http://reason.com/blog/2016/12/30/me...-where-po/?&=7
The DOJ report link is in the article. I am going to copy/paste the most important parts.
After engaging in a thorough investigation, the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) concludes
that there is reasonable cause to believe that both the Ville Platte, Louisiana Police Department
(“VPPD”) and the Evangeline Parish Sheriff’s Office (“EPSO”) have engaged in a pattern or
practice of unconstitutional conduct.1
Both VPPD and EPSO have arrested and held people in
jail—without obtaining a warrant and without probable cause to believe that the detained
individuals had committed a crime—in violation of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution.
We have additional concerns that these unconstitutional holds have led to coerced confessions
and improper criminal convictions. These findings reflect the results of an investigation into both
agencies, which have engaged in nearly identical practices within overlapping jurisdictional
boundaries.
VPPD and EPSO have used these arrests, called “investigative holds,” as a regular part of
their criminal investigations, inducing people to provide information to officers under threat of
continued wrongful incarceration. The arrests include individuals suspected (without sufficient
evidence) of committing crimes, as well as their family members and potential witnesses. The
individuals who are improperly arrested are strip-searched, placed in holding cells without beds,
toilets, or showers, and denied communication with family members and loved ones. Individuals
are commonly detained for 72 hours or more without being provided an opportunity to contest
their arrest and detention. Instead, they are held and questioned until they either provide
information or the law enforcement agency determines that they do not have information related
to a crime. Indeed, we have concerns that some people may have confessed to crimes or
provided information sought by EPSO and VPPD detectives, apparently to end this secret and
indefinite confinement.
The investigative hold practice is routine at EPSO and VPPD. Both agencies
acknowledged that they used holds to investigate criminal activity for as long as anyone at the
agency can remember. The number of holds used in recent years is staggering. Between 2012
and 2014, for example, EPSO initiated over 200 arrests where the only documented reason for
arrest was an investigative hold. In that same period, VPPD used the practice more than 700
times. The number of holds by EPSO and VPPD is likely even higher; both agencies use such
rudimentary arrest documentation systems that the total number of arrests for investigative hold
purposes is likely underreported.
After the DOJ began its investigation into VPPD and EPSO’s use of investigative holds
in April 2015, leadership of VPPD, EPSO and the City of Ville Platte admitted that the holds are
unconstitutional and have taken laudable steps to begin eliminating their use. More work
remains to be done. The agencies’ policies, procedures, training, and data collection and
accountability systems must ensure that investigative holds are eliminated permanently. The
agencies also must work to repair community trust, because many people may still be justifiably
reluctant to provide information to law enforcement for fear that doing so could subject them to
an unconstitutional detention.
EPSO and VPPD violate the Fourth Amendment by arresting and detaining individuals
without a warrant or probable cause. The Fourth Amendment prohibits “unreasonable searches
and seizures” and requires that warrants be based on “probable cause.” U.S. Const. Amend. IV.
All significant restraints on liberty must be supported by probable cause, whether or not law
enforcement officers call the restraint a formal arrest. Dunaway v. New York, 442 U.S. 200,
207-13 (1979) (police detectives violated Fourth Amendment where, lacking probable cause,
they instructed officers to “pick up” an individual and “bring him in” for questioning rather than
making an “arrest”). Indeed, “there can be little doubt” that the Fourth Amendment’s probable
cause requirement applies where suspects are “involuntarily taken to the police station.”
Police may satisfy the probable cause requirement in either of two ways: (1) an officer
may obtain a warrant prior to arrest by presenting information of probable cause to a judge; or
(2) an officer may determine that probable cause exists in the field. Gerstein v. Pugh, 420 U.S.
103, 113-14 (1975). When a suspect is arrested without a warrant a neutral magistrate must
verify probable cause as soon as reasonably possible and no later than 48 hours after arrest,
absent an emergency or other extraordinary circumstances. Riverside v. McLaughlin, 500 U.S.
44, 56-59 (1991). Consistent with constitutional requirements, the Louisiana Code of Criminal
Procedure requires probable cause determinations within 48 hours of a warrantless arrest. La.
Code Crim. Proc. Ann. art. 230.2 (2013). The investigative hold practices employed by EPSO
and VPPD contravene these requirements.
Nor is the investigative hold practice permissible under an exception for holding material
witnesses. A material witness may be detained under Louisiana law only if a judge issues a
warrant after a showing that the witness is both “essential to the prosecution or defense” and that
it is “impracticable” to merely issue a subpoena. La Rev. Stat. Ann. § 15:257 (2013).7
The Fourth Amendment similarly limits detention of material witnesses to situations in which the
government “establish[es] probable cause to believe that (1) the witness’s testimony is material,
and (2) it may become impracticable to secure the presence of the witness by subpoena.” United
States v. Awadallah, 349 F.3d 42, 64 (2d Cir. 2003). In addition, courts have found prior judicial
approval of material witness detentions to be of critical importance. See, e.g., Schneyder v.
Smith, 653 F.3d 313, 328-29 (3d Cir. 2011). The investigative hold practices at EPSO and
VPPD thus are not justified under any conception of material witness detentions. The holds are
made without a warrant, without any showing that the testimony is essential and that obtaining it
via subpoena is impracticable, and without any attempt to obtain prior judicial approval.
EPSO and VPPD officers have used unlawful investigative holds as a regular part of
criminal investigations for more than two decades. Most holds operate as follows: when a
detective at either agency wants to question someone in connection with an ongoing criminal
investigation, the detective instructs a patrol officer to find that individual in the community and
bring him or her in for questioning. The patrol officer commands the individual to ride in a
patrol vehicle to either the City or Parish jail, where pursuant to the jail’s standard procedures,
jail personnel strip-search the individual and place him or her in a holding cell (sometimes
referred to as “the bullpen” at the Parish Jail) until a detective is available to conduct
questioning. At the City Jail, there are two holding cells; both are equipped with a hard metal
bench, and nothing else.
Neither holding cell at the City Jail has a mattress, running water,
shower, or toilet in the cell.
The Parish Jail is similar; the “bullpen” is equipped with only a
long metal bench, and the walls are made of metal grating. EPSO detectives and deputies refer
to the process of detaining a person in the “bullpen” for questioning as “putting them on ice.”
Investigative holds initiated by VPPD often last for 72 hours—and sometimes
significantly longer—forcing detainees to spend multiple nights sleeping on a concrete floor or
metal bench. Indeed, VPPD’s booking logs indicate that, from 2012-2014, several dozen
investigative holds extended for at least a full week. During this time, VPPD exerts control over
the detainees’ liberty: The detained person is not permitted to make phone calls to let family or
employers know where they are, and have access to bathrooms and showers only when taken
into the jail’s general population area.
Similarly, EPSO’s investigative holds often last for three full days. During that time,
detainees are forced to sleep on the Parish Jail’s concrete floor. One EPSO deputy reported that
he saw someone held without a warrant or a probable cause determination for more than six
days. As with VPPD, EPSO also controls the detainee’s liberty. EPSO does not permit
detainees who are “on hold” to make phone calls to let family or employers know their
whereabouts. Indeed, we were told that certain detectives have threatened EPSO jail officers
(referred to as “jailers” in the Parish Jail) with retaliation if the officers allowed detainees to
make phone calls. One EPSO jail officer described an incident in which an EPSO detective
reprimanded him after the jail officer provided toothpaste and other personal supplies to a person
locked in the holding cell.
These investigative holds are not even ostensibly supported by probable cause. Both
EPSO and VPPD detectives acknowledged that they use investigative holds where they lack
sufficient evidence to make an arrest, but instead have a “hunch” or “feeling” that a person may
be involved in criminal activity. One VPPD officer noted that they use investigative holds
specifically where the officer needs more time to develop evidence to support a lawful arrest.
Similarly, an EPSO detective described using investigative holds when he had “a pretty good
feeling” or a “gut instinct” that a certain individual was connected to a crime.
Instead, officers at both agencies admitted that they use the time that a person is “on
hold” to develop their case, either by gathering evidence or by convincing the detainee to
confess. As one EPSO detective explained, it is easier to “work up” a case and find evidence
while the person suspected of committing the crime is in custody and cannot communicate with
others. A second EPSO detective explained that he has used investigative holds experimentally,
testing whether a crime wave subsides while a particular person is in jail. The detective
explained that if the crimes continue during the hold, the presumably innocent person is released.
Conversely, if the crimes cease during the detention, the detective investigates the person further.
Detectives and officers at VPPD similarly described the hold process as a way to gather
information about cases and buy investigators time to develop probable cause before taking a
detainee in front of a magistrate. VPPD officers explained that holds assist their investigations
by inducing people to talk to investigators and by allowing detectives to gather evidence while
the individual they suspect is in custody and cannot communicate with people on the outside.
Moreover, both agencies confirmed that they used holds to detain individuals whom they did not suspect of any involvement in criminal activity, but who instead were related to suspects, witnessed crimes, or otherwise might have knowledge of criminal activity.
The willingness of officers in both agencies to arrest and detain individuals who are
merely possible witnesses in criminal investigations means that literally anyone in Evangeline
Parish or Ville Platte could be arrested and placed “on hold” at any time. For example, one
woman told us that VPPD officers detained her and her family in 2014 after a grocery shopping
trip during which they may have witnessed an armed robbery and shooting. The woman was on
her way home with her groceries when a VPPD officer stopped her. She told the officer that she
did not see the robbery and that she had no information about the crime. After she got home and
dropped off her groceries, another VPPD officer came to her house and commanded her to come
to the police station to answer questions. The woman recounted—and Chief Lartigue
confirmed—that the officer took the woman, her boyfriend, and a 16-year old who was staying at
their house into custody at the jail. Officers strip-searched the woman, who was menstruating at
the time, and forced her to remove her tampon. VPPD officers then placed her in custody
overnight—first in a holding cell and then in the Jail’s general population—without access to
sanitary products. According to the woman, roughly nine hours later, VPPD detectives removed
her from detention to question her about the shooting. The district attorney participated in this
interrogation. VPPD officers also held the woman’s boyfriend overnight in a holding cell, and
held the juvenile in a separate holding cell for at least seven hours before releasing him to a
family member. None of these individuals were suspected of having any connection to the
robbery or shooting, yet detectives incarcerated them for significant periods of time before
showing them a line up and asking questions about what they may have witnessed. The day after
being released, the woman called Chief Lartigue to complain about her treatment. Chief
Lartigue responded that the detention was pursuant to department policy.
A second woman credibly recounted a similar experience. She told us that in 2015 VPPD
officers called her and instructed her to put her children in her truck and drive to the police
station because a detective wanted to question her about an armed robbery. When the woman
arrived at the police station, officers took her two children—ages one and five—from her and
placed them in a holding area. According to the woman, VPPD detectives refused to let her call
a family member to pick up the children and interrogated the five year old outside of the
woman’s presence. Officers eventually permitted the woman’s mother to pick up the children
but kept the woman in custody. The woman asked VPPD officers if she was under arrest and
was told that she was not—but that she could not leave because she was “under investigation.”
The woman spent several days in the holding cell, where she slept on the floor and was refused
the opportunity to shower. According to the woman, after 72 hours, VPPD brought her directly
to the Evangeline Parish Sheriff’s Office where she was booked on charges of armed robbery.
The charges against her were eventually dismissed, but not before local media ran a news story
reporting that she was charged with the crime. To this day, the woman has no idea why VPPD
arrested her in connection with this crime.
Reply With Quote
