NEW ORLEANS -- Inside of the 11 courtrooms at Orleans Parish Criminal Court, criminals are convicted and sentenced. But two days ago, it was an Orleans Parish prosecutor that was handcuffed and detained.
“I believe that to handcuff her and walk her out of the courtroom as though she were some violent criminal, in my opinion, was inappropriate, unnecessary,” said District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro
Her name is Brigid Collins, and Cannizzaro says she did nothing wrong.
“A criminal who gets charged with an offense had more rights in that particular court than a lawyer, a person who is licensed to practice law in that court had on that particular day in front of that judge,” he said.
Two days ago, Judge Laurie White accused Collins of having someone arrested without a judge acting on it, and asked her, “When did you become judge?”
Cannizzaro said Collins thought she had all her paperwork in order and did not know that a judge didn't sign the warrant in time for the court appearance.
“The law is put in terms of shall. The warrant shall be issued. And there was no warrant issued for this person.”
But Cannizzaro said that was on Judge Ben Willard to have signed it. He still doesn't know why it didn’t happen.
But it's not the first time that one of his assistant district attorneys was held in contempt. Just last month, Assistant District Attorney John Alford was held in contempt, and on Wednesday Judge Julian Parker declared a mistrial on the grounds that the District Attorney’s Office didn't tell the defense that police found a very important piece of evidence: a gun from the crime scene.
“We made a mistake by not viewing our evidence earlier,” Cannizzaro said. “I’ve certainly preached to the young men and women in this office that you can't go to trial without looking at your evidence. We went down there to discover the look of the evidence. We found to our surprise, and to the defense attorney’s surprise, the presence of a gun. that the police had recovered about one year after the homicide had occurred.”
But Cannizarro says these are the mistakes of a young staff.
“No one is going in there doing anything intentionally to violate anyone’s constitutional rights.”
And yet Monday the city's lead prosecutor will be in court, not prosecuting, but defending one of his own.
“She did nothing wrong, and she should not have been treated in the fashion that she was treated,” Cannizzaro said.
White said she couldn't comment on the case. Nelson Benton, the man she let out after saying he was not a flight risk, did not report to his court ordered appearance Thursday.
Brigid Collins’ hearing is Monday morning.
