Louisiana’s outgoing Democratic governor pardoned 40 convicted murderers since October including one of whom had been on death row and another who fatally stabbed a woman 39 times.
Gov. John Bel Edwards has been on a mission to help Louisiana lose the title of being the World’s Prison Capital and has signed the pardons to release 56 total convicts in five separate batches.
Edwards, whose term ends on Jan 8. 2024, campaigned to reduce the state’s prison population and is attempting to see some results in his final weeks in office.
The Pelican State governor began signing his pardons on Oct. 11 with his latest coming on Dec. 19, while future orders could be announced after the holidays, according to KTSB.
Eleven of the 40 jailed murderers were convicted in the first degree, or those who killed a human being with the specific intent to kill or inflict great bodily harm and engaged in the preparation of the crimes that led to the killing.
Ricky Washington, 65, was found guilty of fatally shooting a grocery store owner during an armed robbery in Shreveport in 1979, according to KTBS.
Owner Grady Haynes was behind the counter of YQ Grocery and was shot once in the back of the head by Washington who was using a .32-caliber handgun, according to the case brief.
Washington faced the death penalty, but the jury was unable to come to a unanimous decision, which forced the case’s judge to rule he be sentenced to life behind bars. --->READ MORE HERE
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Louisiana's outgoing governor has pardoned 40 convicted murders in the final three months of his rule in a bid to end the state's unwelcome reputation as the most incarcerated in the nation.
John Bel Edwards, the only Democrat governor in the South, will leave office on January 8, after serving the maximum of two four-year terms.
The 57-year-old lawyer has made reducing Louisiana's prison population a priority.
Per capita, Louisiana locks up more people than any other democracy on earth, with 1,094 people per 100,000 behind bars, according to the Prison Policy Initiative. By comparison, the U.S. as a whole locks up 664 per 100,000; the U.K only 129.
In 2017, Edwards signed into law a bill that has shortened some prison sentences; kept certain nonviolent offenders out of prison; expanded eligibility for parole and provided more money to educate and train ex-offenders.
And since October, he has pardoned 56 inmates statewide - including 40 convicted murderers.
Among those released was a man who was only seven hours from being given the electric chair for the April 1983 murder of a taxi driver.
David Rushing, of New Orleans, was 18 when he confessed to trying to rob a convenience store and a gas station, but, thwarted, then calling a cab and shooting dead the driver, Danny Archer.
He was sentenced to death, but his lawyers successfully appealed, citing prosecutorial misconduct and an ineffective defense.
Another pardoned by Edwards was Anthony Riggins, who shot and killed an unarmed 68-year-old shopkeeper, Peter Davenhauer, in the New Orleans suburb of Gretna.
Riggins was convicted in November 1977.
A third of the convicted murders, Venson Dean Vampran, was found guilty of killing hitchhiker Mark Bass in October 1984 and raping his wife, Susan Bass. He was 25.
Others released by Edwards in the last three months include armed robbers, drug dealers and an arsonist. --->READ MORE HERE
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