Louisiana State Law Institute Children’s Code Committee Member Richard Pittman
The Louisiana State Law Institute (LSLI) is a state agency most people have likely never heard of. Originally founded in 1938 and funded by Legislative appropriation, its role is to advise and recommend statute changes to Louisiana’s criminal, civil, and family laws. Its composition is concentrated in judges, attorneys, and representatives of various agencies such as the Louisiana District Attorney’s Association, etc.
Sound Off Louisiana recently attended the Committee on Children’s Code for their regularly-scheduled meeting. As depicted below, our camera was not warmly received:
LSLI’s Children’s Code Committee and Sound Off Louisiana‘s Burns spar over the videotaping of the meeting.
Once the issue of videotaping was resolved, the committee commenced with its business of the day. Sound Off Louisiana will be providing several features of their discussion topics, and in light of recent features entailing Louisiana’s prisoner-release program, our feature for today entails the Children’s Code Committee discussion of a proposal to, with limited exceptions, ban the practice of shackling juvenile defendants in Louisiana’s courtrooms. Highlights from that discussion are presented in the following video clip:
LSLI’s Children’s Code Committee discusses anti-shackling proposal for Louisiana’s juvenile court defendants.
For those curious of the composition of the committee, the following video is them introducing themselves and the list of membership beneath the video is derived from LSLI’s website, which is linked above.
LSLI Children’s Code members and audience members introduce themselves before the 9/29/17 meeting.
Children’s Code Committee:
Karen Hallstrom, Reporter, New Orleans
Jan Byland, Baton Rouge
Andrea B. Carroll, Baton Rouge
Paula C. David, Baton Rouge
Ernestine S. Gray, New Orleans
Margot E. Hammond, New Orleans
Kaaren Hebert, Lafayette
Joan E. Hunt, Baton Rouge
Nancy Amato Konrad, Harvey
Hector Linares, Baton Rouge
Lucy McGough, Baton Rouge
Martha Moran, Baton Rouge
Richard M. Pittman, Baton Rouge
Samuel A. Shealy, Ruston
Kristi Garcia Spinosa, Baton Rouge
Carmen D. Weisner, Baton Rouge
Isabel Wingerter, Baton Rouge
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