By Staff | KPLC | May 26, 2020 LAKE CHARLES, La. (KPLC) – For years the public has been able to access financial disclosures of elected officials through the State Ethics Board, except for judges. But after being nudged by a watchdog group, the State Supreme Court is making such information more easily available to…
Staff Editorial | Nola.com | May 21, 2020 How embarrassing was it for Louisiana’s secretive Supreme Court when the Metropolitan Crime Commission of New Orleans put the judges’ financial disclosure forms online? The Legislature’s disclosures are online, and so are the governor’s. But the justices were making members of the public file a records request…
By Matt Sledge | Nola.com | May 20, 2020 After nearly two weeks of decline, the number of inmates at the New Orleans jail testing positive for the novel coronavirus spiked to its highest point yet on Wednesday, raising concerns that the virus is infecting inmates who once appeared safe. There were 94 inmates in Orleans Parish…
By John Simerman | Nola.com | May 15, 2020 The Louisiana Supreme Court began posting the current financial disclosures of state judges on its newly revamped web site this week, the latest step to quell rising public pressure for more transparency within the state’s elected judiciary. The move by the state’s highest court to post…
By Matt Sledge | Nola.com | May 8, 2020 Orleans Parish District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro announced on Friday that he was furloughing 56 employees, including investigators and victim counselors, as the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic hit home for a criminal justice agency that weathered past downturns without cuts. The full-time furloughs, which affect…
By David Hammer and Gordon Russell | WWLTV and Nola.com | April 28, 2020 NEW ORLEANS — Ray Nagin’s abrupt release from prison Monday amid the coronavirus pandemic brought down the final curtain on the biggest City Hall corruption scandal in New Orleans’ colorful history to wind up in a courtroom. The former mayor was…
By Matt Sledge and Lea Skene | Nola.com | April 25, 2020 A federal judge made his dismay plain this week after he surveyed the conditions inside a state prison in Washington Parish with at least 29 confirmed coronavirus cases. Nearly 80 prisoners were sleeping in bunks an arm’s length apart in the Rayburn Correctional…
By Matt Sledge and Jeff Adelson l Nola.com I April 11, 2020 New Orleans residents are calling 911 a hundred fewer times each day since the city shut down to halt the novel coronavirus, with crime reports falling in major categories like homicides, robberies, carjackings, auto burglaries and thefts. Serious crime stats have dropped in…
By Matt Sledge l Nola.com I April 6, 2020 Three days after a reputed 6th Ward gang leader was released from jail — in part because of the danger posed to inmates by the novel coronavirus — he was shot dead on the block where police accused him of peddling heroin. The Sunday afternoon death of 33-year-old Glynn…
By Mike Perlstein l WWLTV I April 6, 2020 NEW ORLEANS — Due to the threat of the coronavirus, the accused leader of a New Orleans drug gang was released from jail Thursday on a recognizance bond, a form or release requiring no money. Glynn McCormick’s release came less than two years after his original…