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Almost all Louisiana death row prisoners ask John Bel Edwards to spare their lives [1]

['James Finn', 'Staff Writer', 'Advocate Staff Photo Travis Spradling']

Date: 2023-08 

Attorney General Jeff Landry, an ardent death penalty supporter who is running for governor, said he would oppose the clemency applications as they move through the process. His office could do so by submitting arguments against the requests to the pardon board.

“I oppose clemency for all of these offenders who were given valid death sentences by juries of their peers," Landry said in a statement. "My office will formally oppose their applications."

Governors have granted only two clemency requests from death row inmates since Louisiana instated the death penalty in the 1970s.

The first was for Ronald Monroe in 1989, whose guilt was doubted by then-Gov. Buddy Roemer. The second was for Herbert Welcome in 2003; Gov. Mike Foster concurred then with the Pardon and Parole Board's recommendation of clemency after the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Atkins v. Virginia, which found that executing people with intellectual disabilities violates the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment.

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[1] Url: https://www.nola.com/news/politics/most-louisiana-death-row-inmates-ask-governor-for-mercy/article_7366a6b6-f4df-11ed-9b6f-0b5ce68bbbd4.html

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