D.A. re-assigns violent offender prosecutors to stay in court
DA reassigns elite prosecutors
Cannizzaro gets rid of murder case team
Thursday, January 01, 2009
By Gwen Filosa
Aiming to bring more homicide cases to trial in 2009, newly elected Orleans Parish District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro has done away with an elite team of prosecutors assigned to murders and instead installed them in specific courtrooms where they will serve as senior trial attorneys. …
The Violent Offender Unit, or VOU — a team of about eight attorneys earning $80,000 salaries that were brought in by former District Attorney Eddie Jordan to handle the most high-profile murder cases — simply wasn’t the best use of the office’s resources, Cannizzaro said.
“We were not getting as much out of the lawyers as I thought we could,” Cannizzaro said. “Last year, 24 homicide cases went to trial, and the number of cases that pled out were four or five. Our success rate at trial was about 65 percent. The numbers were not overwhelming.”
Assigning prosecutors to a particular section of court, where they can become familiar with the judge’s staff and the cases on the docket, is better than having a small band of lawyers going from courtroom to courtroom, Cannizzaro said. …
Cannizzaro, who has yet to name his first assistant, has almost finished out the remaining term left by Jordan, who resigned amid scandal in October 2007. On Jan. 12, Cannizzaro begins a six-year term.
