UPDATE 11/20: In response to a lawsuit by the ACLU of Louisiana, a district court judge ordered the Louisiana Department of Corrections (DOC) to turn over all responsive records regarding its COVID-19 Furlough Review Panel – rejecting DOC’s claims that the records were exempt from the state’s public records law.
The documents provided by DOC are available at the bottom of this page.
In August 2020, the American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana sued for the release of public records about a secretive state panel that was intended to facilitate the temporary release of vulnerable people from state prisons amid COVID-19.
As public health experts warned that prisons would become powderkegs for COVID-19, the Louisiana Department of Corrections created a Furlough Review Panel with the stated purpose of reducing the prison population in order to protect public health. The panel was tasked with considering 1,100 people who were imprisoned for low-level offenses and within 180 days of their scheduled release. But three months later, reporting by The Advocate found that the panel examined fewer than 600 of those cases and approved 100 for release, and only 63 were expected to be released.
The ACLU of Louisiana filed a public records request in May seeking additional information about the process and criteria of the review process, as well as meeting agendas and panel members. The Louisiana Department of Corrections has asserted that the COVID-19 Furlough Review Panel is exempt from Louisiana’s Open Meetings Law and produced only one document in response.
