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| Photo courtesy KADN |
“However, in response to your other question relative to the prior cases of ‘immediate 894s’ I do not intend to take any action for two reasons.
“First, it was a perfectly legal plea and I would have no compelling reason to try and undo it.
“Secondly, I got exactly what I would have gotten had the plea been taken under any other format, i.e., a plea of guilty to the DWI and the performance of all statutorily required conditions.”
Wake up Mike Harson; it was not a perfectly legal plea. At least some of these defendants — I'll go out on a limb and argue most — did not do what was required of them. There is evidence in court documents that some of the community service these defendants were supposed to perform was done before they were even arrested or completed within days of the arrest. Those cases, in particular that of former Lafayette Parish Sheriff's Deputy Robert A. Lawrence, would be a good place to start.
In August 2011 Lawrence was arrested for OWI with a blood-alcohol content of 0.153 (the legal limit is under .08), according to the arrest affidavit. He was also cited for careless operation and hit and run. Only a month after his arrest, Lawrence appeared in court without an attorney — in all likelihood with Williamson — before 15th Judicial District Judge Ed Rubin and pleaded no contest. The problem with his case is that some of his community service at Acadiana Outreach was performed before he was arrested and signed by an employee who was fired from the agency before Lawrence allegedly completed the community service.
Harson might also start with what former ADA Keith Stutes uncovered when he conducted his own investigation of how the DA's office was handling these cases after the feds launched their probe.
A successful prosecutor immensely respected by fellow prosecutors and defense attorneys alike, Stutes called it quits in August, citing the federal investigation as one of the reasons he decided to retire. We can only hope Attorney General Buddy Caldwell, who now has possession of Stutes’ report, sees things differently than Harson and gets to the bottom of how so many of these defendants were able to get favorable treatment from the time of their arrest through disposition of the case.
If speculation about what’s to come is accurate, Harson will see another of his ADAs and a former ADA face disbarment for their roles in this scheme. IND Monthly readers might recall that Floyd Johnson was disbarred last year — an embarrassment Harson could have avoided had he taken appropriate action in 2004 when Johnson was arrested for domestic violence.
Johnson, who was convicted of tax evasion six years later and sentenced to 18 months, was released from federal prison late last year. He served out his sentence at the Federal Transfer Center in Oklahoma City, Okla., and is now on probation for three years. He stayed on Harson's payroll throughout the federal probe, which was much broader than a tax evasion investigation and Harson knew it.
If another current and former ADA do face disbarment because of felony convictions, that’s three strikes for Harson.
MAY 17 Here's a column from James Gill, this time in the Advocate. Gill, who has jumped ship from the Picayune, writes about the absurdity of dueling polls in this post. The numbers are so wildly different, it is obvious that both sides are "cooking the books," he writes. In particular, he looks at Sen. Mary Landrieu, and how her recent actions in DC have been received by those polled. Gill's acerbic, amusing prose is a welcome addition to a paper so conservative as to be occasionally lacking in personality.
MAY 17 Blogger Tom Aswell continues delivering bombshells about the state education department and Gov. Jindal's education "reform" efforts. In this post, he reports that students in the Shreveport area have been signed up for a charter school without their knowledge or consent. Most interesting to Aswell is how this Texas-based charter (with ties to GOP types) got the personal student information it has, if the students didn't give it.
MAY 17 This post by JR Ball in the Baton Rouge Business Report is an interesting tongue-in-cheek look at recent Baton Rouge economic development efforts. Among the items he examines is the idea that gaining a Costco makes BR a "world-class city." (Really? All you need is a different brand of Sam's? MK!) This effort, and other recent ones, are all built on the taxpayer's back, with tax zones, tax incentives and tax rebates, Ball writes.
MAY 17 Blogger CB Forgotston is critical of the legislature's reliance on a revenue-estimating committee's decision to include projected tax amnesty income in this year's forecast. That's a problem, CB posts, because the deadline for these people to pay their taxes is June 30, 2014. So when do you think these people who haven't paid taxes in years are going to pay their taxes? Surely not before June 30, and that means the money won't be there for this year's budget, he argues.
MAY 17 Here's an interesting blog out of California by a Hollywood writer, attorney and academic named Brian Alan Lane. He blogs about higher ed, and was a whistle-blower in a scandal over false credentials. In this post, he takes aim at LSU's new top dog, King Alexander. It's convoluted and a little confusing, but it sure makes Alexander a lot more interesting than he was yesterday.
MAY 17 Blogger Robert Mann writes about the LSU Board's refusal to allow Dr. Fred Cerise to testify before the legislature about Gov. Jindal's plan to close down all the state's charity hospitals and dump the poor on the private system. It's hard to imagine anyone more qualified than Cerise to testify about that, so why would anyone try to prevent him doing so? Mann thinks it is because the powers that be aren't interested in hearing any truth about the plan.
MAY 17 This post on the Louisiana Sinkhole Bugle, a blog that notes developments in the Bayou Corne and Jefferson Island salt domes, talks about a proposed expansion of the salt dome storage under Lake Peigneur in Iberia Parish. Residents are working against it for several reasons, including two biggies: the sinkhole disaster in Bayou Corne and the continuing, unexplained bubbling on the surface of the Lake.
MAY 17 NOLA police arrested more people Thursday accused of either being involved in the Mother's Day shooting or hiding the suspect afterward, this Gambit story reports. The NOLA police chief said he suspects the whole thing was gang-related and throws out a challenge to the gangs: he's got informants now, he says, and he knows a lot more than the gangs want him to know. The people who live in the neighborhoods terrorized by gangs are ready to talk, he says.
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