NEW ORLEANS — Orleans Parish District Attorney Jason Williams has drawn fire from both Louisiana lawmakers and Gov. Jeff Landry for the number of deals his office has reached with state inmates. Those deals have reduced convictions and sentences. In many cases, the deals were reached long after an inmate's trial.
At a press conference on Monday, Williams fired back.
“We have used our discretion, but always within the law, as it’s been historically used by all DAs regardless of their color, regardless of their party affiliation," Williams said.
Williams said New Orleans has been a national outlier for the number of defective convictions and wrongful prosecutions over the years. He claims he's righting those wrongs and keeping his campaign promises.
“I was overwhelmingly elected by the people of New Orleans saying this is what we were going to do," Williams said.
District attorneys do have the authority to agree to post-conviction relief with a judge's approval.
But a legislative criminal justice committee is now calling on Williams to appear at a special hearing on the matter on September 5.
The committee chair, Senator Jay Morris (Monroe - R), told WWL Louisiana that he's digging into the volume of resentencing agreements reached in New Orleans over the past few months.
“We’re going through those to determine which ones raise a concern," Morris said.
A list obtained by WWL Louisiana shows dozens of cases have been taken up since March.
The timing has also been called into question. A new law went into effect on Aug. 1 that allows State Attorney General, Liz Murrill, the power to appeal resentencing.
The AG released a statement after Williams' press conference on Monday that said her office is reviewing the 40 cases that were taken up between January and July where relief was granted.
“Post-conviction relief is not a mechanism for revising a sentence that is long final simply because the District Attorney has a difference of opinion with the legislature and reviewing courts on criminal justice policy," Murrill said in the statement.
Williams said some of the cases involved non-unanimous juries which are no longer legal. Prosecutors failed to turn over evidence to the defense in other instances, Williams said.
Williams denies speeding up the work to beat the Aug. 1 deadline.
“We’ve been doing this work at the exact same pace this year, as we did for the first three years," Williams said.
Williams said he accepts the invitation to testify before the Senate committee next month.
