NEW ORLEANS – In an exclusive WWL-TV gubernatorial poll of 800 Louisiana voters, a slim majority of respondents opposed Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards’ desire to abolish the death penalty and grant clemency to inmates currently on death row.
51 percent, mostly Republican white males over 45, said they disagreed with the governor’s stance, while 41 percent said they supported the proposal.
Edwards, whose term is limited and cannot stand for re-election, received 51 clemency petitions after a death penalty legislation failed in June.
He called the use of judicial homicides “contradictory to Louisiana’s pro-life values in that they literally foster a culture of death.”
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Edwards asked the state’s Parolees Board to hear the cases of the 56 inmates seeking commutation, with 20 of them being given a hearing date between mid-October and November 27.
Photo credit: WWL-TV
Republican Attorney General Jeff Landry — and the 2023 Louisiana gubernatorial frontrunner — is a pro-death penalty proponent and has objected to Edwards’ position.
“The governor is out there right now trying to circumvent a constitutional parole and parole system,” Landry told NOLA.com earlier this month. “Each of these people on death row has been convicted not once, but twice by a jury of like-minded people.”
In Louisiana, 28 people have been executed since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976, the last of them by lethal injection in 2010.
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Photo credit: WWL-TV
Voters can hear from candidates vying for Louisiana’s next governor in a live debate Thursday, Sept. 7, which will air at 7 p.m. on WWL-TV and its social media streaming platforms
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