Louisiana Sues Death Row Inmates

In an unusual twist, the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections sued all 84 prisoners on death row in the state last Friday in an effort to prevent the condemned inmates from raising an Administrative Procedures Act challenge against the state’s lethal injection drug protocols.

The Department's lawsuit comes as a counterclaim in death row prisoner Nathaniel Code's legal challenge to the State's lethal injection protocols.  Code's case argues that Louisiana has not met the Administrative Procedures Act's requirements for creating lethal injection guidelines.

District Judge Michael Caldwell of Baton Rouge dismissed Nathaniel Code’s suit on January 8; the Department's countercaim seeks a definitive ruling against all other death row inmates that Louisiana’s three-drug lethal injection protocol was not subject to the Act.

According to the Ridgeway and Casella post linked above, several states have considered whether lethal injection drug protocols are subject to state administrative requirements.  Louisiana, however, is apparently the first state to address this issue by bringing suit against all its death row inmates at one time.

Craig Estlinbaum