Federal Court Rules Former Louisiana Governor Can’t Dismiss Case Over Juvenile Inmates in Adult Prisons

Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards in Baton Rouge, La., on Feb. 1, 2022. AP Photo/Matthew Hinton

A federal court ruled on Sept. 4 that former Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards cannot dismiss a lawsuit by juveniles who said they are being imprisoned in a Jackson Parish facility that also houses adult inmates.

The ruling was handed down by U.S. District Judge Shelly Dick, who found that defendants in the case—who also include Louisiana Office of Juvenile Justice (OJJ) Deputy Secretary William Sommers and Louisiana Public Safety and Corrections Department Secretary James Leblanc—had previously “made promises and representations to the Court that were not trustworthy.”

Should all of the youth in the custody of the OJJ be removed from the Jackson Parish and housed in OJJ secure care facilities, the lawsuit will be moot, the judge said.

“But under the circumstances, Plaintiffs have the right to seek discovery to determine whether OJJ youth are improperly being held in an adult facility and/or whether OJJ youth held in the collocated juvenile facility are nevertheless being exposed to adult inmates or lacking monitoring by OJJ juvenile justice specialists,” the judge wrote.

“Accordingly, the Court will allow limited, narrowly tailored discovery on these specific issues.”

Any other issues of confinement are to be filed in a separate lawsuit, the judge concluded.

The ruling stems from a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in March 2024 alleging that youth were suffering various unlawful conditions of confinement in Jackson Parish and were imprisoned close to adults.

In its lawsuit, the organization said there were “36 class member youth” incarcerated with adults at the Jackson Parish Jail in “shocking and abysmal conditions.”

The high-risk juvenile offenders were transferred to the prison after being moved out of a facility at Louisiana State Penitentiary, an adult prison in Angola and the largest maximum security prison in the country.

They had initially been housed at a former death row building at the penitentiary, which is commonly known as Angola Prison, as part of a plan unveiled by Edwards in July 2022.

That plan was in response to ongoing issues at one of the state’s juvenile facilities, Bridge City Center for Youth, from which six juveniles escaped.

Testimony Claims Youths in OJJ Custody Encountering Adults

At the time, Edwards said the transfer would be temporary, with more permanent and longer-term solutions, including the construction of a transitional treatment unit for the youth in the pipeline.

The ACLU filed a federal class action lawsuit against the Angola plan in August 2022, arguing that Congress, with the 1974 passage of the federal Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act, recognized that young people should not be incarcerated in adult jails or prisons.

That request was denied by the court in September 2022 after Dick found that the OJJ had shown that it would provide a constitutional level of care to youth transferred to the Angola facility.

Dick reversed course in September 2023 and issued a preliminary injunction ordering the OJJ to remove all youth from the unit at Angola within one week and to cease using the facility to detain youths after finding that conditions there violated the 14th Amendment of the Constitution.

The state lost its appeal of the injunction, and the OJJ subsequently sent the youths who had been at Angola to the juvenile unit of the newly opened Jackson Parish facility.

In the meantime, the state moved to dismiss the ACLU’s lawsuit based on mootness, arguing that the OJJ had closed down the facility at Angola and had no plans to reopen it to juveniles in the future.

However, the ACLU argued that the case was not moot because the state had failed to show that its allegedly wrongful conduct would not recur after the case was dismissed.

In her ruling, Dick noted that an investigator for the Southern Poverty Law Center attested that some of the youth aged 18 or older who remain in OJJ custody up to the age of 21 have been housed with adults in some dorms, while others under 18 who are not housed in the adult dorms or in cells with adults “reported they are around adults almost every day.”

The imprisoned youths also encounter adults in the hallway or cafeteria, and adults pass their cells on a regular basis, Dick said, citing the investigator’s testimony.

Based on the testimony and concerns that the youth may be incarcerated with adults, the state’s motion to dismiss based on mootness was denied, the judge said.

The Epoch Times contacted the OJJ for comment but didn’t receive a reply by publication time.