D.A. accuses OJJ, juvenile court of "dereliction of duty"

New Orleans District Attorney Jason Williams is demanding changes in how the Louisiana Office of Juvenile Justice and the Orleans Parish Juvenile Court surveil juvenile offenders who are sentenced to electronic monitoring upon conviction.

Williams’s renewed call for reform comes just days after a 15-year-old boy was arrested in connection with the shooting death of a French Quarter tour guide. According to published reports, that teen suspect wearing a deactivated court-ordered ankle monitor when police caught him.

“In light of the trends of a complete dereliction of duty in matters of violent defendants released on electronic monitoring after conviction, with no guardrails from OJJ and OPJC, we as a city have to seriously consider shutting down electronic monitoring until we can be confident in the competence of the administrators to conduct real monitoring and the commitment of judges to ensure actual accountability for young defendants for violations and noncompliance,” Williams said in a statement released Monday night.

Williams accused Orleans Parish juvenile judges of refusing to accept the district attorney’s office’s recommendations for strong sentences for violent juvenile offenders.

“We have repeatedly sounded the alarm on the deplorable state of the electronic monitoring program and the lack of communication with impacted agencies when breakdowns occur in the juvenile system,” Williams said. “Here again, we have a defendant convicted as charged of crimes of violence, who was given more leniency than deserved by a Juvenile Court Judge, despite the DA’s argument for a more severe custodial sentence.
Although the DA’s office disagreed with the leniency handed out by the judge, the sentence she chose was legal and within her discretion.”

According to Williams, the 15-year-old violated the conditions of his court-ordered monitoring multiple times, but the juvenile court released each time. Williams says if the court hadn’t been so lenient, the tour guide’s murder might not have happened.

“The defendant had already demonstrated himself to be a danger to both his family and the public,” Williams said. “Despite this, the court released him a second time after he violated the judge’s original, very lenient sentence. He was required to wear a juvenile court ankle monitoring device capable of tracking his location. However, as we have repeatedly stated publicly, neither the Court nor the Office of Juvenile Justice (OJJ) are monitoring these devices in real-time. It is also evident that neither party is reviewing delayed reports for violations, such as curfew breaches and geographical location restrictions.

“Immediate intervention is needed to bring stability to the scattered and passive state of juvenile supervision. The City’s Office of Juvenile Justice appears unable or disinterested in ensuring compliance and actual monitoring of juvenile defendants placed on electronic monitoring.”