On Saturday April 5, 2025 a “Misdemeanor Warrant Resolution Event” will be held at the Caddo Parish Courthouse, 501 Texas St., Shreveport, from 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sheriff Henry Whitehorn Sr., Judge Donald Hathaway Jr., Clerk of Court Mike Spence, volunteer attorneys from the Public Defender’s office, and I are partnering to allow individuals with outstanding Caddo Parish misdemeanor warrants to resolve them or set new court dates for their matters. This event seeks to reduce the extreme number of misdemeanor warrants and criminal cases that are pending. For those of you in this situation, or know a friend or family member in this situation, please take advantage of this opportunity.
I also wanted to take this time to bring to your attention a March 13, 2025 article in The Advocate, which brought the results of an analysis of 18- to 29-year-old men convicted of murder during a 15-year period in East Baton Rouge Parish. The results showed the direct correlation of poor school attendance and crime, that “Young men in East Baton Rouge Parish who committed violent crimes typically spent their childhood growing up in the poorest neighborhoods and although enrolled were frequently absent from parish public schools and never earned a high school diploma.” The report noted that looking at the record of 113 young men ages 18 to 29 convicted of murder, only 30 percent had finished high school, where the district’s graduation rate was 73 percent. A further look at a sample of 300 young men convicted for murder and other crimes of violence showed that 81 percent of them were chronically absent for at least one school year.
I have no doubt these results would be similar in our parish. Truants are often the children of parents who did not find success in their own schooling or value education. My fellow Louisiana district attorneys and I face this challenge of prosecuting truant children and their parents, while also trying to reverse their behavior and seek to solve the myriad reasons they are truant . This will continue to be the great focus of my administration as your district attorney, as a root solution to reduce crime in our community…