William Jennings Jefferson is an American former politician from Louisiana whose career ended after his corruption scandal and conviction. He served as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives for nine terms from 1991 to 2009 as a member of the Democratic Party. He represented Louisiana's 2nd congressional district, which includes much of the greater New Orleans area. He was elected as the state's first black congressman since the end of Reconstruction.
Antoinette Renee Frank is a former officer of the New Orleans Police Department (NOPD) who, on March 4, 1995, committed a violent armed robbery at a restaurant which resulted in the killing of two members of the Vietnamese-American family who ran the establishment, and fellow NOPD officer Ronald A. Williams II. She was aided by her probable lover, drug dealer Rogers Lacaze. Frank has been incarcerated since 1995 at the Louisiana Correctional Institute for Women in St. Gabriel, Louisiana, the only woman on the state's death row.
Eddie Jack Jordan Jr. is an American attorney who served as the district attorney for Orleans Parish, Louisiana, from 2003 until his resignation in 2007. A member of the Democratic Party, Jordan was the first African American to have held the elected position. He announced his resignation on October 30, 2007, when a court rendered a large judgment against his office on behalf of white employees that the D.A. had earlier dismissed on account of their race.
The Angola Three are three African-American former prison inmates who were held for decades in solitary confinement while imprisoned at Louisiana State Penitentiary. The latter two were indicted in April 1972 for the killing of a prison corrections officer; they were convicted in January 1974. Wallace and Woodfox served more than 40 years each in solitary, the "longest period of solitary confinement in American prison history".
The New Orleans Police Department (NOPD) has primary responsibility for law enforcement in New Orleans, Louisiana. The department's jurisdiction covers all of Orleans Parish, while the city is divided into eight police districts.
Helen Georgena Roberts Berrigan, known professionally as Helen Ginger Berrigan and Ginger Berrigan, is an inactive senior United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana.
Robert Frederick Collins is a civil rights attorney and former United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana.
Zeitoun is a nonfiction book written by Dave Eggers and published by McSweeney's in 2009. It tells the story of Abdulrahman Zeitoun, the Syrian-American owner of a painting and contracting company in New Orleans, Louisiana, who chose to ride out Hurricane Katrina in his Uptown home.
On the morning of September 4, 2005, six days after Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, members of the New Orleans Police Department (NOPD), ostensibly responding to a call from an officer under fire, shot and killed two civilians at the Danziger Bridge: 17-year-old James Brissette and 40-year-old Ronald Madison. Four other civilians were wounded. All the victims were African-American. None were armed or had committed any crime. Madison, a mentally disabled man, was shot in the back. The shootings caused public anger and further eroded the community's trust in the NOPD and the federal response to Hurricane Katrina overall.
Henry Glover was an African American resident of New Orleans, Louisiana, who was shot to death on September 2, 2005. Glover's charred body was later found in a destroyed Chevrolet Malibu parked on a Mississippi River levee near a police station.
The Orleans Public Defenders (OPD) office provides legal assistance to individuals charged with a crime in New Orleans, Louisiana state courts who are financially unable to retain private counsel. Courts within their jurisdiction include the Louisiana District Courts, Juvenile and Family Courts, Louisiana Circuit Courts of Appeal, and the Louisiana Supreme Court. Orleans Parish District Attorney prosecutes alleged felony and misdemeanor violations of Louisiana state law that occur within the jurisdiction of New Orleans. Alleged federal law violations by indigent defendants are prosecuted and defended in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana.
McDonnell v. United States, 579 U.S. 550 (2016), was a United States Supreme Court case concerning the appeal of former Virginia Governor Robert F. McDonnell's conviction for honest services fraud and Hobbs Act extortion. At issue on appeal was whether the definition of "official act" within the federal bribery statutes encompassed the actions for which McDonnell had been convicted and whether the jury had been properly instructed on this definition at trial.
Len Davis is a former New Orleans police officer. He was convicted of depriving civil rights through murder by conspiring with an assassin to kill a local resident.
Jason Rogers Williams is an American politician and attorney who is the Orleans Parish district attorney; he assumed office in 2021. From 2014 to 2021, Williams served as the Second Division Councilmember-at-large on the New Orleans City Council. He is a member of the Democratic Party, and was elected district attorney on a progressive platform.
The "39ers gang," is a “hybrid” force of the Upper 9th Ward's G-Strip gang and 3-N-G, a notorious Central City drug clan named for its stronghold around Third and Galvez streets. Several of the alleged members also hailed from the Florida housing development. The gangs combined forces in early 2010 to press for control of the heroin trade in both areas, federal prosecutors allege, often through bloodshed against associates of rival gangs, such as "Ride or Die gang" from the 8th Ward of New Orleans and gangs associated with the former Calliope and Desire Projects. The gang is also held accountable for the double 2010 homicide in which the famous rapper Magnolia Shorty was killed. Authorities have connected the 39ers to over 45 murders.
The Metz Gang was a notorious drug ring founded by Glenn Metz and his brother Cordell "Jethro" Metz; Glenn Metz is currently serving life in prison. From 1985 to mid–1992, The Metz Gang distributed approximately 1,000 kilograms of cocaine in the New Orleans metropolitan area and, in furtherance of the conspiracy, committed murders, attempted murders, and other violent crimes. In 1993, Metz, his wife, and several of his henchmen were convicted and charged in a 22 count indictment with various charges arising from a narcotics conspiracy. In 2016, President Barack Obama commuted the life sentence of Danielle Metz, wife of Glenn Metz.
William J. Crain is an American lawyer who has served an associate justice of the Louisiana Supreme Court since 2019.
Brandon Scott Long is an American lawyer who is serving as a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana.
