view full story- Jindal targets sexual predators -- Governor lays out legislative initiatives
Gov. Bobby Jindal on Friday afternoon joined area legislators and law enforcement officials at the Ouachita Parish Courthouse to lay out new legislative initiatives for cracking down on sexual predators and child pornography.
Jindal talked up five bills, crafted with help from the Louisiana District Attorneys Association, that will be introduced by south Louisiana lawmakers in the legislative session that starts March 29.
"I want the message to the monsters that prey on our innocent children to be very clear: we will track you down, we will root you out, we will find you online and when we do we will punish you with every tool we have," Jindal said.
"We will take away your freedom, your possessions, we will label you as a sex offender and will do everything we can to keep you away from children."
The first bill would revise existing laws on child pornography to provide stronger sentencing options for distribution and production of pornography. The bill would allow prosecutors to seek stiffer penalties than the current two-year to 10-year penalty for possession of child pornography. Distribution of child pornography would carry a sentence of five years to 10 years, while production would have a penalty of 10 years to 20 years. The bill would also create the presumption that possession of child pornography, coupled with file sharing technology or software, is evidence of intent to distribute.
The second bill would create an additional sentence when the crime of solicitation of a minor by computer results in sexual conduct. The bill would provide a penalty option of seven years to 10 years when the computer-aided solicitation results in actual conduct when the age difference between the offender and the victim is greater than five years. This penalty is greater then the current felony carnal knowledge statute.
The third bill would create administrative subpoena authority for state police, the Attorney General and sheriffs to obtain certain electronic identification information about individuals engaged in computer related sex crimes involving children. The initiative would streamline the current process and allow law enforcement to obtain subpoenas faster. The current law for obtaining a subpoena requires approval by a district attorney and judge.
The fourth initiative would allow law enforcement to seize and sell property used in the commission of certain sex crimes, similar to current law regarding asset seizure for certain drug offenses. Jindal said the public sale or auction of the property would help increase revenue for agencies prosecuting sex crimes.
The fifth bill would create a "habitual sex offender" sentencing option under the current habitual offender sex statute. Jindal said the bill would institute a tougher sentence for second-time sex offenders. Currently, multiple offender laws for sexual crimes do not kick in until the third or fourth offense.
In addition to the five proposals, Jindal has included in his proposed budget an additional $516,789 in recurring state funding for the Internet Crimes Against Children Unit in the state Attorney General's office. The extra money would allow the ICAC to hire seven new investigators, Jindal spokesman Kyle Plotkin said. The budget could be revised in the legislative session.
Fourth District Attorney Jerry Jones said the bills "give us a better ability to move these predators from the street," he said. Jindal added that parents need to take responsibility to make sure their children aren't being solicited on the Internet. "I wish it was like it was when I was growing up, when our parents would just let us play outside until dark," Jindal said. "But it's a different world now," he said.
Fourth District Attorney Jerry Jones, center, introduces Gov. Bobby
Jindal during a news conference at the Ouachita Parish Courthouse annex
in Monroe on Friday.
Published March 13, 2010 - The News Star
Awards honor enforcement of DWI laws
A pat on the back is not what Cpl. Jason Martin expected when he joined the Baton Rouge Police Department’s DWI Division 2 1/2 years ago. “We don’t do this for recognition,” the almost eight-year veteran of the Police Department said. But that is what he and other law enforcement officers and agencies across the state got earlier this month from the Louisiana Highway Safety Commission and other state and federal highway safety officials.
Police officers, sheriff’s deputies, State Police troopers and representatives from various law enforcement agencies received awards Tuesday for arresting more drunken drivers than their counterparts in areas with similar populations. A district attorney also was honored.
“Every time an officer arrests an intoxicated driver, he or she is potentially saving lives,” said Lt. Col. John LeBlanc, executive director of the Louisiana Highway Safety Commission, in a news release. “The officers and agencies honored today performed above and beyond expectations in making our roads safer for law-abiding citizens.”
The honorees collectively removed more than 7,700 drunken drivers from the state’s roads in 2009, the news release says. Those arrests represented only a portion of the more than 20,000 DWI arrests made in the state each year. Martin arrested 203 drunken drivers in 2009, which is more than any other law enforcement officer working for an agency that serves 200,000 or more residents, Highway Safety Commission spokeswoman Jamie Ainsworth said. Police Chief Jeff LeDuff was honored for his department’s 1,106 DWI-related arrests made last year, Ainsworth said. The arrests represent more than any other department in the state that serves 200,000 or more residents.
Other agencies honored include the St. Charles, Lafourche and St. Tammany parish sheriff’s offices as well as the Walker, Denham Springs, West Monroe, Alexandria, Bossier City and Lafayette police departments. Louisiana State Police Troop L and Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries Region 7 also were honored, as well as the University of Louisiana at Monroe Police Department, the Greater New Orleans Expressway Commission and District Attorney Jerry Jones, whose has jurisdiction in Ouachita and Morehouse parishes.
Martin said he was surprised and pleased with his award. “It’s nice to be recognized every now and then for what you do,” he said.
More importantly, he said, he hopes publicity of the awards sends a message to drunken drivers that they are being watched. “We are doing our job trying to find as many as we can,” Martin said. “We are trying to get them off the road.”
Martin and his colleagues’ efforts could save hundreds of people’s lives every year, Ainsworth said. An estimated 451 people were killed in alcohol-related crashes in Louisiana in 2008, representing almost half of the state’s total highway fatalities, Ainsworth said. Preliminary numbers for 2009 show 355 people being killed in alcohol-related crashes, a 21 percent decrease from 2008.
Published March 12, 2010 - The Advocate
Juvenile justice in Louisiana making transition from confinement to treatment
This isn't the same Louisiana lock-up where a teenager died after a guard knocked him to the ground seven years ago, one of the last horrors to unfold at a youth prison before the state ended its historic practice of treating juvenile delinquents the same as adult convicts. For starters, the 132-bed riverside campus is called the Bridge City Center for Youth, not a "correctional" facility. Instead of a warden, Linda London is the director.
Bridge City, in short, is the promise of a sea change in Louisiana juvenile justice, said Mary Livers, who a year ago became the Office of Juvenile Justice deputy secretary, inheriting a system only five years into transition from confinement to treatment, and an eventual end to sending juveniles hundreds of miles away from home.
Pete Adams, far left, Executive Director of the Louisiana District Attorneys Association, joins other justice and state officials entering Harmony dormitory Tuesday during a tour of the Bridge City Center for Youth.
Kristi Spinosa of the Louisiana District Attorneys Association, Ralph E. Brandt Jr. of the Orleans Parish District Attorney's Office, and Joe Waitz Jr., Terrebonne Parish District Attorney, listen to residents of Harmony dormitory during a tour of the Bridge City Center for Youth.
Bridge City is one of three state "secure care" centers for juveniles; the others are the Swanson center in Monroe, where more than 200 juveniles are held, and the Jetson facility outside Baton Rouge that is home to about 80 youngsters. All three are for boys only; girls are sent to the Ware Youth Center in Coushatta and only the Monroe facility has not fully adopted the "Missouri model,'' named after the state that 17 years ago changed from prisons to treatment centers for juveniles.
Five years ago, Louisiana accepted "the Missouri model,'' sought after across the nation as the answer to juvenile rehabilitation, and began using a therapy method of treating juveniles as troubled children, as the state code demands, rather than as miniature adult convicts held behind the same brand of razor wire and cell bars.
"We're trying to lower their risk so they can return to the community and be not-at-risk to the community and for the rest of their lives," Livers said Tuesday before leading a small group of prosecutors and legislators on a tour of the grounds and dorms at the Bridge City.
"I'd like to shut down all of the buildings that have cells," Livers said, referring to the juvenile lockup in Monroe. "We will shutter them. In the last year, we are not locking kids up and leaving them in private cells."
At the behest of a federal court's oversight, Louisiana's youth centers now have fewer than 500 juveniles under 24-hour care instead of 2,000. Most come from New Orleans, and then from Lafayette or Shreveport. Forty percent have been diagnosed with severe mental illness.click here for full article
Published February 23, 2010 - The Times-Picayune
Officials issue last warning to parents of truant children
Since August 2009, the East Baton Rouge School Board, the district attorney and several others have set out to control the number of truant children in East Baton Rouge and this week is the last chance for some parents to explain why their children have excessive absences or those adults will face jail time. So far, more than 3,000 parents have been questioned.
Last year, the East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff's Office knocked on doors to find missing children. Deputies have picked them up off the streets and now, officials are trying to teach the parents just how serious they are. Three parents have been cited during the 2010 school year.
According to school officials, between August and December 2009, more than 9,000 students missed five or more days of school. Five missed days are enough to be considered truant. This year, in January alone, more than 1,000 kids have missed too many days. Record keeping problems may account for some of those numbers. Some parents told workers they've sent written excuses with their children, but they are still counted as absent.
Skipping school is still considered a problem, though. In some cases, parents drop the kids off at school, but the students just don't find their way to class. In those cases, the problem could be handled in juvenile court. There are some cases of children who have 20 or 30 unexcused absences in 2010. If there's not a valid reason, those cases will be sent to law enforcement.
"And now, all the parents are calling the office because they don't want to go to jail," said Doris Dickerson with the Child Welfare & Attendance office.
For nine years, Dickerson has worked to get kids off the streets and into their seats in the classroom. She said in the past, parents didn't have many answers for those absences. Now, the possibility of jail time and fines are changing that.
"There are some valid reasons," said Kelly Bonaventure, the juvenile coordinator with the District Attorney's Office. "There's some cases we've run across that the child is not getting up to get on the school bus."
WAFB - Baton Rouge - February 23, 2010 Louisiana Sues Death Row Inmates To Block Lethal Injection Lawsuits
On February 15th, the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections filed a countersuit against every death row inmate within the state in response to an earlier lawsuit claiming that Louisiana’s lethal injection procedure is in violation of state law. All death row inmates within the state were formally served papers in this effort to put to rest any further lawsuits claiming that Louisiana’s lethal injection procedure is subject to the state’s Administrative Procedure Act, and that, currently, the procedure does not comply with that Act. The initial suit was filed by the Capital Post Conviction Project of Louisiana (CPCPL) on behalf of death row prisoner Nathaniel Code. In that suit, the CPCPL stated that Louisiana had not met the requirements of its own Administrative Procedures Act in creating guidelines for execution by lethal injection. Attorneys for the CPCPL argued the state procedure ought to specify exactly what drugs should be used to kill prisoners rather than simply calling for the administration of drugs. District Judge Michael Caldwell of Baton Rouge dismissed Nathaniel Code’s suit, which would have halted all executions in Louisiana until the Corrections Department brought its procedures in line with state law. Attorneys for the state argued that Louisiana’s three-drug lethal injection protocol was not subject to the Administrative Procedures Act; the judge agreed, and threw out the suit. By its countersuit, the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections is asking the Court to formally declare, once and for all, that the state’s lethal injection protocol is not subject to the Louisiana Administrative Procedure Act.
Predictably, national coverage of this countersuit has been negative. To review some of this coverage, click here.
Supreme Court Dismisses Challenge to Ruling on Forensic Experts
Defendants will still have the right to demand live testimony from lab technicians and other experts who prepare reports for the prosecution…
David G. Savage for the L.A. Times Reporting from Washington - The Supreme Court on Monday dismissed a pending challenge to a ruling last year requiring lab technicians and other forensic specialists to be available to testify at trials.
In last year's 5-4 decision, the justices said the experts who prepare lab reports are "witnesses" for the prosecution and therefore must be prepared to be cross-examined by the lawyer for the accused.
Justice Antonin Scalia said the Constitution gave defendants a right to be "confronted" with all the witnesses against them, including lab technicians. Prior to the ruling, prosecutors in many states simply introduced a lab report as evidence -- saying, for example, that the white powder found with the defendant was cocaine.
The four dissenters said the decision would be an expensive headache for prosecutors nationwide. Earlier this month, the justices heard arguments in a Virginia case where prosecutors urged the high court to reverse its ruling.
The retirement of Justice David H. Souter, who had joined the 5-4 majority, and his replacement by Justice Sonia Sotomayor led to speculation that the court might take the usual step of reversing a recent ruling.
But Monday, the court issued a one-line order that sends the Virginia case back to a state court for another hearing.
The action leaves intact the ruling that gives defendants the right to demand live testimony from experts who prepare reports for the prosecution.
*A detailed analysis of the above case, Briscoe, et al., v. Virginia, and of Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts can be seen here
