Prison Justice
Courtroom clerk staffers in New Orleans dig by means of landfill to seek out wrongly tossed court docket information
Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry speaks with reporters outdoors the U.S. Supreme Courtroom constructing in Washington, D.C., on March 18, 2024. (Photograph by Francis Chung/Politico by way of the Related Press)
Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry has ordered the Louisiana State Police to research why felony court docket information had been tossed right into a landfill, forcing felony clerk of court docket staffers to wade by means of the particles final week to get better them.
“This can be a disgusting abuse of energy and a slap within the face to crime victims,” Landry mentioned on X, previously referred to as Twitter.
NOLA.com has protection.
Movies shared on-line present staff standing in particles whereas recovering mangled paperwork, the Associated Press reviews. Darren Lombard, clerk of the felony district court docket, mentioned he labored with employees members to dig by means of the rubbish, however not all of the paperwork had been recovered.
“The final day we had been on the market, it stormed a bit, so we recovered nearly every little thing we might,” he instructed WWL-TV.
Lombard mentioned the Louisiana secretary of state’s workplace has a course of in place for lacking or destroyed paperwork that shall be used if a wanted doc can’t be discovered. The tossed paperwork had been from the Nineteen Fifties to the Nineteen Seventies.
The tossed Orleans Parish paperwork included case appeals, docket books and proof logs in circumstances of homicide, rape and armed theft, based on NOLA.com. Felony information should be completely retained within the parish.
The paperwork had been being positioned inside trailers at a Division of Public Works upkeep yard as a result of the felony court docket clerk’s workplace doesn’t have adequate storage, mentioned Joe Risk, the New Orleans chief administrative officer, in an interview with NOLA.com. The paperwork had been discarded when public works staffers had been cleansing out the trailers from the Federal Emergency Administration Company.
The town has reached a lease to purchase settlement for a brand new web site to retailer all court docket paperwork, Risk mentioned.
GETTING HANDS DIRTY:
These are movies of Orleans Parish Prison Clerk Darren Lombard’s employees
…digging by means of a landfill…
For court docket information that metropolis workers wrongly dumped final week.@FOX8NOLA pic.twitter.com/WTvZI86U4c
— Chris Joseph (@ChrisJosephNews) August 5, 2025
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