You be the judge

For two weeks now, this newspaper has published lengthy stories dealing with the attempt by convicted rapist and killer Chad Louviere to have the trial he never had, or at the very least a new hearing on the question of whether he should live or die.

The task has been onerous.

Once Louviere entered the former ArgentBank on Grand Caillou Road on Oct. 17, 1996, with an AR-15 rifle and other weapons he indelibly altered the history of Terrebonne Parish, erased the life of a good and innocent woman named Pamela Duplantis, and changed forever the lives of women he held hostage and violated. Prior to that he victimized another woman whose life will never be the same.

Multiply on top of that the friends and relatives, as well as all the people who thought such a horrendous crime could not occur here, not in the bayou country. No, not in a place like this.

But it did happen.

And now, with Louviere’s pressing of claims, 17 years later, the survivors – women in the bank and their loved ones, the family of Pamela Duplantis and in some ways all of us who were here at the time – must in various ways re-live the horror.

Whenever a newspaper takes a close look at an unpleasant subject there is always a great deal of soul-searching that goes on. Do we need to tell this story? How much detail should we share? How much space should be given?

In this case our answer was that, with some exceptions, we would share with readers whatever we have come to learn. In telling the story we make no claim concerning Louviere or his fate. No matter one’s personal feelings on capital punishment, the people of Louisiana have deemed that it is an acceptable outcome, allowable within the law, just like the people of 37 other states.

Claims in the court papers that the punishment amounts to cruel and unusual punishment and other arguments that have long centered on the practice are not news to us and so we have spent no space on those issues.

But other claims are, at best, worthy of reporting. If you remove Louviere’s name and the specific horrors of 1996 from the story there are important issues for discussion. Did the attorneys for a man on trial for his life abet a rush to judgment not on the question of factual guilt, but on the conclusion that he should die for those crimes?

At the very least, arguments now under consideration by District Judge John Walker raise haunting questions. If Chad Louviere can be rushed to the lethal injection table as the most basic rules for representation are cast aside, what of any of us here who – perhaps innocent of some charged offense, with only a lawyer standing between us and the power of the state to take away freedom or even life itself – might be imprisoned or even executed, the wrongfulness of that sometimes resting within questions of degrees.

It is not news that a death row inmate’s attorneys are seeking to have a review by a judge. It is news that the particular claims in this particular case go beyond the routine.

The expense associated with the legal proceedings would not be borne by the public but for the state’s belief that the defendant’s life should be taken. They are considerably more than the cost of three hots and a cot.

So in determining our future course it is important for all the facts to be out there, not so much in terms of Louviere but in terms of future perpetrators of horrible crimes.

Ultimately, in reviewing the court papers relating to Louviere, we determined this case deserves our attention.

We shall continue to present what we learn so that you can form your own opinions, and give you every bit of information we can to aid you in that.

Louviere’s petition for post conviction relief, the errors, if any, relate to the legal team that represented him initially. If one third of the claims pressed in this action are true, they have done an injustice not only to their former client but to the people of Terrebonne Parish and Louisiana, as well as the victims of the defendant.