After years of silence, John Bel Edwards says he opposes the death penalty

For the seven years he’s served as Louisiana’s governor, John Bel Edwards has shied away from expressing his views on the death penalty.

But he broke that silence on Wednesday, saying he supports abolishing capital punishment in Louisiana because of his Catholic faith. It has been “fortuitious” for Edwards that a shortage of lethal injection drugs paused all executions in the state 13 years ago, he said. 

“The death penalty is so final,” Edwards said during a talk at Loyola University. “When you make a mistake, you can’t get it back. And we know that mistakes have been made in sentencing people to death… The only people (on death row) we know who were innocent are those who’re released before they’re killed.”

Louisiana last carried out an execution when Gerald Bordelon was voluntarily put to death in 2010 for the murder of his 12-year-old stepdaughter, Courtney LeBlanc. Prior to Bordelon, the state had not executed anyone since 2002. 

State lawmakers have repeatedly refused to get rid of the death sentence. The closest they came to doing so was in 2019, when two bills on the issue made it to the floors of the House and Senate. At the time, Edwards, who was running for re-election as the Deep South’s only Democratic governor, refused to discuss his stance on the matter, saying only that he would uphold state law.

The issue also didn’t factor into discussions about criminal justice reform in 2017, when Edwards crafted a sweeping bill package aimed in part at reducing Louisiana’s highest-in-the-world incarceration rate. The reforms sailed through the legislature with strong bipartisan majorities and became a signature accomplishment of the governor’s term. 

Edwards has also largely ignored jabs from Attorney General Jeff Landry over the issue. Landry, who is running for governor this fall, is a vocal supporter of capital punishment. 

But at the Loyola event, held nine months before the end of his final term as governor, Edwards told the crowd that Louisianans who wish to be truly “pro-life” should denounce the death penalty. 

“It’s another example of how I think being pro-life has got to mean more than the issue of abortion,” he said.

No bills addressing capital punishment have been filed in the Legislature as of yet this year. It is also an election year for the House and Senate; during such years, controversial votes are often avoided.