Louisiana has 61 inmates on death row: Here's why no one has been executed since 2010

Louisiana is seeing a significant push to end the death penalty during the ongoing legislative session, with many religious leaders calling for an end to capital punishment, but the state has a long — and often messy — history with the death penalty.

Since 1722, more than 650 people have been executed under the death penalty in Louisiana, with many of those occurring well before Louisiana became a U.S. territory and became a state, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, a nonprofit that studies capital punishment.

Louisiana has drastically slowed down its rate of executions, and has not performed one since 2010, but the penalty remains on the books. The Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections says there are 61 inmates currently on death row in Louisiana, 60 men and one woman.

In the last 20 years, more death row inmates have died of natural causes than have been executed, with 11 dying while on death row. Two people have been executed in that time period.

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Louisiana's executions have lingered because of litigation and difficulty accessing the concoction of drugs needed to perform because pharmaceutical companies have pushed back against using their products for capital punishment, according to the Associated Press.

A federal judge last month dismissed a 2012 lawsuit challenging the state's execution protocol because the state can't get ahold of those necessary drugs.

Efforts by the Louisiana legislature to change the methods of execution and to shield the source of the drugs have failed, making it unclear when or how the state would resume executions.

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Why and how was Louisiana's death penalty used?

Early on, the penalty was primarily used to punish enslaved people who attempted to escape or revolt, with more than half of the executions prior to 1850 listing slave revolt as the crime. Of the 173 executions prior to 1850, 91 were for slave revolts.

It's likely that several of these executions were tied to the largest slave revolt in U.S. history. In 1811, up to 500 people took arms against slaveowners near LaPlace and marched toward New Orleans.

While records do not clearly show whether the executions were tied to that specific revolt, records from DPIC show around 16 Black men were executed for slave revolts in 1811.

The methods of execution have also changed over time. During the 18th century, many of the executions were by hanging, according to DPIC data, though many of the slave revolt executions list the method as unknown.

Several executions in the 1700's listed "break on a wheel" as the execution method, which involved running a large wooden wheel over the accused's bones. It was often called a Catherine wheel and was meant to torture the accused before actually killing them.

Hanging continued to be the most popular method of execution during the 19th century and early on in the 20th century. In the 1940's, electrocution became the standard method for execution. Louisiana would switch to the lethal injection in 1993.

Louisiana's death penalty and the U.S. Supreme Court

Louisiana's history with the death penalty is also closely tied to the history of capital punishment in the U.S., being at the center of some of the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark death penalty cases.

In 2011, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a 5-4 decision in Connick v. Thompson which found that a prosecutor's office could not be held accountable for the misconduct of one of its prosecutors.

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The case involved John Thompson, who was convicted of robbery and murder and spent 18 years in prison — including 14 on death row — before being exonerated. The Orleans Parish District Attorney's Office failed to turn over blood evidence in a related case, according to Oyez, a legal project that analyzes SCOTUS cases.

One of the most significant SCOTUS decisions involving Louisiana's death penalty was Kennedy v. Louisiana in 2008. The decision barred states from issuing the death penalty in cases of child rape where the child did not die.

In a 5-4 decision, the court found that the death penalty in this circumstance violated the Eighth Amendment's "cruel and unusual punishment" clause.

Another decision in Roberts v. Louisiana in 1978 prohibited the state from mandating the death penalty as punishment for certain crimes.

It's possible that the court picks up another Louisiana death penalty case in the near future. Prosecutors are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to reinstate the death sentence for David Brown, who was convicted for the murder of a woman and her two children.

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Brown was initially sentenced to death, but the Louisiana Supreme Court overturned the sentence. Brown waived his right to an attorney prior to sentencing, but he later said he only did so because his attorney planned to introduce evidence that claimed his mother had been abusive during his childhood. His attorneys have asked that SCOTUS not review the case.

This article originally appeared on Lafayette Daily Advertiser: Over 650 people executed under Louisiana's death penalty since 1722