PhotoLouisiana has dismissed all charges against a man who spent several years on death row after the his infant son died in 2012, in a case that drew national attention to a parish that sentenced young black men to death at an unusually high rate. Rodricus Crawford, 28, a resident of Caddo Parish, La., in the northwestern corner of the state, was sentenced to death in 2013 after prosecutors argued that he had suffocated his son. The state said that it could not meet the burden of proof to gain a new conviction for Mr. Crawford. Cecilia Kappel, one of Mr. Crawford’s lawyers, described him in an interview on Thursday as someone who should never have been facing such a stark sentence to begin with. Advertisement Continue reading the main story“When one black juror expressed his displeasure at that, he was excused for cause,” Mr. Dunham said, referring to a case that was not Mr. Crawford’s.

Source: New York Times April 20, 2017 19:07 UTC