Louisiana legislators grill New Orleans DA for releasing people convicted of violent crimes
BATON ROUGE, Louisiana — Louisiana lawmakers questioned New Orleans District Attorney Jason Williams about reform policy allowing hundreds of people to have their convictions overturned or their sentences reduced in recent years, during a heated Senate hearing Thursday at the state Capitol.
Conservative lawmakers, Republican Attorney General Liz Murrill and several former prosecutors said Williams failed in his duty to defend convictions for violent crimes. They highlighted cases of convicted murderers and rapists who were released from prison through post-conviction relief, which allows new information to be considered after all appeals have been exhausted.
Williams, a Democrat who took office in 2020 on a progressive platform, has defended his record and said his office wants to restore confidence in the justice system. He has pushed to expand the use of post-conviction relief to review cases his office believes are unconstitutional or unjust procedures were used to secure a conviction.
Murrill said she is reviewing what she called the “disproportionately higher number” of legal aid cases granted by Williams’ office since January. He has granted legal aid in about 40 cases during that period, while district attorneys in neighboring Jefferson and St. Tammany parishes have granted only one legal aid case each.
In almost all of the cases cleared by Williams’ office, the person did not argue his innocence as a reason for relief, she said. District attorneys have a duty to fight to uphold convictions, Murrill added.
Williams and his supporters point to New Orleans’ history of police misconduct, prosecutors and harsh sentencing policies as reasons for the high number of cases.
“The job is to enforce the law, not make the law,” Murrill said. “If the district attorney disagreed on policy, that is not a basis for relief.”
Under a new law that took effect in August, Williams’ office must notify the attorney general of cases seeking post-conviction relief and give her the opportunity to intervene.
Murrill and conservative lawmakers said the hearing was part of a process to determine whether Williams had overstepped the mark. They would consider additional legislative responses to his office’s actions in the future. Across the country, conservative lawmakers have sought to limit the independence of progressive prosecutors, said Rebecca Goldstein, a law professor at UC Berkeley.
Sen. Royce Duplessis, a Democrat representing New Orleans, said Williams reflected the values and policies of the voters who elected him and questioned the political motivations behind the hearing.
Laura Rodrigue, a former New Orleans district attorney and daughter of Williams’ predecessor, highlighted what she called a flood of cases in which post-conviction relief was granted despite there being “no legal basis” for relief.
She brought up the case of Eric Matthews, who beat his 2-year-old son to death with a belt in 1994 and had his conviction thrown out earlier this year because his defense attorney was ineffective. Though Williams’ office said it opposed Matthews’ release and is scheduling a new trial, Matthews is currently out on bail.
“If we can find a loophole to release someone, we should not support it because it is evil, it is ungodly,” said Republican Sen. Valarie Hodges.
Republican Sen. Jay Morris brought up the case of another man who stabbed his female partner to death and was later reconvicted and released after Williams’ office acknowledged the ineffective claims of the man’s attorney.
“Are you concerned about the person who brutally murdered his ex-wife being released?” Morris asked Williams.
Williams said he did. But he explained that other potential constitutional violations had been raised in the case and that acknowledging them “could have exposed my office to a lawsuit.”
He said his office had sought to uphold the conviction and had provided statements from the victim’s family to the judge opposing the release.
Williams said he believed much of the testimony presented at the hearing was misleading and unfairly smeared the post-conviction relief process. He said his office was motivated to give people a chance to present new evidence in court, citing a case in which an alleged victim recently admitted to wrongfully accusing a man serving decades for armed robbery.
Some lawmakers have accused Williams of operating without transparency in his decision-making in relief cases. His office has withheld documents related to these cases from the public on the grounds that they are protected “work product,” the Lawyer has reported.
Williams said his office plans to provide lawmakers and the attorney general with full reports of all post-conviction relief cases over the past year.
“We have nothing to hide,” he said.
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Brook is a staff member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on under-reported issues. Follow Brook on the X social platform: @jack_brook96.