James Francis
James Francis was 70 years old and Black. He died on May 9, 2020, while held at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola in West Feliciana Parish. The Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections lists his cause of death as COVID-19 in its death data. WAFB reviewed autopsy and prison records that tie his death to the virus, and UCLA Law Behind Bars and Incarceration Transparency both describe it as a natural death from respiratory complications of COVID-19-associated multi-system organ failure.
Cause of death, as reported: Died of illness
Reported by: Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections (the agency that held him); autopsy and prison records reviewed by WAFB-TV (reporters).
Custody: Serving a sentence, held about 8 years. The illness that caused the death was present on admission, the facility reported.
Sources (4)
- Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections, deaths in 2020 (data file)
- Incarceration Transparency, Loyola University New Orleans College of Law, Louisiana Deaths Behind Bars
- Incarceration Transparency, Loyola University New Orleans College of Law, Louisiana Deaths Behind Bars, via UCLA Law Behind Bars
- 11 Angola ‘lifers’ have died of COVID-19 since pandemic began