New Orleans flooded… with felony marijuana cases

New Orleans CityBusiness — The Business Newspaper of Metropolitan New Orleans
Shortly after Keva Landrum-Johnson took over as district attorney following Eddie Jordan’s resignation Oct. 30, hundreds of new felony cases flooded the public defenders office, overwhelming the 29 defense attorneys.

After New Orleans regained its title as the nation’s murder capital, the public demanded its city leaders crack down on violent crime. By filing hundreds of new felony cases each month, it appeared as if the new DA heeded their call.

Unfortunately, this wasn’t the case, said Steve Singer, chief of trials for the Orleans Public Defenders Office.

The flood of new felony charges didn’t target murderers, rapists or armed robbers — they targeted small-time marijuana users, sometimes caught with less than a gram of pot, and threatened them with lengthy prison sentences.

The resulting impact has clogged the courts with non-violent, petty offenses, drained the resources of the criminal justice system and damaged low-income African-American communities, Singer said.

Landrum-Johnson’s decision to accept felony charges on people arrested for second and third marijuana possession offenses is a dramatic break from the tactics of former DAs Jordan and Harry Connick.

A first-time marijuana possession charge in Louisiana is a misdemeanor punishable by up to six months in prison but typically results in a small fine. A second offense is a felony that can carry up to five years in jail and a third offense up to 20 years.

Under Jordan and Connick, however, second and third offenses were routinely reduced to misdemeanors that typically did not require a trial. This freed up public resources to be spent on violent crimes as opposed to minor, victimless offenses, Singer said.

Landrum-Johnson was unavailable for comment but her spokesman Dalton Savwoir said that while he agreed there has been an increase in second and third offense marijuana felony acceptances, the increase is not attributable to a change in policy.

“Rather, the increase is a result of the fact that during 2008, it has become easier to obtain certified copies of prior convictions (that are) required evidence (to prosecute) second and third offense marijuana cases,” Savwoir said.

In other words, Savwoir said, clerical malfunctions that prevented the DA from seeking felony prosecutions of marijuana cases in the past have been rectified.

None of this would have anything to do with Keva Landrum-Johnson running for a judgeship in Orleans Criminal District Court, would it?  Surely this increase in felony prosecution for minor marijuana charges is solely because they fixed a clerical glitch, not because someone running a political campaign wants to point to her high felony prosecution record and proclaim how “tough on crime” she is.