Louisiana news briefs

Terrebonne council supports tribal recognition
HOUMA (AP) — The Terrebonne Parish Council is supporting the Isle de Jean Charles Band of Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw and the Pointe-au-Chien tribes’ efforts to achieve federal recognition.
The recognition comes after a similar measure was passed in July in support of the United Houma Nation.
Potential policy shifts regarding federal recognition in the U.S. Department of the Interior could give new life to tribal recognition efforts that have been denied in the past.
Federal recognition would provide a social and economic boost to these tribes and their communities. It would also allow federal aid necessary to preserve tribal culture in the event of natural or man-made disasters.

Deputy shoots, kills
man brandishing a gun
ALBANY (AP) — Authorities say a Livingston Parish sheriff’s deputy shot and killed a man who threatened to kill himself and brandished a handgun at authorities near Albany.
Sheriff’s office spokeswoman Lori Steele said deputies responding to an attempted suicide at 3 p.m. Monday and found 48-year-old Freddie W. LeBlanc, who refused to drop his gun after multiple requests.
Steele says LeBlanc then pointed his gun at the officers, at which point deputies opened fire. LeBlanc was pronounced dead at the scene by the Livingston Parish Coroner’s Office.
Steel says the sheriff’s office and state police are investigating the shooting.

State troopers
to remain in New Orleans
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Louisiana State Police will continue to patrol the streets of New Orleans
Superintendent Col. Mike Edmonson and interim New Orleans police Superintendent Michael Harrison say the troopers deployed throughout the city to assist with law enforcement will remain until November.
Edmonson originally said the officers would leave the city on Sept. 1.
Edmonson deployed 50 state troopers and public safety officers to help with law enforcement in New Orleans following a June 29 shooting in the French Quarter that left one person dead and nine injured. He says the extension came at the request of the police department and the City of New Orleans.

Judge: rule Friday if no abortion law agreement
BATON ROUGE (AP) — A federal judge on Thursday asked lawyers battling over Louisiana’s new, restrictive abortion law for an agreement that apparently could let clinics stay open — at least for a while — after the law takes effect Sept. 1.
U.S. District Judge John deGravelles said that if the two sides cannot agree, he will rule today on a request from clinics and doctors for a temporary order blocking enforcement of the law while a lawsuit seeking to overturn it remains in court.
The law will require doctors who perform abortions to have admitting privileges to a hospital within 30 miles of their clinics. The Center for Reproductive Rights filed the court challenge last week, saying doctors haven’t had enough time to obtain the privileges and the law likely would force Louisiana’s five abortion clinics to close.
Attorneys for the state said in court Thursday that the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals barred enforcement against doctors who have requested admitting privileges but don’t yet have responses from the hospitals they applied to.
DeGravelles asked whether a state pledge to refrain from enforcing the law against all such doctors would convince attorneys for two doctors and three clinics to drop their request for a temporary restraining order to stop the law from taking effect. The clinics are in northwest Louisiana and in a New Orleans suburb.
The state’s refusal to include doctors at clinics in New Orleans and Baton Rouge had been a sticking point in attempts to reach an agreement, attorneys for both sides said.

Lafourche Parish approves tougher dog ordinance
THIBODAUX (AP) — The Lafourche Parish Council has approved a measure to tighten ownership restrictions for dangerous and vicious dogs.
As with a similar law passed by the Terrebonne Parish Council this summer, the ordinance is not breed specific.
Under the new ordinance, owners of dogs declared dangerous or vicious are required to hold liability insurance, pay breeding fees and have their animals micro-chipped.
Councilman John Arnold says the ordinance will help to increase accountability for owners of these dangerous animals.

Prosecutor, Innocence Project to join forces
NEW ORLEANS — The district attorney in New Orleans is joining forces with the organization known as the Innocence Project to find and correct cases in which people have been wrongfully convicted.
District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro and Emily Maw of the Innocence Project-New Orleans announced the plan at a news conference Thursday.
Cannizzaro acknowledged that one of the catalysts for the joint effort was the case of Reginald Adams. Adams was released this year after spending 34 years in prison. His second-degree murder conviction was reversed after a judge agreed with authorities that former prosecutors and detectives withheld evidence that might have acquitted him.
Cannizzaro, who was elected in 2008, and Maw said they will seek funding from the New Orleans City Council for their joint effort.

Pro-voucher group seeks
to undo order in La. case
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A group supporting taxpayer-funded private school tuition vouchers is appealing a federal judge’s order that Louisiana must provide regular reports to federal officials on the state’s voucher program.
U.S. District Judge Ivan Lemelle ordered the reports in April. He ruled that they are needed to make sure Louisiana complies with a 1975 desegregation order about state money going to private schools. The order requires that the state provide federal officials with lists of voucher applicants, information on schools in the voucher program, and enrollment and racial breakdowns on public schools and private schools in the voucher program.
A group of voucher families, represented by the conservative Goldwater Institute, say the ruling resulted from a Justice Department effort to “stifle” the voucher program. Also involved in the appeal is the Louisiana Black Alliance for Educational Options, a pro-voucher group.
State officials have said the ruling won’t impede the program.
In August, lawyers for the Goldwater Institute’s litigation arm, the Scharf-Norton Center for Constitutional Litigation, said Lemelle lacks jurisdiction over the voucher program because it has not been found unconstitutional and federal attorneys have never contended that it is.
Lemelle had ruled that the matter clearly is covered by an injunction and consent decree issued in the 1975 case.
The statewide voucher program was pushed through the Legislature in 2012 by Gov. Bobby Jindal. It provides state-funded private school tuition to some low- and moderate-income families whose children would otherwise go to a low-performing public school.
Arguments about the program had largely centered on the funding and effectiveness of voucher schools, and whether the program bled away money needed by public schools. Then, in an August 2013 filing, the Justice Department filed a motion in the case of Brumfield v. Dodd, the desegregation lawsuit that resulted in the 1975 desegregation order.
Justice officials first sought an injunction blocking the issuance of future vouchers in districts under desegregation orders unless the state first obtained permission from the appropriate federal court — a move branded by Jindal and other voucher supporters as an Obama Administration attack on vouchers. Justice Department attorneys have since backed away from seeking an injunction but have continued to seek information.
Lemelle’s April ruling was hailed by both the Jindal administration and the Justice Department as a victory, with Jindal saying the ruling won’t impede the voucher program and didn’t grant Justice officials “veto power” over vouchers. His press office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the Goldwater Institute efforts.