By Matt Pearce
LA Times
NEW ORLEANS, La. — Conditions have gotten so bad at a New Orleans prison that city officials have asked a judge to appoint a replacement for the sheriff in charge, according to a federal court filing.
For years, the Orleans Parish Prison has been criticized by the U.S. Department of Justice as being so dangerous and poorly run that the facility violates inmates’ constitutional rights. Those complaints exploded into national view last week as a prison video presented during testimony for a class-action lawsuit showed inmates doing drugs, fiddling with a gun while in a cell and roaming free on the streets in 2009.
Last week’s testimony was supposed to present evidence for a judge to decide whether a December agreement -- proposed by inmates, the U.S. Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division and the jail’s operator, Orleans Parish Sheriff Marlin N. Gusman -- would be satisfactory for reforming the prison.
But city officials in New Orleans, which may have to pour millions into improving the prison, were so galled by the sheriff’s testimony that they asked the federal judge overseeing the case, U.S. District Judge Lance Africk, to place responsibility for the prison in someone else’s hands.
Full story: New Orleans asks judge to seize troubled prison from sheriff