Published: May 24, 2023
By: Jenna Bridges | LSU Manship School News Service
BATON ROUGE — A House committee on Wednesday rejected a bill, 11-4, to abolish the death penalty.
Rep. Kyle M. Green, Jr., D-Marrero, presented House Bill 228 to the House Committee on Administration of Criminal Justice, citing the “racial bend” toward African Americans, the financial benefits to the state and the risk of wrongful conviction in his arguments for abolishing the death penalty.
“It is my personal belief that the death penalty is a barbaric practice that has no place in a modern, civilized society,” Green said. “It is a punishment that is irreversible, final and often applied unfairly.”
Green said the death penalty has been shown to be racially biased because people of color are more likely to be sentenced to death than white people. He said Louisiana has the highest rate of per capita death sentences in the U.S. and that minorities make up a disproportionate number of those sentences.
Read more at American Press
LSU Manship School Statehouse Bureau 