Call it the “Alan Seabaugh effect,” if you will, when the Caddo Parish district attorney one time touted as “progressive” decides to shed the most visible aspect of that as a means of keeping his job.
When Democrat First District Attorney James Stewart first ran for the office over a decade ago, his campaign held him out to be in the mold of a “progressive” prosecutor, or one who typically asserts that too much policing occurs that disproportionately negatively impacts “victim” classes, often identified among others as racial minorities. That stance sucked in nearly a million dollars in special interest money to cover a race he won narrowly.
Yet in the next election in 2020, much of that money dried up, in part because his record was mixed on his progressive promises. He did follow the playbook initially in declining to prosecute many cases, some serious, but at least for some of the more serious ones which he eschewed he claimed reasonably extenuating circumstances.
Perhaps most disappointingly to those of that agenda, Stewart continued seeking the death penalty in cases he had inherited before his swearing in. However, he has slow-walked carrying out the penalties of those cases and he had not initiated any new capital cases. Still, he had plenty of backing, bipartisan in fact, to win reelection without difficulty.
That won’t be the case in 2026. In his second term, Stewart began to act more as a progressive prosecutor in terms of charges and trials sought. This did not escape the notice of Republican state Sen. Seabaugh, who announced a run at the office last year. By then, the heat had begun to build on Stewart, who months earlier relented on two cases by sending forward death warrants – but perhaps strategically, as the Louisiana Supreme Court ruled the two guilty men could still file appeals, making Stewart appear tougher on horrendous crime but without anything changing,
Stewart also picked up the pace in fundraising to end last year with about $200,000 banked, gaining gifts from his usual, legal-community-centric, crop of donors. But Seabaugh already had doubled that by year’s end into his combined DA/Senate campaign account, which features few donors from the Caddo legal community (and a few covering all the bases by donating to him and Stewart).
Given Seabaugh’s track record at winning high-dollar elections, even with electorate demographics giving Stewart an edge, if the incumbent isn’t worried about the challenger, he should be. And he may well be, given his announcement last week that Stewart, who prior to his election said that he “believe[d] in the death penalty” but called his approach to applying it “individualized, case-by-case, determinations in my administration” and clarified it should be asked for in the “worst of the worst” cases, would seek a capital sentence against the suspected killer of a Caddo Parish deputy sheriff.
Rarely has Stewart done this. Once before, in 2018 he said his office would pursue a capital sentence against the so-called “Facebook Live” killer, but didn’t follow through (although this case provides support for capital punishment, as a tool to have a suspect plea to a reduced sentence). A search of immediately-available information didn’t turn up any others like it.
There has been increasing discontent about Stewart’s choices as DA (this group publicizes some) and having Seabaugh in the race to disseminate discouraging news about Stewart’s office – such as a recent report that, of 81 suspects charged with 2024 and 2025 murders in Shreveport and Caddo Parish, 70 percent had prior arrest records in local courts – and hundreds of thousands of dollars to amplify that, it’s little wonder that Stewart looks to have changed course. If that sticks into 2027, regardless of the winner, Seabaugh’s entrance already has changed district attorney policy.
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