State of Louisiana vs. Bryant

After the reconstruction period, southern states adopted laws known as “pig laws”. These laws were mainly designed to re-enslave African Americans. Such actions that would cause an individual to go through pig laws would be theft of swine or cattle or just theft in general. These laws contributed to the large number of the black population in prisons beginning as early as 1870.

Justice Johnson describes a case in which an African American male known as Fair Wayne Bryant was sentenced to life in prison after trying to steal a pair of hedge clippers. He had four prior convictions, his first being attempted arm robbery in which he got ten years of hard labor. Since then (in 1979) he has had no since violent crimes. After that he had a conviction of stolen things and a forgery of a check worth $150. Lastly he had a conviction of simple burglary of an inhabited dwelling. All of his convictions could be drawn from poverty and addiction, which is often noted as the reason for crime.

Justice Johnson goes on to explain how Louisiana tax payer have already paid $518,667 just for Mr. Bryant’s incarceration alone and will pay almost one million dollars if he lives another 20 years.

He argues that Mr. Bryant’s punishment is subjected to excessive punishment. According to article 1 of the Louisiana Constitution, “if it makes no measurable contribution to acceptable goals of punishment or amounts to nothing more than the purposeful imposition of pain and suffering and is grossly out of proportion to the severity of the crime. State v. Dorthey, 623 So.2d 1276 (La.1993); State v. Johnson, 709 So.2d 672 (La 1998)”.

For the reasons listen here: crimes done because of poverty and/or addiction, use of pig laws, and excessive punishment, Justice Johnson granted the defendant, Mr. Bryant, his writ application.