Court: Death during appeal no longer means exoneration

By KEVIN McGILL
Associated Press

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Louisiana’s Supreme Court says a white man whose murder conviction in the killing of a Black man was vacated because he killed himself while his appeal was pending should not have been legally exonerated. Thursday’s ruling reverses lower court rulings that vacated the conviction of Kenneth Gleason, who hanged himself at the state penitentiary in 2021. The high court’s order says from now on in such cases, appeals will be dismissed, and a note will be placed in the court record. It will state that the conviction removed the defendant’s presumption of innocence but was neither affirmed nor reversed on appeal.