Louisiana Voice

It was more or less assumed by St. Tammany Parish residents that when Randy Smith defeated Jack Strain for sheriff back in 2015, problems associated with the office might finally be put behind them.

After all, the problems involving operations at the parish detention center were sufficient for voters to choose new blood even before the Strain stain of incest, rape, child abuse and garden variety corruption charges were filed against the former sheriff LAST AUGUST.

In fact, one might even think St. Tammany had seen quite enough political shenanigans after the spate of corruption stories involving former District Attorney WALTER REED, a former DEPUTY, and the former parish CORONER,

So protective are the political powers that be, however, that the suggestion of a parish INSPECTOR GENERAL to keep watch on their activities in order to insure compliance with the law was quickly shot down with opponents of the proposal calling instead for closer monitoring by the Legislative Auditor’s Office, which already has the responsibility of keeping tabs on the entire state.

So, it naturally stands to reason that if someone like, say a federal agent for the Inspector General for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, should have the temerity to criticize the new sheriff, he should be promptly arrested, handcuffed and hauled off to jail for criminal defamation.

And that precisely what Sheriff Randy Smith did when JERRY ROGERS, a former St. Tammany deputy, sent an email to the family of slain NANETTE KRENTEL saying, in effect, that the sheriff’s office had botched its investigation of the July 2017 murder, which remains unsolved.

There are several problems with the arrest of Rogers. First of all, criminal defamation under Louisiana law is a misdemeanor, not a felony, hardly worthy of arrest and a ride in the back seat of a patrol car. Second, and probably pretty important, the law was ruled unconstitutional in 1973 by the State Supreme Court after the U.S. Supreme Court found that the law’s wording was unconstitutional way back in 1964. Third, when Rogers was arrested back in September, deputies neglected to tell him why as they hauled him off to jail—a violation of his Miranda rights. Fourth, the warrant for Rogers’ arrest was signed by Judge Raymond Childress after he found there was probable cause. Fifth, Judge Childress and Sheriff Smith apparently forgot there was still a First Amendment protecting free speech.

About those fourth and fifth factors: you’d think a judge, who successfully completed law school and who, after seeking a judgeship, is deemed to be qualified to cast judgment on people’s affairs in matters that come before him would be sufficiently current on the law (or at least able to do a minimal amount of legal research) to ascertain that the criminal defamation statute had long ago—like more than half-a-century ago—been ruled unconstitutional. I mean, that’s why we have judges, for goodness sake.

Is it too much to ask a judge to do his damned job?

This travesty is eerily reminiscent of a similar episode in Terrebonne Parish when Sheriff JERRY LARPENTER raided the home of an internet blogger, a city police officer, who had criticized the high sheriff in a blog post. Like Smith, Larpenter convinced a judge, someone supposedly with a passing familiarity with the law and the Constitution, to issue a warrant authorizing the raid in which the blogger’s computers were seized—illegally, it turned out, in brazen violation of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution which protects a little thing called free speech.

In the Terrebonne case, a federal judge subsequently read the riot act—and the First Amendment—to Larpenter and the blogger sued and won a judgment believed to have been somewhere in the $250,000 range.

[Immediately after the raid (and before the lawsuit was filed), I brought up the incident in a conversation with former Gov. Edwin Edwards and his comment was, “I’d love to be that blogger’s lawyer.”]

The big difference in the two cases is the blogger down in Houma was not arrested or handcuffed. Rogers was. I’d love to be his lawyer.

As a graphic illustration of just how toxic the actions of Smith and Childress were, after 22^nd JDC District Attorney Warren Montgomery recused his office because Rogers’ wife if employed by his office, referring the case to the Louisiana Attorney General’s Office, the AG, realizing the legal implications, quickly punted.

“Because the alleged conduct under these specific facts involve statements aimed at a public official performing public duties, this office is precluded by law from moving forward with any criminal action,” said Assistant Attorney General Joseph LeBeau (correctly) in a letter to Rogers.

Truth be told, Rogers likely had good reason to question the investigation of Krentel’s murder. Certainly the family does. It’s not unusual for investigations by local sheriffs’ offices to appear as something akin to the Keystone Kops.

In Lincoln Parish in the early 1970s, for example, there was a manhunt on for a killer on a Saturday. The sheriff’s office incredibly closed at midnight and did not re-open until noon on Sunday. Seriously, they just locked the doors and went home. Meanwhile, the Monroe and Shreveport newspapers ran a description of the suspect’s car and on Sunday morning, a high school student on his way to church spotted the car and called Ruston city police who captured the suspect.

And the sheriff was irate at the papers for running the description of the vehicle, saying they could have “run him clean out of the g–d— country.”

Similar questions continue to linger over other investigations, including violent deaths in Washington (2012) and Rapides Parishes (2005).

(To learn more about the power—and corruption—of Louisiana sheriffs, you may order my book Louisiana’s Rogue Sheriffs: A Culture of Corruption for $30 by clicking on the yellow oval DONATE button in the column to the right of this post.)