Advocates press N.O.’s new DA on criminal justice reform

1st February 2021   ·   0 Comments

By Ryan Whirty
Contributing Writer

A coalition of local and national racial justice advocates are pressing newly-elected Orleans Parish District Attorney Jason Williams to follow through on his campaign pledge to institute criminal justice reform.

Color of Change, the country’s largest online racial justice organization, joined with the People’s DA Coalition late last month to issue a slate of demands to Williams’ office to revise or remove the racially discriminatory practices that have characterized Orleans Parish’s efforts for decades.

The People’s DA Coalition – a group of area activists, judges and crime survivors dedicated to spurring criminal justice reform – and Color for Change sent a comprehensive list of measures they want Williams and his staff to enact in an effort to erase the discriminatory prosecutorial practices that disproportionately harm people and communities of color in New Orleans.

Erika Maye, deputy senior director for criminal justice campaigns for Color of Change, said the advocacy coalition urges Williams to take steps to drastically reduce the number of people of color caught in the local criminal justice system. Maye said measures such as ending the cash bail system, choosing community-based rehabilitation programs instead of draconian incarceration sentences, and using increased selectivity when deciding which defendants to prosecute.

“District Attorney Williams has an opportunity to start [the prosecution process] anew and begin the process of racial reform in a criminal justice system rife with corruption and racist practices,” she said. Maye added that the process of comprehensive reform “is going to take months, if not years,” and she said the community must continue applying pressure on the system for that to happen.

“We have to be in it for the long haul,” she said. “We’ll challenge him when we think he can go further [with reform], but we feel that his election is promising.”

Some of the demands being made by Color of Change and the People’s DA Coalition include:

• Requiring the DA’s office to issue formal charges within five days of arrest;

• Declining to prosecute solely for nonpayment of court fees and fines;

• Creating a publicly available list of officers who won’t be called to testify in criminal cases because of their records of service misconduct;

• Issuing new policies requiring prosecutors to present rationale in writing when recommending prison time instead of community-based rehabilitation options, and when recommending incarceration periods that exceed the minimum.

Maye said reform advocates hope that the new administration in the Orleans Parish District Attorney’s office places a new emphasis on reforming defendants instead of punishing them with harsh prison sentences that disproportionately and negatively affect the poor, people of color and other vulnerable, disadvantaged populations.

One of the primary goals of the reform coalition is pressing Williams to follow through on his campaign pledge to end the cash bail system, which effectively imprisons people solely because they can’t afford to pay bail in the lead-up to their trials or case processing.

Maye said the cash bail system is a prime example of the way the current, punitive nature of the criminal justice system traps the poor in jail before their cases are even resolved.

“Here at Color of Change, we hope to work with District Attorney Williams on positive reform so that people aren’t kept in cages because they can’t pay bail,” she said, adding that the current system “locks people up for being poor.”

Williams is a former long-time criminal defense attorney and member of the New Orleans City Council, where he led the city’s efforts to encourage criminal justice reform. He became the new district attorney after winning a runoff election in December 2020.

Williams is viewed as a leading light in the national movement for progressive criminal justice reform that has taken place in recent years following the burgeoning Black Lives Matter effort and the nationwide protests last year following the killing of several unarmed Black citizens by law-enforcement officers.

Since his swearing in, Williams has assembled a transition team of progressive reform advocates and has solicited input and advice from numerous local and national policy experts.

The philosophy espoused by Williams during his campaign and in his first few weeks in his new job represents a stark contrast with the policies of the previous district attorney, Leon Cannizzaro, who decided not to run for re-election last year after two terms in office.

Cannizzaro was frequently criticized for his office’s harsh methods and alleged tendency to disproportionately prosecute and imprison the poor and people of color. Frequently during his tenure he was accused of forgoing defendant reform and rehabilitation in favor of draconian incarceration practices.

“Cannizzaro used the most powerful office in the criminal justice system to define justice in mind-bogglingly racist terms,” she said.

This article originally published in the February 1, 2021 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.