The outcome of a civil lawsuit late last month could help Louisiana to remove obstacles to capital punishment and allow for the execution of those who have committed the most serious crimes against Louisianans, the state attorney general said.
Federal Judge Shelly Dick of the Middle District of Louisiana granted defendants’ motion to dismiss the plaintiffs’ case in Hoffman v. Jindal, which was filed by death row inmate Jessie Hoffman nearly 10 years ago in opposition to execution policies. Hoffman alleged that Louisiana officials refused to identify the lethal injection drug protocol that would be used for his scheduled execution and that the Department of Public Safety and Corrections (DPSC) had been unable to secure the needed drugs used in past lethal injections.
“Given the defendants’ virtual inability to obtain lethal injection drugs, plaintiffs cannot demonstrate a reasonable expectation that defendants will resume executing prisoners without significant and substantial changes to the execution protocol or the law,” Dick said in the March 30 opinion. “... There being no live controversy, the court lacks subject-matter jurisdiction.”
Pharmaceutical companies no longer allow certain drugs that have been part of lethal injection protocols to be used in executions, according to the ruling, and Louisiana corrections officials have ceased efforts to secure such drugs. The sole method of execution under current Louisiana law is lethal injection.
The rights of crime victims are too important to continue to put executions on hold in Louisiana, according to Attorney General Jeff Landry.
“The pursuit of justice for the victims of our state’s most heinous crimes is no longer restricted by Hoffman legal obstacles,” Landry said in a statement that was provided to the Louisiana Record. “Now, the Legislature may act to fulfill the promises our state has made to those crime victims and remove any other obstacles to carrying out sentences imposed and affirmed by the courts.”
Landry has contended that alternative drugs, such as pentobarbital, can be compounded by corrections facilities and used in lethal injections. Dick’s ruling, however, indicates the DPSC cannot obtain either pentobarbital or other drugs typically used in previous executions.
“DPSC’s stock of pentobarbital expired in the fall of 2013 before it could be utilized for any executions,” the ruling states. “... To this date, DPSC remains unable to procure either pentobarbital or hydromorphone.”
Gov. John Bel Edwards and the Legislature should consider changes in current law to provide execution alternatives, such as nitrogen hypoxia, hanging, firing squad or electrocution, according to Landry.