Jimmie Christian Duncan learned in April 2025 that a Louisiana judge dismissed his death penalty and that he would no longer face the prospect of execution. In 1998, a jury found Duncan murdered his girlfriend's 23-month-old daughter and has been on death row ever since.

Louisiana has a long history of death and is in trouble. From 1976 to 2015, 80% of the state's capital sentences were reversed, while 12 people were exempted from their death row.

But Bayu State is not the only death penalty state with a problem of false conviction. Disclaimer of Death Platoon - When someone is released after being sentenced, it becomes increasingly common in the United States. Over the past half century, more than 200 people have been released.

DNA evidence is involved in only a few cases, but not Duncan's evidence. Most others happen when defense attorneys find new evidence of witness identification of errors, or when prosecuting misconduct raises suspicion of the legality of the conviction.

Duncan’s case stands out because it is the first successful use of Louisiana’s 2021 Fact-Innocence Regulations. Under the law, reconsideration of the conviction can be based on new facts, not just a constitution or law infringement of the defendant's rights.

As Louisiana District Judge Alvin Sharp explained in his April 2025 opinion in the Duncan case, “It is possible to succeed in the claim of ‘factual innocence’, and the petitioner should provide new, reliable and tumor-free evidence that can be legally accepted at trial and cannot be found at trial or before trial or prior to advanced…”

In overturning Duncan’s beliefs, Sharp emphasized a new understanding of the unreliability of the so-called occlusal marker analysis, which played a key role in Duncan’s case. He also listed testimony of "very persuasive witnesses" who testified that the child's death was "accidental drowning" rather than murder.

It seems strange that the statute of spending factual innocence in 2021 makes Sharp's behavior possible. But as a death penalty scholar, I think this is the latest reminder that even in capital cases, the pursuit of justice is not always the highest value in the United States.

The Shadow of Herrera v. Collins

State such as Louisiana have enacted statutes of factual innocence because there is no constitutional constitution to enforce it across the country that is actually innocent. More than thirty years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court challenged the constitutionality of people who may not have committed crimes sentenced to death.

In February 1992, Leonel Herrera filed a writ of habeas protection ten years after being convicted, a legal action used to challenge a person's imprisonment. Herrera said he had new evidence that he had not committed a murder sentenced to death.

Herrera's lawyer argues that the execution of the infringement of innocent people would violate the Eighth Amendment, prohibiting cruel and unusual punishments. He also said that this would violate the Fourteenth Amendment assurances of due legal proceedings.

Herrera hopes the court considers the affidavit for a long time after Herrera's conviction. Those affidavits claimed that before his death, Raul Herrera, the brother of Leonel Herrera, said that he, instead of Leonel, had been guilty of the murder of Leonel convicted.

But the Supreme Court refused to consider the evidence.

6-3 The majority concluded that the evidence of actual innocence “is unrelated…no other violations of other constitutions.” The ruling means that as long as applicable legal procedures are followed, it doesn't matter whether the results are correct or not.

Become a place for practical innocence

Not surprisingly, in the case of Herrera, the abolitionists who abolished the death penalty were shocked. They believe this is the execution of the tolerant innocent people.

In 2013, the Supreme Court opened the door for the actual innocence claim of litigation proceedings under the Counter-Terrorism and the Effective Death Penalty Law, which restricts the right to habeas protection of prisoners.

The court allows prisoners who can show a certificate of innocence to file a habeas petition even after submitting normal time limits. But it does not say that the enforcement of innocent people would be unconstitutional.

States have passed laws that allow people to respond to the question based on newly discovered DNA evidence.

In 2012, Massachusetts passed a law that allows inmates to seek “forensic or scientific analysis” of evidence in support of the claim that “the fact is innocence of the fact that the person was convicted of the crime.”

The other five states - Louisiana, Maryland, Texas, Virginia and Utah - passed laws that allow claims of innocence after conviction even without DNA evidence.

According to Louisiana regulations, Duncan cites: “A petitioner who is guilty of a crime may seek relief after conviction on the grounds that he is actually innocent of the crime he was convicted of.”

In Louisiana, the new evidence can be "scientific, forensic, physical, or intestate literature evidence." In some cases, evidence can also be accepted to prove innocence in a post-conviction case.

Those seeking such relief must “prove through clear and compelling evidence that if new evidence is presented at trial, an unreasonable juror will find the petitioner guilty in reasonable doubt.”

Oppose the truth

Many people object to allowing convicted criminals to retry their cases, even if they, like Duncan, are on death row.

For example, in Herrera, Chief Justice William Rehnquist said that doing so would “have a very destructive effect on the ultimate necessity in capital cases.”

It seems Louisiana will once again weigh the value of ending and justice in death penalty cases.

Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry wants to see its actual innocent laws be repealed, calling it a “wake-up, embrace policy” and believes that “once the sentence is determined, there will be no more ‘free jail-in’ cards.”

A bill from the Louisiana Legislature has been proposed at the 2025 legislative session.

The bet cannot be higher.

As former Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun wrote in his Herrera dissent, “Just as executions without sufficient safeguards are unacceptable, so executions are also executed when a condemned prisoner can prove that he is innocent. Executions are executed.

Louisiana will soon have to decide how close it is to produce this tragic result.