Others who have been pardoned have been convicted of armed robbery, aggravated kidnapping, and first-degree robbery.
Since October of this year, Louisiana’s outgoing governor has pardoned 56 convicts, including dozens of convicted killers.
With a staggering 1,094 people incarcerated for every 100,000 people, Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards has made reducing the state’s grossly overcrowded prisons a primary aim of his final term in office.
“For as long as I can remember, Louisiana has reflexively responded to an increase in crime by putting more people in prison and keeping them there longer,” Edwards said this week to the Louisiana news outlet NOLA.com.
“We’ve never been made safer as a result of that,” Edwards added. “There is no data to suggest that an increase in crime here was because of the reforms.”
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According to a detailed list provided by local media Fox 8, others released by Edwards include criminals convicted of arson, robbery, and drug dealing.
Edwards has pardoned a total of 40 convicted murderers in the last three months.
In addition to aggravated arson, possession of Schedule II narcotics, aggravated kidnapping, theft, first-degree robbery, perjury, and armed robbery, released inmates had been convicted of these crimes.
Edwards pardoned five criminals convicted of first-degree murder and eleven guilty of second-degree murder in December alone.
Louisiana has one of the world’s highest incarceration rates per capita.
Edwards has been the governor of Louisiana since 2016, after beating Republican U.S. Sen. David Vitter in the second round of the 2015 governor’s election.
He was re-elected to a second term in the 2019 election, becoming the state’s first Democratic governor to do so since 1975.
After receiving more than 50% of the vote in an October jungle primary, Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry was elected as Edward’s replacement, avoiding a run-off.
