(The Center Square) − Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill is moving to reinstate the death penalty for Dale Dwayne Craig.
He is convicted of murdering an LSU freshman in 1992 when Craig was eight days shy of his 18th birthday.
Murrill filed a motion this week with the U.S. Supreme Court, explicitly targeting the court’s 2005 decision in Roper v. Simmons, which barred the execution of offenders who were under 18 when their crimes were committed.
Craig’s sentence was converted to life without parole following Roper, despite a jury’s unanimous 1994 decision that he should be executed for the killing of 18-year-old Kipp E. Gullet.
“The Supreme Court’s decision in Roper v. Simmons is egregiously wrong,” Murrill said in a statement. “It prohibits states like Louisiana from executing criminals like Dale Craig … just because he was a week away from his 18th birthday when he committed this heinous crime. There is no basis in law or logic for that absurd result.”
Court records describe Craig’s crime as a carjacking, kidnapping and execution-style murder. After stealing Gullet’s vehicle, Craig forced him to a secluded construction site, pistol-whipped him, and then shot him three times in the head as he lay curled on the ground, the case revealed.
Craig’s case has wound through Louisiana’s courts for decades. His original death sentence was vacated in 2005, shortly after Roper was decided, with Judge Bonnie Jackson resentencing him to life without parole.
In the new filing, Murrill’s office acknowledges that lower courts are bound to reject the motion but argues the move is necessary to preserve Louisiana’s challenge for appellate review.
The state contends Roper was “on shaky ground from the start” and should be overturned, citing dissenting justices in the original case and pointing to inconsistencies in outcomes for offenders who committed capital crimes just before or after their 18th birthdays.
Murrill’s filing says Roper has caused “real-world consequences” by preventing execution of defendants like Craig, while allowing death sentences for those who committed equally brutal murders days later as legal adults.
The U.S. Supreme Court has not yet indicated whether it will consider Louisiana’s challenge.
