While the N.O. District Attorney and New Orleans Police Chief met today to outline their four-point plan to combat the runaway crime problem, the President of the Metropolitan Crime Commission, Rafael Goyeneche tells WWL's Newell Normand, his data shows crime in New Orleans is still out of control.
“There were another nine felony cases that resulted in a guilty plea but were reduced to misdemeanors, and we are looking at about 16 violent felony cases that were dismissed. That is the outcome, and those numbers need to shift.”
Goyeneche says he plans to soon have weekly data that tracks the results of the D.A.’s Office similar to the dashboard that tracks crime statistics in the city.
One critical data point Goyeneche says is out of control, is the number of felons released because the D.A. could not bring them to trial in a timely manner under Article 701.
“We documented in 2021 that there were over 1500, 701 timelines that were not met,” Goyeneche explained. "So that was 1500 cases…this is a shared responsibility between police and prosecutors. I can’t tell you when the police submitted the reports, and I can’t tell you when the D.A.’s office got those reports to screen them. What I can tell you and your audience is that we documented over 1500 cases in which felony arrested subjects’ screening decisions were not met within the Article 701 timelines in the calendar year 2021.”
Goyeneche says the D.A. and NOPD need to partner better on this and turn it around.
“The reason this is coming up, is because of the good work of the judges at Criminal Justice Court that continue to point out the timelines, and we monitor a lot of those hearings via Zoom, and we decided to take a deeper dive to put a number on it, and we have documented over 1500 cases thus far,” said Goyeneche.
