After several years of litigation, Milbank, together with co-counsel Denise LeBoeuf and Nicholas J. Trenticosta prevailed in the Louisiana Supreme Court on November 13 on behalf of pro bono client John Francis Wille. Mr. Wille has served more than 30 years on death row in Louisiana for a murder that he did not commit. In May 2014, we reached an agreement with the State to vacate Mr. Wille’s death sentence and obtained a court order re-sentencing Mr. Wille from death to life imprisonment. The order took Mr. Wille off of death row, removing the threat of execution while we continued post-conviction proceedings to seek his exoneration.
In July 2015, following the election of a new district attorney, the State changed course, and filed an unprecedented motion to reinstate Mr. Wille’s death sentence and send him back to death row. The State’s challenge to the legality of Mr. Wille’s new life sentence jeopardized not only Mr. Wille, but also called into question the status of more than a dozen other Louisiana inmates who had made joint motions or agreements with the State to vacate their death sentences.
We successfully defeated the State’s motion in March 2016. The State then appealed to the Louisiana Court of Appeal. The appellate court agreed with us, finding that the State’s motion was time-barred and that the court’s decision to vacate Mr. Wille’s death sentence was proper. The State in turn appealed to the Louisiana Supreme Court. This week, after 16 months, the state’s highest court denied the State’s writ application. The Louisiana Supreme Court decision puts to rest, finally, the possibility of Mr. Wille’s execution. Mr. Wille remains off death row in the general population while efforts to exonerate him continue.
The Milbank team was led by Litigation partner Tawfiq Rangwala with associates Caitlin Danis, Rita Ganguli, Emily Glaser, Kate Rhodes Janofsky, Brett Lowe, Samantha Palladino, Andrew Porter, Kingdar Prussien, Tom Quinn, Erik Wilson and John Yarwood.
