From the dissenting opinion of the chief justice of the Louisiana Supreme Court, issued in July in response to the court’s decision to decline to review the case of Fair Wayne Bryant, a black man who was sentenced to life in prison for theft.
Mr. Bryant’s sentence is sanctioned under the habitual offender law because of his four prior convictions. His first conviction was attempted armed robbery in 1979, for which he was sentenced to ten years of hard labor. He has had no more violent convictions. He was subsequently convicted of possession of stolen things in 1987; attempted…