Legal Justice
Court docket clerk staffers in New Orleans dig by means of landfill to search out wrongly tossed court docket information
August 14, 2025, 9:26 am CDT
Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry speaks with reporters outdoors the U.S. Supreme Court docket constructing in Washington, D.C., on March 18, 2024. (Picture by Francis Chung/Politico by way of the Related Press)
Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry has ordered the Louisiana State Police to analyze why legal court docket information have been tossed right into a landfill, forcing legal clerk of court docket staffers to wade by means of the particles final week to get better them.
“It is a disgusting abuse of energy and a slap within the face to crime victims,” Landry mentioned on X, previously generally known as Twitter.
NOLA.com has protection.
Movies shared on-line present employees standing in particles whereas recovering mangled paperwork, the Related Press reviews. Darren Lombard, clerk of the legal district court docket, mentioned he labored with workers members to dig by means of the rubbish, however not all of the paperwork have been recovered.
“The final day we have been on the market, it stormed a bit, so we recovered nearly all the pieces we might,” he instructed WWL-TV.
Lombard mentioned the Louisiana secretary of state’s workplace has a course of in place for lacking or destroyed paperwork that will probably be used if a wanted doc can’t be discovered. The tossed paperwork have been from the Fifties to the Seventies.
The tossed Orleans Parish paperwork included case appeals, docket books and proof logs in instances of homicide, rape and armed theft, in response to NOLA.com. Felony information should be completely retained within the parish.
The paperwork have been being positioned inside trailers at a Division of Public Works upkeep yard as a result of the legal court docket clerk’s workplace doesn’t have enough storage, mentioned Joe Risk, the New Orleans chief administrative officer, in an interview with NOLA.com. The paperwork have been discarded when public works staffers have been cleansing out the trailers from the Federal Emergency Administration Company.
The town has reached a lease to purchase settlement for a brand new web site to retailer all court docket paperwork, Risk mentioned.
GETTING HANDS DIRTY:
These are movies of Orleans Parish Legal Clerk Darren Lombard’s workers
…digging by means of a landfill…
For court docket information that metropolis workers wrongly dumped final week.@FOX8NOLA pic.twitter.com/WTvZI86U4c
— Chris Joseph (@ChrisJosephNews) August 5, 2025
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