Justice gone wild
11th April 2016 · 0 Comments
By Edmund W. Lewis
Editor
What’s up with the D.A.?
That question has been popping up all over the Crescent City as the city’s top prosecutor made it clear that he is not playing with criminals who are reckless and brazen enough to boost candy from retail outlets.
I mean, what’s next? Stealing jumbo dill pickles from corner stores or shaking down the Hucklebuck Lady or the Ice Cream Man for a free Nutty Buddy?
In this district attorney’s mind, New Orleans is only a few hiccups away from turning into Gotham City and the only thing standing between the total chaos that would bring is him doing a lackluster impersonation of Eliott Ness.
For those who don’t know, Jacobia Grimes, 35, was arrested in December for stealing $31 worth of candy from a Dollar General store in Central City, his 24th arrest since 1996.
Rumors began to swirl in national media that the D.A. was considering hitting Grimes with a 20 years to life sentence if he is convicted. Orleans Parish Criminal Court Judge Frank Zibilich called D.A. Cannizzaro out and wondered out loud why the former judge would dole out such a heavy-handed brand of justice.
On Tuesday, Cannizzaro, an elected official, said he has no intention of prosecuting Grimes as a “quad” offender — a defendant with three prior felony convictions – which would be necessary for Grimes to face 20 years to life for stealing candy.
One has to wonder if the glaring heat from national media attention and the local criticism by a criminal court judge might have played a role in Cannizzaro’s announcement that he wouldn’t throw the book at Grimes or if he never really intended to. It’s hard to tell with this D.A.
What was clear last week was that Cannizzaro was not at all happy about being called out by a criminal court judge for potentially pursuing a sentence that certainly sounds a little harsh, even in this city and state where historically there has been very little justice in the criminal justice system.
“I’m a little disturbed that the judge wants to make light of it,” Cannizzaro said last week, without mentioning Judge Zibilich by name.
“Sure, he could go to jail for 20 years to life,” Cannizzaro is quoted as saying in Nola.com. “And if we were to do something like that, then we’re going to be criticized for imposing this draconian sentence. But heaven forbid if he goes out there and hurts somebody. Then the big question we’re going to be asked is, ‘Why didn’t you guys put him away when you had all those opportunities?’ Because there’s going to come a time when somebody is going to get hurt in one of these theft escapades.”
“I know a lot of people are making light of the situation, about the ‘sweet tooth’ and all of that,” Cannizzaro said. “But in my opinion, this guy does this sort of (theft) thing to satisfy his (drug) habit. Since 1996, they’ve had 20 years of working with him in the Department of Corrections, not only as an inmate but also while he was on probation.
“They had 20 years to get this guy a GED. They had 20 years to get this guy some job skill. They had 20 years to try to wean this person off of narcotics. And the system has miserably failed him. Now we seen him again coming into the system. …This is what you call a total failure of the criminal justice system, because we haven’t done anything to make this person right.”
The D.A. doesn’t sound the least bit bitter, right? Or like someone who is ticked off about being pressured into handling a repeat offender with kid gloves, huh?
When I first heard about the D.A. playing hardball with this seasoned candy thief, I wondered why Cannizzaro hasn’t used that same zeal in pursuing charges of any kind against former NOPD Officer David Warren who gunned down 31-year-old Henry Glover on the West Bank less than a week after Hurricane Katrina.
I wondered why the D.A. has no qualms about trying teenagers as adults but couldn’t bring himself to charge Marigny homeowner and City of New Orleans employee Merritt Landry for shooting an unarmed 14-year-old Black kid in the head for trespassing on his property.
I wondered why the district attorney focused his wrath recently on private attorneys trying to protect the constitutional rights of low-income defendants who have languished in Orleans Parish Prison for hundreds of days without a public defender rather than at the Louisiana Legislature for failing to appropriate the funds needed to ensure that those arrested have access to legal counsel and a fair trial.
I wondered why the D.A. announced a new partnership with Innocence Project New Orleans aimed at bringing about criminal justice reform only to turn around after he was re-elected and do everything in his power to put wrongfully convicted Jerome Morgan back in jail even after several key witnesses admitted that they lied on the witness stand.
None of this sounds like the actions or decisions of a district attorney who is committed to providing all segments of the New Orleans populace with equal justice or ensuring that victims’ and defendants’ constitutional and human rights aren’t violated.
Jacobia Grimes’ actions sound like those of a man who needs both mental health care and treatment for substance abuse, not the draconian justice routinely doled out in New Orleans when the rest of the nation isn’t watching.
When we fail to provide people who desperately need help with that help, all of us suffer.
We also suffer when district attorneys, judges and other elected officials decide to cater to only certain segments of the community and make getting re-elected their top priority.
The district attorney seems to have forgotten that he is part of the criminal justice system he railed against last week. Perhaps he is also struggling to understand that unless he steps up and actively addresses the failures and shortcomings of the system, he is part of the problem.
D.A. Cannizzaro’s handling of the case of the accused candy thief and his reaction to being criticized for even thinking about throwing the book at Jacobi Grimes will do very little to undermine Louisiana’s dubious reputation as the “prison capital of the world.” Nor will it quiet the growing number of critics who are convinced that the expiration date of this district attorney has come and gone.
This article originally published in the April 11, 2016 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
