(Louisiana Illuminator) - The Louisiana Supreme Court has refused Attorney General Liz Murrill’s request to return a convicted killer to death row, though it doesn’t necessarily derail her plans to challenge a U.S. Supreme Court precedent that declared executing minors was unconstitutional.
The defendant in question, Dale Dwayne Craig, was just days away from turning 18 when he killed an LSU student in September 1992. A jury convicted Craig in 1994 and sentenced him to death. But the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2005 that administering the death penalty to defendants under 18 violated the 8th and 14th amendments of the U.S. Constitution.
In August, Murrill filed a motion with the 19th Judicial District Court to reinstate Craig’s death sentence. She wrote that her motion was “for preservation purposes only” so that evidence from the Craig case would be retained for use in her challenge.
“While we’re disappointed the Louisiana Supreme Court didn’t weigh in on this important case, we’ll continue to work to ensure that the worst of the worst criminals in our State are brought to justice,” Murrill said Tuesday in a statement after the justices made their ruling public.
The denial of Murrill’s request was unanimous, with Associate Justice John Guidry recusing himself from the case.
Craig was a week shy of his 18th birthday when he murdered Kipp Gullet, an 18-year-old LSU freshman who was taken at gunpoint from a campus dorm parking lot and shot multiple times at a secluded construction site. Three accomplices were also convicted in Gullet’s death and received sentences ranging from 20 years to life in prison.
In May 2023, East Baton Rouge Parish Judge Eboni Johnson Rose granted Craig parole eligibility, citing his record of good behavior and role as a prison mentor at Louisiana State Penitentiary.
Murrill’s office challenged Jones’ action, arguing before the Louisiana Supreme Court in August that Craig’s heinous crime warrants the ultimate punishment.
The attorney general has not indicated what her next steps will be in her challenge of the 2005 U.S. Supreme Court ruling. It resulted in Craig and about 70 other minor defendants across the country having their death sentences commuted. Justices ruled that executing Christopher Simmons of Missouri for a murder he committed at age 17 would be “cruel and usual punishment.”
Louisiana resumed executions earlier this year after a 15-year hiatus during which the state was unable to secure the drugs needed for lethal executions.
Jessie Hoffman, 46, was put to death March 18, becoming the first person in the state executed using nitrogen gas.
Hoffman was 18 when he kidnapped, raped and murdered 28-year-old Mary “Molly” Elliot, who he abducted from a New Orleans parking deck and then took to rural St. Tammany Parish where he assaulted and killed her.
More than 50 people await execution on Louisiana’s death row.
