As the state resumes executions of death row prisoners, a bill in the legislature aims to cut back on the time people convicted of crimes can spend trying to reduce or overturn their sentences, and it would vest more power over the process with the attorney general’s office.
The move also comes seven months after state lawmakers took action against Orleans Parish District Attorney Jason Williams over deals he made through the post-conviction relief process to reduce the sentences of long-serving inmates.
The bill would apply to all inmates seeking to change their sentences, not just those on death row.
Some criminal justice advocates argue the bill would increase the odds that innocent people stay in prison or are executed. Critics also say the bill sets overly harsh deadlines for the post-conviction relief process and could keep people in prison under illegal sentences.
“This bill may prevent a factually innocent person from ever getting out of prison,” said Jee Park, executive director of the Innocence Project New Orleans, an organization that works to exonerate innocent inmates.
HB 572 would reshape the process of post-conviction relief, which defendants use to try to get their sentences shortened or overturned after they have finished with their direct appeals. They can either raise flaws in the process of their conviction or argue they are actually innocent of the crime.
Republican lawmakers already clamped down on post-conviction relief last year, setting stricter timelines and procedural rules through Act 10 of the special legislative session on crime. That act also allowed the attorney general to appeal judicial orders granting relief for prisoners.
The bill would prevent prisoners who pleaded guilty to crimes from asserting factual innocence claims.
“If they plead guilty, they are admitting to the factual predicate, they are admitting that they committed the crime and they are waiving all of these rights to appeal,” Murrill said. “Nobody is required to plead guilty to a crime.”
But Park argues innocent people sometimes take plea deals and plead guilty to crimes to avoid the risk of a harsher sentence.
For an innocent person who is facing life in prison but gets offered a 20-year sentence, and who is uncomfortable with risk, “you might be inclined to take the 20 years instead of life,” Park said.
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