By Andres Fuentes | WVUE | May 4, 2023
NEW ORLEANS (WVUE) – Thursday afternoon (May 4), Orleans Parish District Attorney Jason Williams stood side-by-side with notable New Orleans East figures – all united against the crime wave plaguing the city.
Business owners, faith leaders and city officials were at the eastbound I-10 exit off of Crowder Blvd. to commemorate a 2022 double homicide that killed Kane Sanders and Christopher Cornelius. Both shot and killed near Curran Road and Benson Street.
“What we are talking about today is convictions. The system working together to get that person that was responsible for the crime they were caught for and possibly many others,” Councilman Oliver Thomas said.
Williams’ office was able to convict Devion Taylor for the double homicide, which is a win for the office. But the Metropolitan Crime Commission reports among the 343 violent felony cases the DA’s office received from January 1, 2023 until April 15, 2023, only 7% resulted in guilty as charged convictions. According to the crime watchdog group, that’s the lowest since the 2% conviction rate in 2021 when COVID-19 crippled the criminal justice system.
Williams says it’s difficult to complete a violent felony case when evidence is lacking.
“It’s not a hiccup. You need witnesses to prove cases. sometimes witnesses are willing to talk the day of an incident but when the case goes to trial they are not willing to come to court, swear an oath and testify,” he said. “When there is evidence, when there is witness testimony, the case is going to move forward.”
But Rafael Goyeneche of the Metropolitan Crime Commission says he’s worried about the low conviction rate and that so far this year, 36%of cases were changed to a misdemeanor and 27% were lowered to a lesser felony
“If the district attorney’s office dismisses or reduces a violent felony to a misdemeanor, then that potentially means a violent offender is back on the streets,” Goyeneche said. “That’s an indication of a problem either in screening or in the trial division.”
Williams and Councilman Oliver Thomas say the way forward is all branches of the justice system working more fluidly – from the streets to the court room.
“Constitutional proactive policing. Constitutional proactive prosecution. Right?,” Thomas said.
But Goyeneche thinks the DA’s office suffers from many of the same systemic issues as the NOPD — mainly in its pay for staffers and issues with management.
“The scrutiny that we’ve been giving to the police department, trying to identify the cause for the attrition and pose solutions to that, maybe we need to apply that to the district attorney’s office as well,” he said.