New Orleans

An appellate court has upheld a $8,600 award in civil penalties and attorney fees against the New Orleans Police Department for violating a public records request made by the New Orleans-based Innocence Project, The Times Picayune reported. The newspaper further reported: "the local office of the Innocence Project, a non-profit legal group that seeks to exonerate wrongfully convicted defendants, sued the NOPD earlier this year after it was denied access to investigative files from a 1991 aggravated rape and burglary case. State law requires a response to the request within three days, but 65 days elapsed before City Attorney Sharonda Williams' office responded, mostly denying the request." Violators of  the public records law can face penalties of up to $100 per day.

The Innocence Project of New Orleans is challenging a charge from the New Orleans Police Department to inspect public records, The Louisiana Record reported. The argument in their complaint? "The IPNO cites the Louisiana Constitution, which says that 'no person shall be denied the right to…examine public documents, except in cases established by law' and claims that the fee the NOPD wishes to charge is not legal as it is not a fee for copying, and a requester must be allowed to inspect records for free," The Record also reported.

One of the most notorious incidents of lawlessness the wake of Hurricane Katrina was the alleged murder of two men on a New Orleans bridge by police officers who arrived with guns blazing and who then allegedly covered up the killings. Now the convictions have been thrown out, in part, because of online comments federal prosecutors made on news articles on the New Orleans Times-Picayune web site, that paper reported. The judge in the case said in a 129-page order, according to the paper, "The government's actions, and initial lack of candor and credibility thereafter, is like scar tissue that will long evidence infidelity to the principles of ethics, professionalism, and basic fairness and common sense necessary to every criminal prosecution, wherever it should occur in this country."