Between 1976 and 2015, 80% of Louisiana’s capital sentences were later reversed. Bernd Obermann/Getty Images
Jimmie Christian Duncan learned in April 2025 that a Louisiana judge had dismissed his capital murder conviction and he would no longer face the prospect of execution. In 1998, a jury convicted Duncan of murdering his girlfriend’s 23-month-old daughter, and he had been on death row ever since.
Louisiana has a long and troubled death penalty history. From 1976 to 2015, 80% of the state’s capital sentences were reversed on appeal, and 12 people have been exonerated from its death row.
But the Bayou State is not the only death penalty state with a wrongful conviction problem. Death row exonerations – when someone is released after being sentenced – have become more common in the United States. More than 200 people have been freed in the past half-century.
DNA evidence has been involved in only a handful of those cases, but not Duncan’s. Most of the others have…
Source link : https://usa365.info/in-death-penalty-cases-the-quest-for-justice-is-not-americas-highest-value/
Author : USA365
Publish date : 2025-05-13 08:30:00
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