St. Tammany Parish Schools Barracading Themselves in 1920s

What a lovely state we live in.

This after a week of public assurances by officials that recent KKK activity in St. Tammany and Washington Parishes is indeed out of the ordinary. (Though interviews with locals yield a different perspective.)

Yeah, great comfort.

Going "Soft" on Crime and Softer on Reporting

This story almost fell through the cracks before a friend reminded me about it over a couple of beers.

I remember skimming it and thinking it was stupid but upon further review, I have to conclude that it is one of the worst stories I've ever seen published in the Times-Picayune.

The headlines reads:

"Jefferson Parish juries going soft?"

Before I begin providing excerpts, here is what I think happened.

After a two high-profile acquittals, an enterprising reporter went around and tried to get people to say that black jurors were letting criminals off the hook.

The writer, Paul Papura, with whose work I am not generally familiar, began the story by describing a recent murder acquittal and putting forth the following premise:

It was the second acquittal in a high-profile, multiple-murder case in Jefferson Parish since September. While prosecutors are deconstructing how the case was lost to a youth who accused the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office of wrongdoing, they are also seeking to debunk the perception that juries have been acquitting more defendants since Hurricane Katrina in a parish historically known for conservative citizens with no tolerance for crime.

So the J-P Sheriff's Office is attempting to explain their lower conviction rate given that Jefferson Parish might be the easiest place in America to put someone in jail.

But immediately after that premise, the writer explains that the conviction rate is roughly the same as it was before the storm while characterizing it as substantially lower. This sub-section of the article was titled "Guilty verdicts down."

Last year, juries returned guilty verdicts in 81 percent of cases, according to the district attorney's office. In 2006, the jury conviction rate was 93 percent, a spike from 2005, when the courts operated only eight months because of the storm. That year, juries convicted 82 percent of the time. In 2004, the jury conviction rate was 88 percent.

While the Jefferson Parish demography has changed little since the storm, a variety of factors could affect jury decisions, said criminologist Peter Scharf: Jurors' view of crime, whether they have greater sympathy for the accused or how cases are investigated and prosecuted.

"You don't want to become New Orleans, where a person getting convicted a couple of years ago was a rare event, like getting struck by lightning," Scharf said. "Any slippage in these numbers is something they have to pay attention to."

But the overall rate of "wins," which includes convictions by jury and judge as well as guilty pleas, has remained steady at 88 percent to 89 percent.

Notice that while UNO criminologist Peter Scharf wonders whether or not jurors have more sympathy for criminals, the conviction rate in Jefferson parish is pretty much the same as it was before the storm.

So the whole premise for the story is ridiculous. Because Jefferson Parish prosecutors blew two high profile cases, and even though the overall conviction rate is the same, all of a sudden there's a need to investigate what's wrong with the juries?

While Jefferson Parish has seen an influx of low-income residents since the storm and a slight loss of upper-income residents, the population shift has not been so dramatic that it would affect the pool of jurors, said demographer Greg Rigamer of GCR & Associates.

And the racial and gender mix in the Jefferson Parish jury pool has remained unaffected by the storm, Clerk of Court Jon Gegenheimer said.

Rigamer speculated: "People have been through an awful lot since Katrina. Perhaps people are more tolerant."

Scharf offered similar sentiments. "The critical culture can change without the demography changing," he said.

This reads like the reporter went straight to Greg Rigamer and asked him if enough poor black people have moved to Jefferson Parish since the storm to affect jury pools. And because Scharf is not insisting that racial makeup has anything to do with the recent acquitals, one has to wonder if the context of the first Scharf quote is a total bastardization of his actual points about emerging national trends related to juror attitude and popular portrayal of criminal justice.

Then the article ends with further description of one of the recent acquittals that occurred after testimony that the defendant's confession occurred after apparent beatings at the hands of detectives and some quotes from a disgruntled juror that had wanted to convict.

"I'm not disappointed with the case," Wilson said. "I'm disappointed with the jurors. To me they were being selfish. They were thinking more about themselves than they were about justice."

So in other words, the only story here is that Jefferson Parish detectives should be videotaping all interrogations to mitigate allegations of coerced confessions.

Now maybe I'm being too hard on the beat writer here, a lot of the sensationalized formatting of the article could have been done by editors that panicked after realizing that there was absolutely no factual basis for publication.

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You know, if Jefferson Parish residents were really "tough" on crime, there would be a 100% conviction rate. If you have any presumption of innosence, you're an appeaser of criminals. I've always said that.

Mass Mobilization in Jefferson Parish?

Those teenagers are all kinds of fed up.

From the Times-Picayune: Teens plan boycott of Clearview Mall

The fight against a new curfew for teenagers at Clearview Mall has gone viral with more than 1,000 young people organizing themselves online and calling for a boycott of the Metairie shopping center this weekend.

Rise Against the Clearview Age Ban, or RACAB, was founded on Saturday, a day after officials at Clearview began strictly enforcing its Parental Escort Policy. Under the rule, patrons 16 and under must be accompanied by an adult who is at least 21-years-old when arriving at the mall on Fridays and Saturdays from 4 p.m. until closing.

"It's being too strict, too quick," said Matt Shaver, 17 of Jefferson, who set up RACAB's online group forum via the social Web site MySpace. "I want to be able to hang out with my friends that are under 16 on the weekends."

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Shaver said he created the organization to express his opposition to the escort policy, which he refers to as a ban. Within hours of its formation, the group had 500 members. On Wednesday evening, some 1,093 people had signed on as members of the group. Most of the support is local, but Shaver said he's received e-mails from around the country.

On the Web site, Shaver makes it clear that the forum was not created to complain about ill-treatment by mall security nor a place to advocate anarchy against the mall. The site is intended to help organize like-minded teens and speak out against the escort policy.

Shaver said he's upset because the mall is putting an age-limit on maturity.

"How are you going to say 16 and under are less mature than 18-year-olds that are committing murders and stuff and selling dope outside of Clearview?" he asked.

Shaver said there's very little for teens 14 and under to do in Metairie on weekend evenings. Effectively banning them from the mall would send them to other shopping centers. He wondered whether the mall could have taken any other action.

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I had a couple of false starts writing about this.

I just wanted to unload some of my hatred for suburban America, Jefferson Parish, and consumerism amongst young people.

Of course there's nothing else for a kid to do in Jefferson Parish than go to the mall...

yada yada yada...

But, you know what? I'm into this kid. He's awesome. Way to go, Matt Shaver.

Fight this policy. It's profiling, it's unfair.

Young people are a critical consumer demographic, a boycott is an interesting idea.

And isn't it cool how we can use myspace and facebook to get these things together quickly and quietly?


I already boycott Clearview Mall for a laundry list of reasons but I'm reiterating that boycott and calling for solidarity and vigilance with the teen-aged protesters of Jefferson Parish.

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Maybe Matt Shaver could use his expertise to help organize a boycott of all malls... forever.

I hope he's aware that even if he defeats this curfew/escort policy, Clearview Mall will still be a pathetic place to hang out. Clearview Mall will still fail to provide meaningful public space. Clearview Mall will still disgust me and epitomize everything I hate about my country.

But by all means, fight the policy. If you live in Jefferson Parish, you're kind of stuck with malls.

I'm lucky to have only lived in places where the mall does not represent an important social space.

UPDATE!!!!!!!!!!!

Jeffrey reports that the protesters of Clearview Mall are actually terrorists! Some jerk kid apparently said he was going to shoot up the mall, according to the T-P.

Hear that?

That's the sound of a condominium still standing.