Louisiana’s AG jumps back into federal suit over executions

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Louisiana's attorney general is rejoining a long-running legal battle over lethal injections of death row prisoners.

Federal judges overseeing the lawsuit, which challenges the state's execution laws and procedures, have since 2014 put all executions in Louisiana on hold.

The Times-Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate reports state Attorney General Jeff Landry abruptly quit the case last summer, claiming that Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards hadn't fought hard enough to restart executions. That came after a state attorney agreed to another delay in the case, saying that litigating it while Louisiana still lacked execution drugs would be "a waste of resources and time."

But with the latest court-ordered halt to executions set to expire in the coming weeks, Landry filed Thursday to rejoin the litigation and vowed to fight any further delays.