New Orleans Prosecutor Drops A Joint Out Of His Pocket In Court

It was business as usual Monday afternoon in the Orleans Parish magistrate court when an assistant city attorney reportedly made a mistake that could haunt him the rest of his career.

Jason Cantrell, the 43-year-old son of a magistrate commissioner, allegedly dropped a joint out of his pocket right in front of New Orleans Police Department officers, The Times-Picayune reported Monday.

Officers reportedly laughed as they escorted Cantrell out of the courtroom and wrote him a summons for simple possession of marijuana.

Marijuana possession in New Orleans is a municipal offense, so police can issue summonses rather than arrest wrongdoers.

A tipster who reported the incident to Above The Law says he has "suspected that more than 50% of the city — and its employees, specifically — are, at any given time, either stoned, drunk, or on a three hour lunch."

"... but, Your Honor, it was evidence in another case, and I was carrying it to maintain the chain-of-custody. Honest. Sir.’..."

Funny that you should say that, but therein lies the tale ...

As the Senior Military Court Reporter/Stenographer for Fort Hood way back in the 80's, I was detailed to a number of marijuana cases. We had one case where the soldier was accused of possessing marijuana with intent to distribute, and the marijuana was in the form of four bales .. yes, bales about 2'x 2'x 1' in size .. to which he pled and was found guilty. In the process of the proceedings, the actual bales of marijuana were brought from CID over to the courtroom and signed over to the prosecutor to be presented as evidence during the sentencing proceedings, in order to show the panel just how much marijuana was involved.

Once the evidence was offered and admitted into evidence, I signed the evidence chain of custody voucher and accepted custody of the bales of marijuana. At the end of the trial, after I had completed all of my post-trial paperwork, I looked around and everyone was gone .. no prosecutor, no CID agents, nobody was there in the courtroom except for me.

Exercising what I considered due diligence, as I was signed for the marijuana, I put the bales of marijuana in the back of my hatchback Chevette and proceeded across post .. and Fort Hood is quite large .. to the CID office to sign the evidence back into the evidence room.

Needless to say, I made it about halfway across post before I was flagged down by three or four MP vehicles and "asked" to get out of my car and explain what I was doing. It was only about then that I actually realized the enormously bad decision that I had made.

Anyway, everything worked out in the end, althrough it took awhile at the CID/MP office, and the presence of my Staff Judge Advocate (a full Colonel) and the prosecutors to help in the matter.

It's been a valuable learning tool over the years for training new court reporters and ensuring that the policy was changed so that the court reporters didn't have to sign for evidence from CID; it stayed under the signature of the prosecutor and he was responsible for it from beginning to end of the trial.

Samurai Court Reporter

About twenty five years ago I was defending someone in General District Court, where Virgina criminal misdemeanors and traffic cases are heard. The custom in most VA courts is very strict, and it requires both counsel to stand directly behind a lectern when addressing the court, unlike what you often see in the movies. On this occasion, I happened to look down and saw a small glassine envelope of cocaine laying on the floor just beside the podium. Obviously, it had fallen out of someone’s pocket. While the judge was looking at something, I caught the Commonwealth Attorney’s attention and discreetly pointed to the object on the floor. He was transfixed for a long moment, but then we went on with the case. Afterward, he picked it up and put it into a file, and I never heard anything more about it.

"Where did you get that figure?
It might be correct, but a illiteracy rate that high ..... hum?"

I originally read it in the Mobile Register (and later, other places). The contex was complaints from returning Christian groups who went to NO to help. Their complaint was that much of their time was wasted filling out simple FEMA paperwork (for people who could not read or write) so that these people could get free FEMA stuff, etc. They said that much of the reasons for delays was this reason. The 63% number was contained in that article.

I've read similar numbers comparing Detroit with NO at 62% in Detroit who could not read or write. NO is 68% Black.

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