death penalty

Longtime death row prisoner Jimmie Duncan, whose 27-year-old murder conviction was vacated this spring, will soon find out if he will be able to walk out of the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola.

Attorney General Liz Murrill is pressing the Louisiana Supreme Court to come up with standards that she hopes will bring to an end the extended appeals of five people facing the death penalty.

Prosecutors have asked a state appeals court to reinstate the death sentence of Jimmie Chris Duncan, whose 27-year-old murder conviction was nullified in April after his attorneys argued that it was based in part on shoddy forensic evidence.

A Louisiana judge this week set aside the first-degree murder conviction and death sentence of Jimmie Chris Duncan, whose 1998 conviction for killing his girlfriend’s 23-month-old daughter was based in part on bite mark evidence that experts now say is junk science.

People still say, "That’s not the Jessie I knew." But most didn’t know what he endured at home – and that’s likely what drove him on that day, psychiatrists say.

The state plans to use nitrogen hypoxia for the first time Tuesday when it’s scheduled to put Jessie Hoffman to death.

Jessie Hoffman Jr. scheduled to be executed Tuesday at Angola prison. This will be the first execution in 15 years in Louisiana. The state will be the second in the country to use nitrogen gas as a form of execution, next to Alabama, which has carried out four executions using the method.

Jessie Hoffman Jr., 46, is scheduled to be put to death Tuesday evening using nitrogen gas, which would be the first time Louisiana has used the method.

Dr. Joseph Antognini travels across the nation, being paid over $500 an hour by government officials who rely on him to vouch for their execution protocols.

A federal judge has halted Louisiana’s first death row execution using nitrogen gas, which was scheduled to take place next week.