Louisiana leaders must recognize the struggle they have invited with anti-capital punishment ideologues determined to overturn democratically enacted policy—and understand how to win it.
For many years, political maneuvering prevented the state from carrying out executions. Zealots pressured suppliers of chemicals used for the lethal injection method, the only method permitted in recent decades until last year. Meanwhile, Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards, who for political reasons refused to admit he was one of those zealots until late in his second term, effectively blocked efforts to introduce alternative methods (in the case of electrocution, add back), standing in the way of legal changes.
But the elections of 2023 and principally Republican Gov. Jeff Landry capturing the office broke the logjam. Last year, electrocution and nitrogen hypoxia became legal methods. After a few months of setting up an entirely constitutional protocol – reaffirmed days ago – regarding hypoxia, the state announced it was back in the justice business and started to queue up executions, beginning with Jesse Hoffman who has been sitting on death row for 27 years.
And not a moment too soon. The moral case for capital punishment overwhelmingly favors its supporters—as long as it is carried out in a way that upholds its deterrent value. That deterrence saves lives, both in the earthly sense and in the spiritual realm. Opponents know this and work relentlessly to erode its effectiveness, by a sitzkrieg of roadblock after roadblock to prevent any execution and undermine the death penalty’s role as a deterrent. In doing so, they prioritize saving criminals whose lives are already forfeited over protecting the innocent.
Now that an execution was nigh, the zealots swung into full-scale obstruction mode. A flurry of last-minute appeals—thrown together with all the coherence of spaghetti against a wall—were filed and promptly rejected, just as numerous others had been over the years. None succeeded.
Throughout, there was a distinct whiff of disingenuousness. Before trying to relitigate his conviction at the last minute, Hoffman claimed he would go through with his execution if it were by firing squad – not permitted under state law and rarely used anywhere – or by lethal injection, which he knew was politically impossible given activist interference.
That still left electrocution, an option not used anywhere in five years. But that was the gambit his lawyers were attempting because they could run most of the same arguments with it, along with it a parallel argument already attempted that as lethal injection in their terminology and argumentation is the least cruel method then the state must try harder to use it instead of other methods – again, politically unrealistic. This circular logic exemplifies how opponents will justify any legal maneuver to achieve their ultimate goal—abolition of capital punishment. (The concurring opinion that negated a religious exercise argument written by Louisiana Supreme Court Justice Republican Jay McCallum, as well as a U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals opinion rejecting others dealing with punishment, readily point out the speciousness of these tactics.)
Thus, while these zealots are not as morally culpable as others even more extreme who seek to exonerate even if that means imprisoning the innocent as previously discussed, they also put ideology ahead of justice. And in doing so, they destroy whatever positive role they might play in those rare instances when their actions do uncover a mistake that violates a death row convict’s rights. That is a service Louisiana should encourage—but only when it serves justice, not when it obstructs it.
To accomplish this, Louisiana needs to follow Texas’ example and create a steady schedule of executions. By lining these up every couple of months or so, it will overwhelm the zealots’ resources–some of which come from taxpayers–if they try the throw-against-the-wall strategy. Instead, they will have to focus on those very few exculpatory factors that actually could merit reprieves or even commutation of a sentence, which genuinely aids society. And it obviously accomplishes the all-important deterrence objective.
Jesse Hoffman left the world tonight. His execution should be the first of many signals that Louisiana is serious about justice—and about saving lives.