As the former Sheriff of Jefferson Parish, Newell Normand's standard of performance could be considered high, but after watching the many missteps of Orleans Parish Sheriff Susan Hutson, he's assessing her performance through her failure to meet some of the most basic responsibilities of her elected office.
On the Newell Normand Show this week, he compared Sheriff Hutson's progressive stumbles in office to those of New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell. It just seems there is something new every week.
In her first year as sheriff, there have been incidents of inmate deaths, the jail's population has hit numbers it hasn't seen since the pandemic's beginning, and Hutson says she doesn't have enough deputies to maintain jail's inmates. She has even started delivering inmates to court hearings as frequently as her predecessors.
Hutson, who had no previous experience in criminal corrections, ran on a platform of reform and transparency. Newell believes the first-time sheriff is failing on both campaign promises. However, he said her soft approach to running the jail is yielding the expected results.
"This is a trainwreck when you think about this. We've already had three individuals under attack here, not to mention inmates under attack or residents as she refers to them, which may be the only thing she's accomplished so far in management of that jail. She successfully now has members of the media and others referring to these individuals as residents as opposed to inmates. Well, she may have that impact on others that are talking about this, but not here at the Newell Normand show — not happening. They're inmates," said Newell.
In a WDSU report, it was revealed that one of Hutson's assistant sheriffs, Kristen Morales, was previously fired from her post at the New Orleans office of the inspector general. According to WDSU, the termination was connected to an incident in which Morales gave away city property and then falsely told investigators she had permission to do so.
The city civil service commission stated Morales lacked candor. Morales filed suit to overturn the termination, but an appeals court upheld the firing.
Sheriff Hutson told WDSU it was "fair" to say she and Morales are friends. Hutson supported Morales in her appeal of the termination. Sheriff Hutson told WDSU she had complete confidence in Morales and her ability to do her job at the Orleans Justice Center.
Newell says for a sheriff who ran on a campaign of reform, Hutson's hiring practices are less than stellar.
"You will recall she hired a campaign manager to run certain things at the sheriff's office, didn't have any expertise in that field. Hired the campaign manager's son, problems there as well," Newell said.
From Newell's perspective, Sheriff Hutson's support of Kristen Morales is the latest example of her ineptitude. Newell believes Hutson's failure to see the apparent conflicts of interest of not only hiring campaign members and friends to leadership positions at the jail but also supporting one when the IG's office fired her for lying to officials shows Huston lacks the awareness required to hold the office of sheriff.
"If you don't recognize the downstream implications of having one of your higher-ups' honesty compromised and having been terminated by an office in which you were a part of, then I don't know how anyone can have any confidence in any employment decision that you're going to make in the future," Newell said.
In his view, credibility is often the only thing law enforcement has, and he says Hutson is losing the very little she brought with her into office.
"You've heard me say long before any of these issues came up when I used to speak to the men and women of the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's office, I would remind them first and foremost, their job is not about law enforcement. Their job is about credibility," Newell said. "You should never compromise your credibility because then you become an asset that is of little or no value to the organization, because anything you do or say in the aftermath of that, you are subject to being attacked, being compromised."
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