News & Commentary

The American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana Executive Director Marjorie Esman issued the following statement regarding the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision not to hear a challenge to non-unanimous jury convictions.  Only Louisiana and Oregon allow verdicts by less than a unanimous vote of the jury in noncapital cases.

People awaiting trial before a Baton Rouge criminal court were coerced into paying hundreds of dollars to a company before they were released from jail – even after they had paid their bail, according to a lawsuit filed last night by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and the ACLU of Louisiana.

In a victory for the American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana, the New Orleans Civil District Court today ordered Orleans Parish District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro to turn over public records from the past five years identifying the prosecutors in his office who have issued or authorized false subpoenas, or documents that claim to be subpoenas but were not issued by a court.

The ACLU of Louisiana is suing Orleans Parish District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro for refusing to provide public records identifying the lawyers in his office who have issued or authorized false subpoenas, or documents that claim to be subpoenas but were not issued by a court. The suit seeks to compel the District Attorney to respond to an inquiry, sent on May 5, 2017, which requested documents sufficient to show the names and Louisiana bar numbers of those lawyers.

Last week Orleans Parish District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro told WWL-TV that he feels victims of violent crimes, including domestic abuse and sexual assault, are “wrong” for refusing to testify in their cases. In making his case for the use of a material witness warrant to compel a rape victim to testify against their attacker, Cannizzaro said, "Is it more important for this witness to be inconvenienced for a very short period of time or is it better for the community to get the violent offender off the streets and keep him off the streets?"

NEW ORLEANS — The New Orleans City Council yesterday unanimously approved an ordinance that will eliminate bail for most nonviolent municipal offenses, becoming the first major city in the state to pass a meaningful bail reform plan. The fight for bail reform in New Orleans has been tirelessly led by the Orleans Parish Prison Reform Coalition (OPPRC), of which the ACLU of Louisiana is a founding member.