Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill addresses journalists outside the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., on March 18, 2024. (Francis Chung/POLITICO via AP Images)
Louisiana’s top attorney is urging the state’s Supreme Court to establish guidelines that would hasten the execution process for five death row prisoners.
Attorney General Liz Murill argues that the prolonged appeals of inmates Larry Roy, Antoinette Frank, Robert Miller, David Bowie, and Marcus Reed have delayed justice for the victims’ families involved in their cases.
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Without directly calling for the executions to be expedited, Murill has filed writs in hopes the Louisiana Supreme Court “develop[s] clear standards for post-conviction relief cases when an applicant waited decades to pursue relief, the relief was optional, and the state is substantially prejudiced by the delay.”
She wants these standards developed so that district courts can “apply the law uniformly across the state,” alleging that some had “created special non-legislatively sanctioned exceptions in capital cases.”
The standards, as Murill sees it, will help the courts “move these cases efficiently and expeditiously.”
While each of the five people has been convicted, sentenced, and received appellate review, a continued relief procedure “offers a convicted offender another opportunity to test constitutional defects in the conviction,” which Murill notes is not mandatory.
The attorney general, who was elected in 2023, sees the standstill as unacceptable.
“As I’ve said over and over, the family members of these victims deserve justice,” she said in a statement. “It’s shameful they wait decades to see justice carried out. It serves no valid purpose. I made a promise to the citizens of Louisiana that we would finally put victims first. I will carry out that promise. I’m hopeful that the Louisiana Supreme Court will grant review to give clear direction to lower courts and we can finally move these cases forward.”
The attorney general has filed writs for the cases involving Roy and Frank.
Each of the five inmates was convicted of murder.
Roy, referred to as the “Cheneyville Slasher,” was convicted of attacking his ex-girlfriend’s family, murdering her ex-husband, with whom she had reportedly reconciled, and her aunt in 1993. Frank was a New Orleans police officer when she killed her partner and the two owners of a restaurant that she was robbing in 1995.
Miller raped, robbed, and murdered his landlord in 1997; Bowie murdered a man he had lost money to in 1996. Reed’s case was the only one to begin this century — he was convicted of killing three brothers in 2010. A writ was due for Miller’s case on Monday, while a writ for Bowie’s and Reed’s is due on June 30.
Louisiana resumed using the death penalty after a 15-year break in March when Jessie Hoffman was executed. Hoffman, who was convicted of a 1996 kidnapping, rape, and murder, was the first person in the state killed using nitrogen gas.
