| Death Penalty Moratorium Implementation Project |
| Working to Obtain a Nationwide Moratorium on Executions |
Louisiana
| Louisiana Assessment Team | Resources on the Administration of the Death Penalty in Louisiana |
Professor Janet C. Hoeffel, Chair of the Louisiana Assessment Team, is currently an Associate Professor of Law at Tulane University Law School. Professor Hoeffel teaches criminal law and procedure, evidence and a seminar on the death penalty. Before joining the faculty at Tulane University in 1999, Professor Hoeffel was a private practice attorney in criminal and civil litigation in Denver, Colorado. She also spent six years as a trial attorney, staff attorney supervisor and appellate attorney at the Public Defender Service in the District of Columbia. Previously, she served as a law clerk for Judge Milton I. Shadur in Chicago, Illinois. Professor Hoeffel has published several scholarly works including: The Sixth Amendment's Lost Clause: Unearthing Compulsory Process, 2002 Wis. L. Rev. 1275 (2002) and The Gender Gap: Revealing Inequities in Admission of Social Science in Criminal Cases, 24 U. Ark. Little Rock L. Rev. 41 (2001). Additionally, she serves on the Board of Directors for the Innocence Project of New Orleans and is a committee member of the Louisiana Task Force on Indigent Defense. Professor Hoeffel graduated cum laude from Princeton and received her J.D. with distinction from Stanford.
Denny LeBoeuf is the Director of the Capital Post-Conviction Project of Louisiana and the 2003 recipient of the Access to Justice Award presented by the Jacob Burns Ethics Center. Ms. LeBoeuf has represented clients facing the death penalty since 1989 in both state and federal courts. She is particularly interested in issues regarding the impact of race, poverty, and mental health on capital cases. She addressed Russian Parliament in December 2001 regarding the American Death Penalty System. Ms. LeBoeuf is a member of the Board of Louisiana Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, the Executive Board of the Moratorium Campaign, and the National Board of the American Civil Liberties Union. She received her B.A. from Hunter College and J.D. from Tulane University.
G. Ben Cohen has served as Staff Director with the Capital Appeals Project in New Orleans, Louisiana since 2001. Mr. Cohen was instrumental in the creation of the Capital Appeals Project and with the recruiting and supervising of the student-internship and new lawyer programs. He has successfully argued before the Louisiana Supreme Court and was instrumental in the court overturning convictions and death sentences in four cases. Previously, he served as counsel to the Louisiana Crisis Assistance Center and as a researcher for the Southern Center for Human Rights. Mr. Cohen served as a law clerk to the Committee on HIV/AIDS of the South Africa Law Commission. He was elected as Orleans Representative to the Louisiana Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and was appointed to the Louisiana Bar Association Committee on Post-Conviction Relief and the Death Penalty. Mr. Cohen graduated cum laude from Bowdoin College and cum laude from University of Michigan Law School.
Senator Lydia P. Jackson is a State Senator from District 39 of
Louisiana. She was elected to the Louisiana State Senate in 2004 after
serving four years in the Louisiana House of Representatives. Senator
Jackson serves as the Vice-Chair of the Judiciary Committee overseeing
the administration of criminal justice and the offices of Attorney General
and District Attorneys. She also serves as Vice-Chair for the Select Committee
on Women and Children and is a member of the committees on Finance and
Health and Welfare. In addition to working as a State Senator, she has
also served as the Vice-President and Community Outreach Director of Hibernia
National Bank since 1996. She also serves as a Board Member to the Highland
Area Partnership and the Foundation for the Mid-South. Senator Jackson
graduated from Harvard University where she attended the prestigious Radcliffe
Institute for Advanced Study.
Judge James L. Dennis has served on the U.S. Court of Appeals
for the Fifth Circuit since his appointment in 1995. Judge Dennis previously
served as an Associate Justice of the Louisiana Supreme Court for twenty
years. He also has served as Judge of the Court of Appeals of Louisiana,
Second Circuit, and Fourth District Court of Louisiana. He also spent
four years in the Louisiana House Of Representatives and was in private
practice for ten years. Judge Dennis received his B.A. from Louisiana
Tech University, J.D. from Louisiana State University Law School, and
a L.L.M. from University of Virginia School of Law.
Resources on the Administration of the Death Penalty in Louisiana
· Thomas S. Fraser, John M. Koneck, and Clinton E. Cutler, Death Penalty in Louisiana, 35 U. Tol. Rev. 617 (2004).
· A Fighting Chance: Giving Poor People Facing the Death Penalty the Facts for Their Defense, The Echoing Green Foundation, (2004).
· Adrian Angelette, Picking Jury Willing to Impose Death Penalty Not Simple, September 13, 2004, available at http://www.axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/printer_11724.shtml.
· 115th National Innocent Death Row Inmate Released After Seven Years, Ryan Matthews Finally Free, Campaign to End the Death Penalty, August 24, 2004, available at htto://www.nodeathpenalty.org.
· Death Penalty/Legal Concern (Louisiana), Amnesty International, June 25, 2004, available at http://web.amnesty.org/library/print/ENGAMR511072004.
· An Assessment of Trial-Level Indigent Defense Services in Louisiana 40 Years After Gideon, National Legal Aid & Defender Association, March 2004.
· Liliana Segura, Justice for Ryan is Long Overdue, The New Abolitionist, March 2004.
· Kerrin C. Wolf, Justice by Any Other Name: The Right to a Jury Trial and the Criminal Nature of Juvenile Justice in Louisiana, 12 Wm. & Mary Bill Rts. J. 275 (2003).
· James E. Boren and Michael A. Fiser, Fear of a Paper Tiger: Enforcing Louisiana's Procedural and Statutory Rules in the Wake of Harmless Error Analysis, 64 La. L. Rev. 5 (2003).
· Julie Hayes Kilborn, Doctoring Up the Capital Defense System: Raising the Standards for Louisiana's Death Penalty Lawyers, 64 La. L. Rev. 141 (2003).
· Alfred Paul LeBlanc, Jr. Considerations Concerning Harmless Error in Louisiana Criminal Cases, 64 La. L. Rev. 21 (2003).
· Black Strikes: A Study of the Racially Disparate Use of Peremptory Challenges, Jefferson Parish District Attorney's Office, Sept. 2003.
· Adam Liptak, Louisiana Sentence Renews Debate on the Death Penalty, New York Times, Aug. 31, 2003, available at http://www.fadp.org/news/Nwtimes-20030831.htm.
· Death Row Demographics, Louisiana Department of Corrections, September 30, 2003.
· Beau James Brock, A Profile of the District Attorney's Office, East Baton Rouge, Louisiana ,36-APR Prosecutor 42 (2002).
· Louisiana State Bar Association Seeks Justice for the Condemned, 48 La. B.J. 386 (2001).
· David W. Schaaf, What if the Victim is a Child? Examining the Constitutionality of Louisiana's Challenge to Coker v. Georgia, 200 U. Ill. L. Rev. 347 (2000).
· Addison K. Goff, IV, Mixed Signals: A Look at Louisiana's Experience with Harmless Error in Criminal Cases, 59 La. L. Rev. 1169 (1999).
· David Mccord, Is Death "Different" for Purposes of Harmless Error Analysis? Should it Be? An Assessment of United States and Louisiana Supreme Court Case Law, 59 La. L. Rev. 1105 (1999).
· Annaliese Flynn Fleming, Louisiana's Newest Capital Crime: The Death Penalty for Child Rape, 89 J. Crim. L. & Criminology 717 (1999).
· J. Chandler Bailey, Death is Different, Even on the Bayou: The Disproportionality of Crime and Punishment in Louisiana's Capital Child Rape Statute, 55 Wash. & Lee L. Rev. 1335 (1998).
· Lisa White Shirley, State v. Wilson: The Louisiana Supreme Court Sanctions the Death Penalty for Child Rape, 72 Tul. L. Rev. 1913 (1998).
· Yale Glazer, Child Rapists Beware! The Death Penalty and Louisiana's Amended Aggravated Rape Statute, 25 Am. J. Crim. L. 79 (1997).
· Chief Justice Pascal F. Calogero, Jr., The State of Indigent Defense in Louisiana, 42 La. B.J. 454 (1995).
· Gerald S. Janoff, State v. Jones: Louisiana Capital Juries Must Not Be Informed of the Governor's Clemency Power, 69 Tul. L. Rev. 861 (1995).
· John B. Arango, Louisiana Commission Drafts Rule to Restructure Indigent Defense, 9-SUM Crim. Just. 40 (1994).
· Roy E. Pardee, III, Fear and Loathing in Louisiana Confining the Sane Dangerous Insanity Acquittee, 36 Ariz. L. Rev. 223 (1994).
· Warren D. Hayes, State v. Knox: The Louisiana Supreme Court Expands Equal Prohibition on Racially Motivated Peremptory Challenges, 68 Tul. L. Rev. 713 (1994).
· Capital Case Manual, Louisiana Crisis Assistance Center
and the Loyola Death Penalty Resource Center (1994).
· Kristen Wenstrup Crosby, State v. Perry: Louisiana's Cure-to-Kill
Scheme Forces Death-Row Inmates to Choose Between a Life Sentence of Untreated
Insanity and Execution, 77 Minn. L. Rev. 1193 (1993).
· Addison K. Goff, IV, Variations of a Common Theme: An Analysis of Louisiana's Experience with Harmless Error in Criminal Cases, 53 La. L. Rev. 1577 (1993).
· Dana Lowy, Perry V. Louisiana: To Execute or Not to Execute a Mentally Incompetent Convicted Criminal…That Remains the Question, 21 Sw. U. L. Rev. 205 (1992).
· R.W. Rachal, State v. Cage: Harmless Error Analysis in Louisiana After Fulminante, 66 Tul. L. Rev. 1086 (1992).
· David L. Katz, Perry v. Louisiana: Medical Ethics on Death Row-Is Judicial Intervention Warranted?, 4 Geo. J. Legal Ethics 707 (1991).
· Fatal Defense, National Law Journal Series, June 1990
Pleading Guilty to Ignorance, June 11, 1990.
Extracurricular Activities, June 11, 1990.
Lawyer's Sentence: A Client, June 11, 1990.
Doreen Weisenhaus, Editor's Note, June 11, 1990.
Marcia Coyle, A Triple Whammy Here Foils Justice, June 11, 1990.
· M. Dwayne Smith, Patterns of Discrimination in Assessments of the Death Penalty: The Case of Louisiana, 15 J. Crim. Just. 279 (1987).
· M. Dwayne Johnson, Capital Sentencing Review Under Supreme Court Rule 28, 42 La. L. Rev. 1100 (1982).
· Michelle Ward LaBorde, No Habeas Corpus for the Guilty: Barksdale v. Blackburn-A Time for Reappraisal, 42 La. L. Rev. 1123 (1982).
· Harry J. Philips, Jr., The Insanity Defense in Louisiana: Presumptions, Burden of Proof and Appellate Review, 42 La. L. Rev. 1166 (1982).
