Justice Department sues Louisiana for holding prisoners past their release date
The Justice Department has filed a lawsuit against the state of Louisiana and its corrections department for unlawfully imprisoning thousands of people for weeks and months after their sentences are completed.
Since at least 2012, the Justice Department alleges more than a quarter of people due to be released from the custody of the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections each year are held past their release dates. The lawsuit alleges the pattern is a violation of the due process clause in the 14th Amendment.
"To incarcerate people indefinitely, as (the corrections department) does here, not only intrudes on individual liberty, but also erodes public confidence in the fair and just application of our laws,” said Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. "The Justice Department looks forward to proving its case in court."
Federal prosecutors blame the state's "deliberate indifference" and chronic procedural failures for a yearslong pattern of detaining people after they are legally entitled to release. Court filings allege that Louisiana's unlawful detainment costs the state more than $2.5 million each year.
The lawsuit follows a multi-year DOJ investigation that concluded the state unlawfully detained people after their sentences were up. The Justice Department said it is seeking injunctive relief to address the issues identified in its probe.
DOJ sues Louisiana over detainment practices
In a 26-page complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana, the Justice Department said it found a yearslong pattern of detaining people past their sentences, including those eligible for immediate release at their sentencing hearings.
In May alone, 141 people were held past their release dates — 120 of them for more than a month — according to the lawsuit. Nearly 80% of those unlawfully detained were eligible for immediate release at the time of sentencing.
Federal prosecutors said in court documents they filed the lawsuit "to vindicate the Constitutional rights of those unlawfully detained and to seek injunctive relief to end the rampant and longstanding overdetention in Louisiana."
The Louisiana governor's office and corrections department did not immediately return Paste BN's requests for comment Monday.
Lawsuit highlights chronic procedural failures, indifference
The lawsuit blames "outdated, unreliable, and inefficient systems and practices that result in errors andunreasonable administrative delays" for the alleged pattern of unlawfully detaining people after their release dates.
"These errors and unreasonable administrative delays occur at every step of the release process," the lawsuit said.
Louisiana's corrections department has used the same system to track people in its custody, process time computations, and calculate release dates since 1991, according to court filings. The department began developing a new system in 2018, but it is still not fully implemented, and they rely on the old system.
It also can take weeks for the department to get sentencing paperwork from the courts and sheriff's departments due to a lack of uniform procedures, according to the complaint, which worsens delays in the release process.
In addition to outdated technology, staff training failures, and inefficient processes, federal prosecutors blame the corrections department's "deliberate indifference," saying it has been aware of the detainment issue for years and has failed to adequately address it.
“While the State has made marginal efforts to address the systemic deficiencies leading to overdetention, these steps are inadequate to address the deficiencies, which are longstanding and well-known to the State,” the Justice Department said.