It's Time for Eddie Jordan to Resign

Eddie Jordan is a disaster. He needs to resign. He has done the unthinkable -- almost managing to make us forget how incompetent he is at his job, i.e., at prosecuting criminals. His incompetence as a District Attorney has largely been overshadowed this week by the need for taxpayers to pay for his racist employment practices and by his apparent harboring of a fugitive cop killer. We all need to jam the phone lines at the District Attorney's office with calls for his resignation, tell all of our other elected officials they need to publicly call for his resignation, tell our state senators and state house members to impeach him, flood local talk radio with complaints about him, and do anything else you can think of to force him out of office. The Eddie Jordan Should Resign bumper sticker is available here.

New Orleans Desparately Needs Law and Order

City Journal column reprinted on the Wall Street Journal's website. Excerpt:

For generations now--and this is the city's deepest problem--New Orleans has hobbled along without a real law-and-order presence. Criminals graduate from petty crimes to burglary to drug-dealing to carrying illegal weapons to gang robberies to murder, and face few consequences at any stage. The police, and especially the prosecutors, are ineffectual. Since Katrina, things have gotten much worse, in part because criminals, finding life difficult in cities that enforce the law, have returned to the Big Easy in numbers disproportionate to those of law-abiding citizens. Mayor Ray Nagin doesn't try to fix things, perhaps because, as he often says, he believes crime is a social problem, rooted in a lack of opportunity for poor youth.

The Bush administration has deployed extra federal law-enforcement agents to try to get the worst criminals off the street. The state of Louisiana, meanwhile, has sent the National Guard to patrol half-empty neighborhoods. But just as the U.S. military can only do so much in Iraq when Baghdad's local government is ineffective, the federal government can't do much in New Orleans until the city's local government changes its attitude and behavior. Residents have no reason to think that criminal behavior has predictable negative consequences, because Mr. Nagin and District Attorney Eddie Jordan have failed to make clear that people who commit crimes in New Orleans will be prosecuted.

But President Bush can use federal dollars to try to convince them to do it. In his speech in New Orleans today, Mr. Bush should announce that he's ready to ask Congress for $500 million over two years to overhaul New Orleans's police and prosecutorial forces. But he also should say that the money is contingent on a pledge from Messrs. Nagin and Jordan that their city's No. 1 priority will be law enforcement. Mr. Bush should also tie the federal money to measurable results: rational arrests (from quality-of-life crimes all the way up to homicide), effective prosecutions and, ultimately, fewer crimes.

It's an enduring mystery why Mr. Bush hasn't used the Katrina disaster to show the world that America can rebuild a major city using a bedrock conservative principle: law and order first. Democrats are welcome to propose the same idea, of course. Mr. Obama, Mr. Edwards and Mrs. Clinton have all mentioned New Orleans's crime problem in their recent speeches. But they often tie it to a lack of staff and equipment in the city after Katrina--as if it's a question of rebuilding something that was lost, instead of building from scratch the most essential component of any city's success. Until politicians understand that basic difference, spending more money--or bragging about past billions spent--while tolerating intolerable conditions in a first-world city is nothing short of disgraceful.

Eddie Jordan Should Resign

I saw the bumper sticker at left -- Eddie Jordan Should Resign -- on a car the other day and tracked it down and ordered one. It is available for order here.

We are now long past the time for Eddie Jordan to resign. His first act upon taking office was an expensive one, costing taxpayers millions of dollars in a subsequent court judgment, now affirmed by the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, for the mass firing of white workers in the DA's office. That alone ought to cause him to be forced to resign. Why is politics so different from the real world? Imagine in your own job if the boss disgraced your company and committed some sort of blunder that cost the company millions of dollars -- the boss would be gone in a second. Why do voters allow this sort of incompetence to continue with our elected officials?

Aside from his incompetent and racist employment practices, the far more important issue is crime. Today's Times-Picayune reports that violent crime continues to increase, with murders, rapes, armed robberies and assaults up 31%. Where is Eddie Jordan during all of this? Since Katrina, the only times he has resurfaced is when absolutely forced to, such as when called to appear before the City Council. The DA needs to be a hammer who is constantly out there aggressively fighting crime. Does Eddie Jordan show even the slightest sense of urgency about the increasing problem?

Rumors have been circulating for months that Jordan is on the take. It's hard to tell whether his problem is corruption or just massive incompetence, but either way, he needs to go.

Eddie Jordan Appellate Argument Over Firing of Whites

Eddie Jordan's lawyers presented oral argument in the Fifth Circuit over Jordan's mass firing of white workers when he was elected. The oral argument went horribly for Jordan, and there appears to be no chance that the multimillion dollar verdict will be overturned. Taxpayers are left holding the bag for Jordan's incompetence.

Jordan and Riley Agree to do Things They Should Have Been Doing for Years

District Attorney Eddie Jordan and Police Superintendent Warren Riley have agreed to do simple things that they should have been doing for years in terms of cooperation between the DA's office and NOPD, yet they hailed it as if they just invented sliced bread. They tried to bill it as a solution to a longstanding problem, i.e., one that dates back to Harry Connick's days as district attorney, but that is false. The problems stem entirely from Eddie Jordan and Chief Compass and Riley's watches.

Riley, Jordan Agree to Drug Field-Tests

Riley said the district attorney's office will now accept the results of police field-testing kits, used to confirm suspected drugs are the real thing, with one caveat: that police turn over a lab report within 24 days. It's just one example of a compromise in the often testy relationship between the two departments. The issue over the use of the kits, which have been relied upon more in the absence of a fully functioning crime lab, came to a head in February during a City Council subcommittee hearing. During the hearing, council members demanded answers and less finger-pointing from Jordan and Riley.

Morial Slams Danziger 7

In a letter to the chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus, Marc Morial — a former New Orleans mayor — asked that the caucus support a federal civil rights investigation into the "circumstances surrounding the police killing of two unarmed African-American men and the wounding of four others." "What's the matter he doesn't have faith in Eddie Jordan?" said attorney Frank DeSalvo, who represents one of the officers. "I don't know what motivates these people to do what they do. I assume there is a political reason for it."

NOPD-DA Rift

From City Business:

Police Superintendent Warren Riley and District Attorney Eddie Jordan apparently dislike each other so much they pull audacious stunts such as delaying reports and releasing guilty criminals to antagonize and embarrass each other. At least those are the excuses each man offered when asked last week by the City Council to explain their ineffectiveness.

The dysfunctional relationship is the antithesis of what is needed in New Orleans today. The feud between Jordan and Riley hurts all of us by reducing the city’s ability to fulfill its responsibility to combat crime.

Petition Asks Eddie Jordan to Resign

Online petition says:

We, the undersigned, call on you District Attorney Eddie Jordan to do the right thing by the people of the great city of New Orleans -- resign with some dignity.

Resign now before this informal petition turns into a formal recall petition.

See Signal 26.

City Council Grills Jordan and Riley

Monday's session seems fairly unproductive.

Both New Orleans Police Superintendent Warren Riley and District Attorney Eddie Jordan said they are eager to work together to quash surging city crime. But the meeting ended with a fair share of finger-pointing and few resolutions.

The pair's fractured working relationship was on full display as council members pressed the two men on the state of their departments and the high rate of release and the low rate of conviction of arrested individuals, tying those problems to a lack of cooperation between their offices.

Get Out Of Jail Free After 60 Days

The criminals are on to Eddie Jordan, to noone's surprise:

On recent FBI wiretaps, agents can hear criminal suspects muttering about "misdemeanor murders," code for doing hardly any time at all for the worst crime on the books.

On street corners and in the grungy holding tanks at parish prison, they have another name for it: "701," shorthand for Article 701 of the Louisiana Code of Criminal Procedure. It states that no one can be held longer than 60 days on a felony arrest without an indictment.

Sometimes a 701 release merely eliminates a bond posted by a suspect in order to remain at liberty pending a trial. But in other cases, the 701 springs a murder suspect from jail because prosecutors have failed to meet the 60-day deadline, and that's been happening with astonishing frequency -- a tenfold increase -- in the widely criticized New Orleans criminal justice system since Hurricane Katrina.

Additional Questions for Eddie Jordan

As I reported earlier, the City Council has requested that District Attorney Eddie Jordan and Police Superintendent Warren Riley address the Council on twelve topics. Here are some other questions the City Council may want to ask Mr. Jordan:

13. Where have you been? We haven't seen much of you since Hurricane Katrina.

14. When you were U.S. Attorney, why didn't you prosecute Cleo Fields? You had an elected official on videotape shoving a huge wad of cash from Governor Edwards down his trousers, and you let him walk? Why? What honorable public purpose did you think was served by that all-cash transaction? It didn't have anything to do with the fact that you and Mr. Fields share a cozy relationship with Congressman Jefferson, who knows a thing or two about all-cash transactions, does it?

15. Let's assume the newly hired president of a company comes in and fires all the white employees, and the company is then ordered to pay a multi-million dollar judgment in addition to owing hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees. Should that president immediately resign or be fired?

16. Why has your office failed to bring charges against so many criminals within 60 days of arrest, resulting in their being set free? Do you think putting violent criminals back on the streets will encourage witnesses and victims to come forward?

17. How many first degree murder convictions has your office achieved since Hurricane Katrina? (Answer: none).

Eddie Jordan and Warren Riley Called to City Council Meeting

The City Council has asked District Attorney Eddie Jordan and Police Superintendent Warren Riley to appear at a meeting tomorrow. Here is a list of the twelve issues to be addressed at the meeting. The most significant is the high number of 701 releases. 701 refers to the release of a suspect if charges are not brought by the DA within 60 days of the arrest.

James Gill on Eddie Jordan

James Gill is not a big fan of Eddie Jordan. "Eddie Jordan has always found it difficult to reach a decision except for when he fired all the white folks shortly after he was elected DA." "If we don't have a new DA after the next election, the criminal justice system will remain in paralysis, and the phones will be ringing off the hook at the moving companies."

Proposed Budget Gives Pay Raise to DAs

The Mayor's proposed budget provides pay raises for the Orleans Parish District Attorney's office, raising starting pay from $38,000 to $45,000 and ultimately to $50,000. The budget does not allocate any money to pay the $3.58 million judgment (now on appeal) for violating the civil rights of white workers fired when he took office.

Eddie Jordan Defends Himself

District Attorney Eddie Jordan tried to defend himself in a letter to the editor in today's Times-Picayune. The T-P had editorialized that his office has been "lethargic in prosecuting crime, accepting only a fraction of the cases presented, most of those small-time drug cases."