IAPE Evidence Blog

Times-Picayune (New Orleans)
BYLINE: Leslie William, lwilliams@timespicayune.com

New Orleans, LA

Low-key race has con­tentious moments

In 2006, when the con­tro­ver­sial Kim­berly Williamson But­ler opted not to seek re-election as clerk of Crim­i­nal Court and instead run for mayor, 11 peo­ple lined up to replace her.

The queue is much shorter this year.

Only two peo­ple are com­pet­ing for the $119,000 job: incum­bent Arthur Mor­rell, a six-term state rep­re­sen­ta­tive, and new­comer Harold Weiser III, a local lawyer.

In Decem­ber, Judge Lloyd Med­ley Jr. affirmed a Louisiana Board of Ethics deci­sion dis­qual­i­fy­ing a third can­di­date, David Nowak, after he signed a “notice of can­di­dacy” stat­ing he did not owe any out­stand­ing fines. He actu­ally owed $300, accord­ing to the board.

The low-key con­test between the 66-year-old Mor­rell, a vet­eran lawyer and politi­cian, and the 26-year-old Weiser, who has been in pri­vate prac­tice for about a year, has attracted a frac­tion of the money and atten­tion other races in the Feb. 6 elec­tion have received.

Weiser so far has received $550 in con­tri­bu­tions and $1,000 in in-kind con­tri­bu­tions; Morrell’s most recent campaign-finance report lists con­tri­bu­tions of nearly $6,000 and about $9,000 in in-kind contributions.

The chal­lenge for Weiser and Mor­rell is to divert vot­ers’ atten­tion from the issues dom­i­nat­ing the mayor’s race to a dis­cus­sion of the clerk’s duties as elec­tions man­ager and cus­to­dian of court records, evi­dence and property.

“Every elec­tion has been on time since I started here on June 15, 2006,” said Mor­rell. “The 2008 pres­i­den­tial elec­tion was the great­est chal­lenge. As I under­stand it, the race had the largest turnout ever in terms of the per­cent­age of New Orleans reg­is­tered vot­ers to par­tic­i­pate in an election.”

Mor­rell said his office has increased the num­ber of peo­ple assist­ing vot­ers at large precincts.

Weiser promised to improve elec­tions by increas­ing the num­ber of polling places in areas where peo­ple do not have transportation.

While the two can­di­dates seem to be on the same page when it comes to admin­is­ter­ing elec­tions, the tone becomes con­tentious when the sub­ject shifts to secur­ing evi­dence — another major task for the clerk, who over­sees 91 full-time, six part-time and three con­tract employees.

Weiser said he has “heard sto­ries from other attor­neys and police offi­cers” that evi­dence was not avail­able for tri­als because it dis­ap­peared from the clerk of court’s evi­dence room. He said he has no direct proof, but has been told the dis­ap­pear­ances are common.

Non­sense, said Mor­rell, who spec­u­lated Weiser may be con­fus­ing reports about the New Orleans Police Department’s evi­dence room — from which large sums of cash have been reported miss­ing — with the clerk’s evi­dence room.

Mor­rell said that, since he took over from But­ler, he has been improv­ing the process for secur­ing, locat­ing and iden­ti­fy­ing evi­dence. In early spring, the clerk’s office began using a bar-code sys­tem to inven­tory evi­dence, he said.

Weiser said he plans to upgrade secu­rity cam­eras at the court’s off-site evi­dence room as well as require one police offi­cer and one sheriff’s deputy to guard the site at all times.

The two can­di­dates also dis­agree about whether a new sys­tem for fil­ing motions at Crim­i­nal Dis­trict Court even exists. The sys­tem has been touted by Morrell.

Instead of wait­ing in a court­room to file a vari­ety of motions before a judge, lawyers can file motions at an “intake desk” on the sec­ond floor of the cour­t­house. Weiser argues that the desk “is not oper­a­tional.” The intake desk became fully oper­a­tional in Novem­ber, Mor­rell said.

Chief Judge Arthur Hunter Jr. sided with Mor­rell when asked about the discrepancy.

“The intake desk is oper­a­tional,” Hunter said.

Weiser and Mor­rell agree that the court should con­tinue mov­ing toward a paper­less sys­tem for records.

Weiser is so keen on upgrad­ing the court’s com­puter sys­tem to allow lawyers to use it remotely that he promises to use money from his salary and cut the salaries of “higher-paid employ­ees” of the clerk’s office to pay for the upgrade.

“Right now,” said Weiser, “you can’t get any­thing unless you go to the court building.”

.… …
Leslie Williams can be reached at lwilliams@timespicayune.com or 504.826.3358.

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Inter­na­tional Asso­ci­a­tion for Prop­erty and Evi­dence
“Law Enforce­ment Serv­ing the Needs of Law Enforce­ment“
www.IAPE.org

www.fox8live.com
BYLINE: Rob Mas­son, Reporter, Email: rmasson@fox8tv.net
Link to Arti­cle
One Picture

New Orleans, LA

A recent audit shows more than $200,000 is miss­ing from the NOPD evi­dence room.

New Orleans — It’s been over a year since FOX 8 first told you about the theft of tens of thou­sands of dol­lars from the New Orleans police evi­dence room.

The good news is that the thefts appear to have been nipped in the bud. The bad news, the NOPD has not been able to uncover who, per­haps from police ranks, stole the money.

In the tur­moil fol­low­ing Hur­ri­cane Kat­rina, as much as a quar­ter of a mil­lion dol­lars in evi­dence cash was reported stolen from the NOPD evi­dence room.

Police chief War­ren Riley promised a full inves­ti­ga­tion, as he moved the evi­dence room to a secure location.

Now, the chief says one year later, he’s not in a posi­tion to close his inquiry. He says one sus­pect may have left the depart­ment, and he says he doesn’t have any con­crete evidence.

Riley says the thefts appeared to have been fueled by two main prob­lems. First, there were too many keys given out when the evi­dence room was moved to a trailer after Kat­rina. Sec­ondly, he says too many peo­ple were involved in the mov­ing of evi­dence, to the more secure facil­ity in 2008.

The theft was first revealed, when attor­ney Rick Teissier’s client had $36,000 stolen from police evidence.

The chief has imple­mented a dual key sys­tem to access evi­dence. And while Teissier says the sys­tem seems to be work­ing, he says, “I don’t know why it takes the chief over a year to find out who took the money.’

With just a few months remain­ing on the job, the chief hopes to make an arrest soon. Riley says, “We are deter­mined to find this infor­ma­tion. We do have evi­dence, but not enough to say it’s these individuals.”

At this point, one, if not more thieves, who are either for­mer or cur­rent police offi­cers, remain on the loose.

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Inter­na­tional Asso­ci­a­tion for Prop­erty and Evi­dence
“Law Enforce­ment Serv­ing the Needs of Law Enforce­ment“
www.IAPE.org

WXVT-TV Delta News, www.WXVT.com
Link to Article

New Orleans, LA

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Lawyers for a for­mer New Orleans police­woman con­demned for mur­der and the cousin con­demned for help­ing her want their trial judge called as a wit­ness in new appeals.

Attor­neys for Rogers LaCaze want Judge Frank Marullo to tes­tify about alle­ga­tions he once signed a hand­gun from the court’s evi­dence room out to Antoinette Frank, later con­victed of killing her part­ner and two oth­ers at a restaurant.

Judge Lau­rie White heard argu­ments Fri­day, but did not imme­di­ately rule. She set two more hear­ings Oct. 15. One is on LaCaze’s motion to remove Marullo from the case. The other is for a sep­a­rate motion by Frank, also ask­ing for a new judge.

Pros­e­cu­tors accused the defenses of judge-shopping in an attempt to can­cel the con­vic­tions and death sen­tences handed down in 1995.

Infor­ma­tion from: The Times-Picayune, http://www.nola.com

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Inter­na­tional Asso­ci­a­tion for Prop­erty and Evi­dence
“Law Enforce­ment Serv­ing the Needs of Law Enforce­ment“
www.IAPE.org