Landry appears in DA candidate forum

St. Mary Parish voters got to see one of the candidates for 16th Judicial District attorney through a Facebook live-stream Monday. The incumbent was a no-show.

Bo Duhe, the incumbent DA, sent his regrets last week to the St. Mary Chamber, which is hosting a series of forums for 16th JDC and Morgan City candidates. The last forum will be for Morgan City mayoral candidates Oct. 26 at Municipal Auditorium.

Duhe told the Chamber that the Monday forum conflicted with meeting of the Louisiana District Attorneys Association, which Duhe serves as president. The forum was canceled briefly before Landry asked for her chance to address voters, and the event was allowed to go on.

When she got that chance on the KBZE live-stream, Landry said she and Duhe share many of the same experiences, including decades of legal practice and prior service as assistant district attorneys.

The difference, she said, comes from her 18 years on the 16th JDC bench. Landry retired in July to run for DA.

“I know we are in unprecedented time of change in our country and our community,” Landry said. “And it is time for a change, a change for good, not the same old thing done the same old way by different faces across time.

“It’s time to make a real change in our criminal justice system that will usher our community into safer communities and better communities.”

From the bench, she said, she saw what the DA’s Office is doing and what it should be doing.

Some of those changes are already underway in Louisiana and across the country. Among them is an examination of inequities in the bail and bond system.

Bail is meant to be used to secure a defendant’s appearance in court, Landry said. She believes the biggest bail burdens should be reserved for those who pose a danger to the community, while measures such as surety and property bonds and what she called “reporting situations” should be used for those who haven’t been convicted and can stay at their jobs and support their families.

“Bail has been used as a penalty and a punishment, so people who live in poverty, primarily people of color, are at a disadvantage before the case is even charged, having nothing to do with their guilt or innocence,” Landry said.

She said she participated in a program that reduced truancy in St. Martin Parish and worked with a juvenile drug court, both aimed at getting young people out of the juvenile justice system. And she said she has used diversion and mentoring programs, one of which used a sewing group of grandmothers, as an alternative way to handle first-time offenses by young people.

The district attorney’s role in justice reform is “the most important one,” Landry said.

Being tough on crime isn’t the same as being smart on crime, she said. Simply locking up more people “does not work because it did not make our communities safer. … Being smart on crime is making sure those people who mean our community harm will be in jail.”

A question that has appeared at judge forums came up again Monday: What should the system do about the limited amount of time defense attorneys have with their incarcerated clients before trial?

Landry said public defenders are overworked and underfunded, “and they are funded on the backs of the people who use the system. The Legislature has to fix that.”

While the DA’s Office may have five or 10 assistants working in one judge’s court, the Public Defender’s Office has only one.

“Our community has failed the Public Defender’s Office because we as stakeholders can do some-thing to supplement their income,” Landry said.

Duhe didn’t appear on the KBZE live-stream Monday, but, like other candidates, he’s been making the rounds at local government meetings. On Thursday, Duhe talked to the St. Mary Parish School Board.

After being hired as an assistant prosecutor by longtime DA Bernie Boudreaux, Duhe told the board, he found an Iberia Parish jail roster from 1974. The roster contained six names, including two prisoners being held for other jurisdictions.

So why has the jail population grown so steadily in the more than 40 years since?

The answer is drugs, Duhe said.

That’s one reason he said the DA’s Office should look for new solutions, as the DA’s Office did when it ran the first drug court in Louisiana.

Drug courts have lowered the number of repeat offenders, Duhe said. He’s looking for the same kind of success in pre-trial diversion and a veterans court to handle the special problems that arise as former members of the military find themselves in trouble.

“By serving the public and the effect that you have on people’s lives — mostly good — it’s some-thing that really grabbed me,” Duhe said.

He also talked about the cooperation between the DA’s office and the school system in programs like Families in Need of Service to help kids who miss school or have behavioral problems.

“You’re here because you care,” Duhe said. “You’re here to make a difference.”

The 16th Judicial District covers St. Mary, St. Martin and Iberia parishes.

The election will be Nov. 3. Early voting is open and runs through Oct. 27.