarcerated have never had comprehensive mental health, neurological, trauma or social history evaluations because their trial lawyers failed to do that all-important work and they are still waiting for the overburdened state post-conviction defense system to investigate their cases.