Every major publication in America, from The Chicago Tribune and GQ to The Washington Post and Dallas Morning News, had a reporter in the courtroom at one time during the 2001 racketeering trial of Edwards, who is still serving out a 10-year sentence in federal prison. Louisiana hasn't seen that kind of gavel-to-gavel drama since, but that's about to change.
Opening arguments kicked off last week in Attorney General Charles Foti's criminal case against the owners of St. Rita's nursing home, where 35 patients died in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Salvador and Mabel Mangano, the owners of the St. Bernard Parish nursing home, are being tagged with negligent homicide by the prosecution. They are the only people in Louisiana being forced to stand trial for any of the 1,400 deaths brought about by Katrina, which made landfall nearly two years ago.
Foti's team is prepared to argue that the Mangano's patients should have been evacuated and not left behind to deal with the floodwaters and storm surge. The defense, meanwhile, is planning to call Gov. Kathleen Blanco to the stand to sort out whether a massive-scale evacuation was properly planned by the state. Not to be outdone, the prosecution has also subpoenaed a group of New Orleans meteorologists and television news directors. No one, from the Fourth Floor to the Fourth Estate, wants to be on the witness stand.
The state attempted to argue its way out of Blanco's subpoena, but Judge Jerome Winsberg stood firm and now the governor is in a situation that no elected official envies. Joe Raspanti, a criminal lawyer and courtroom analyst from Metairie, says Blanco's oratory proficiency has gotten her in trouble in the past and endless hours on the stand could be a public-relations nightmare. "The governor having to testify could absolutely be an embarrassing experience," he says.
Winsberg is regarded as a fair judge, Raspanti adds, but the defense is pulling out all the stops. If an issue related to Blanco's response is floating around out there, expect the defense to try and drag it in. Stuart P. Green, a criminal law professor at Paul M. Hebert LSU Law Center, says Blanco could ask Winsberg to take her testimony behind closed doors, away from public scrutiny. "She could even argue there are security issues, but I doubt this will come up," he says. "Still, it always could."
One thing is for sure: it could turn into a media circus outside and inside the courtroom. In addition to Blanco, the prosecution has subpoenaed New Orleans broadcasters Carl Arredondo of WWL, Bob Breck of WVUE and Dan Milham of WDSU; prosecutors plans to ask the meteorologists about their pre-Katrina coverage. More than 72 hours of news coverage from the stations has been reviewed and edited by Foti's office, likely showing repeated warnings to get out of town.
While Blanco is granted certain protections under the law, members of the various news teams are not. No other lawsuits are expected to arise from the testimony expected, but there's always an element of the unknown. "Hell, you can sue the pope for pandering on Poydras Street if you want to," Raspanti says.
The trial was moved to St. Francisville after all of the parties involved agreed that would be difficult to get a fair trial and proper jury poll in the New Orleans area following Katrina. The case is expected to run for four to six weeks in the St. Francisville Courthouse. The squabbling that preceded the jury selection is mostly over, and now it's all about the judicial system and the testimony of a group of high-profile witnesses. "The politics have ended," says Raspanti. "That's moot at this point. The show is starting, the jury has been seated and now the rules of evidence kick in."
MAY 24 Blogger Robert Mann posts this entry about the Baton Rouge Chamber's recent report on Louisiana's higher education system. It's critical to economic development, and yet our system is facing a "funding crisis" with no way to resolve it, the report says. The Chamber says control of tuition and fees must be returned to the higher ed governing boards.
MAY 24 Here's a NBC33 story about Tyrann Mathieu. He has signed with the Arizona Cardinals, inking a $3 million, four-year deal. He gets a signing bonus of $265K, but gets another, larger bonus if he doesn't get cut from the team for doing drugs. The deal reportedly includes mandatory tests and meetings for the player.
MAY 24 Jarvis DeBerry posts here about the redonkulus rhetoric that would have us believe NOLA is a safe city with a murder problem. Maybe the city's crime stats don't compare with its murder stats because you can't manipulate a murder, he says: a dead body's a dead body. It just doesn't make sense, he says, and his readers agree: a poll asks if they believe the city is safe, and more than 90 percent say no.
MAY 24 Jindal administration officials announced Thursday that the privatization of public health care is going to cost a lot more than they budgeted for, the Advocate reports here. "I'm so surprised," said no one. Anywhere. The cost they're projecting now is more than $1 billion - a lot more than the $626 million budgeted for it. And, it's more than it cost the state to operate those hospitals. So why are we doing this again?
MAY 24 Blogger CB Forgotston ridicules the recent PR campaign by the state GOP in the wake of a legislative auditor's request to both major parties. The GOP (apparently unaware that the Dems got the same request) started yammering about being targeted because it had "killed" a tax increase. CB finds that laughable, but it's also pretty funny that the GOP was comparing this episode to the IRS scandal (Because the President has so much to do with our state auditor. Right?).
MAY 24 Politico details some recent fund-raising efforts by Sen. David Vitter, which have raised the question of his future political plans. This time, it is a $5,000 per head "bayou weekend" that includes "Cajun cooking" and an all-caps "alligator hunt," the story reports. Funds raised go to a super PAC that can spend money to support Vitter in federal or state races, the story points out.
MAY 24 The pink building on Royal in the quarter was sold at a sheriff's sale Thursday, this Picayune story reports. An injunction that would have halted the sale wasn't enforced because the family failed to post a $150,000 bond, the story reports. So the owner of the mortgages on the building bought it, for nearly $7 million. Now the feuding family will have to negotiate with that company to get a lease on the building that has housed their business for close to 60 years.
MAY 23 This post in Louisiana Voice tells us about a bill by a Winnsboro lege that would require all public high school students to take at least one Course Choice online class in order to graduate. (What?) Blogger Tom Aswell says it's a monument to "waste and corruption," especially in light of the problems he's exposed with the program in recent weeks. Idaho had a similar program, but voters removed it by a 2-1 margin, Aswell says.
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