PJI Statement on New Post-Conviction Laws

Starting Today, It's Even Harder to Win Freedom in Louisiana

Louisiana has the highest rate of wrongful convictions in the United States including a death penalty reversal rate over 80%. We know this because of the close examination of cases after conviction. The State's extreme lack of prosecutorial integrity is shocking and makes today's milestone even more alarming.

Today, August 1, 2024, marks the beginning of a new restrictive era for post-conviction rights in Louisiana’s criminal legal system and a return to policies that make second chances and redemption more difficult to achieve. These changes reflect Governor Landry’s agenda that turns a blind eye towards injustice and promotes retribution over reconciliation and dying in prison over family reunification.

Adopted through legislation, Louisiana’s post-conviction rules set out the process for review of unconstitutional convictions and sentences when new evidence comes to light after appeals have been exhausted. Sometimes this means uncovering misconduct by prosecutors and challenging the courts to hold our government accountable. Sometimes this means ensuring that lawyers who were supposed to investigate and defend their clients actually did so.

These laws were the result of years of study and compromise. But in this spring’s lightning-fast special session, with almost no debate or consideration of experts and others who have worked on these issues for decades, the legislature—at the governor’s behest—stripped away some of the most important provisions that allowed old cases to be given a second look and added significant barriers to relief.

In the past three years, PJI has brought home dozens of clients through post-conviction mechanisms, saving collectively over 1,200 years of prison time. The vast majority were elderly men who had served decades in prison.

Henry Phillips was one such client.

Mr. Phillips was serving life in prison for stealing a wallet before PJI intervened. He was released at age 65 with the full support of the victim, who had been shocked to learn he was still in jail.

He now cares for his ailing mother.

Herman Evans was serving life in prison for a murder that occurred in 1987 until the true killer came forward and confessed. That confession happened in 2012 but fell on deaf ears in the courts until PJI was able to demonstrate that withheld evidence also contributed to his wrongful conviction.

Starting today, our work is harder. Mr. Phillips’s and Mr. Evans’s releases were the result of the recognition by prosecutors and judges that death in prison was unjust and excessively punitive – sentences that were often the result of unfair or racist trials. Today, under the new, restrictive laws passed this spring, securing justice for men and women like them will be much harder.

Post-conviction relief remains possible, and PJI will continue to represent our clients who are unjustly convicted and excessively sentenced and will redouble our efforts to secure their release. We will work to reinstate the provisions in the legislation that allow common sense, compassion, and justice to remain relevant in the courtroom. We will not stop fighting against reactionary laws that waste resources, fail to make us safer, and exacerbate the suffering in our communities. There is a better way.