Swastika Found on DA File Introduced into Court, Judge Grants Hearing for PJI Client Incarcerated for 45 Years
Yesterday, lawyers with the Promise of Justice Initiative (PJI) represented Lloyd Gray in Orleans Criminal District Court. Despite the various procedural and legislative hurdles that Mr. Gray has experienced while being incarcerated for nearly forty-five years, the court has granted Mr. Gray an evidentiary hearing based on newly discovered evidence of racial animus. Mr. Gray was convicted in 1980 at the age of 19. Prosecutors failed to prove Mr. Gray’s guilt and there were two dissenting jurors at the conclusion of trial. Nonetheless, Mr. Gray was sent to prison for life due to the now unconstitutional non-unanimous jury law.
"Today, the District Attorney’s office again agreed – as it always has – that a swastika appears on the cover of the DA file used to prosecute Mr. Gray and send him to prison for life. Despite this undeniable truth, the DA’s office continues to challenge Mr. Gray at every step, refusing to accept responsibility for its office’s use of a symbol of hate in its official records. We look forward to our day in court, because of course, hatred and racism have no place in our justice system. Not in 1898, not in 1980, and not today” says Erica Navalance, Associate Director of Strategic Criminal Litigation at Promise of Justice Initiative.
“With this new trial, the Promise of Justice Initiative will continue fighting until Mr. Gray, an innocent man, is free. We, of course, continue to hope that the District Attorney’s office will take accountability for the racism that is the legacy of the Orleans District Attorney’s office under Connick and Cannizarro that permeates Mr. Gray’s case. They have the opportunity to do the right thing” adds Navalance.
Mr. Gray is one of the hundreds of people incarcerated due to non-unanimous juries. In PJI’s landmark case, Ramos v. Louisiana, the U.S. Supreme Court deemed non-unanimous juries unconstitutional. Unfortunately, the Ramos ruling did not outline retroactive relief to the nearly 1,000 men and women who remain incarcerated with non-unanimous convictions. In 2022, PJI secured assurances from the Orleans Parish District Attorney’s office that it would rectify Mr. Gray’s sentence so that he could go home. Due to the DA office’s failure to follow through on its agreement, PJI filed a supplemental petition in July 2025. Governor Landry’s legislation prohibiting district attorneys from waiving deadlines for incarcerated people to challenge their convictions was enacted in August 2025. The Orleans District Attorney’s office had been claiming until today’s ruling that despite our filing before the law’s enactment that they were barred by Landry’s law from considering Mr. Gray’s case.