Orleans district attorney questioned over reducing sentences to right civil rights wrongs

BATON ROUGE, La. (BRPROUD) — A legislative committee grilled the Orleans Parish District Attorney over his moves to allow some inmates to be released earlier. Some believe he’s let too many people out too quickly as abuse of the post-conviction relief process.

District Attorney Jason Williams defended his actions with these re-sentencings. Since he took office in 2021, Williams has granted 349 re-sentencings — with about 40 of them brought this year. He has taken a more progressive approach in undoing some of the policies and lost trust of past leaders of the office he now helms.

“Due process is important. Cheating, cutting corners, if there is any defect in any conviction, whether that’s an innocent person or a guilty person, a lawyer, let alone a prosecutor, nor a judge can sweep that or should sweep that under the rug. It must be exposed in open court and then judges make decisions,” Williams said

The hearing was called after an uproar on social media alerted lawmakers to Orleans re-sentencings far outpacing the rest of the state. Williams described how he’s working with his civil rights division to correct some case mistakes, such as overuse of the multiple billing statute or nonunanimous jury convictions.

“A lot of things have tried to compress the topic of complicated legal hearings in a tweet,” Williams said.

During his tenure, his office has worked to reduce sentences or lead to some exonerations. Some suggest there was a rush in these cases before a new law went into effect on Aug. 1 that requires the attorney general to be alerted to re-sentencings.

“There are restrictions on our behavior as a prosecutor, and that applies in both directions,” Attorney General Liz Murrill said.

The attorney general is not taking a stance on whether Williams violated the law as she is still reviewing the cases.

Some lawmakers took issue with allowing re-sentencings for people who were convicted under nonunanimous juries. They claim the U.S. Supreme Court decision in the Ramos case meant that the ban on nonunanimous jury convictions cannot be retroactive. Democrat state Rep. Royce Duplessis pushed back on this idea, claiming the court decision simply meant the retroactivity wasn’t automatic but still could be applied by district attorneys.

In some of the cases, the victim’s families were against the idea of release with updated sentences.

“The district attorney is now stepping into the shoes of the governor and trying to basically concede an error that has been denied over and over and over again by the courts. That’s where I would have a concern,” Murrill said.

Some lawmakers pushed back against the progressive DA, stating inmates should be left in jail if there is no possibility of innocence. Williams responded that if his office finds there was a violation of rights or a case was mismanaged in the past, there should be a chance to fix it, even if the inmate is guilty.

“Some of your maybe more conservative colleagues believe that I have leaned too heavily on correcting the wrongs of the past. My office has been measured, it’s been transparent, and I’ve listened to the community,” Williams said.

Lawmakers said future legislation could tighten the post-conviction relief process or put more oversight on district attorneys. The chairman of the committee stated he expects to have more hearings in the future once they get more of the court documents of the cases.

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