According to a report from New Orleans’ Times-Picayune, Gretna Police Chief Arthur Lawson is “mystified” by Judge Martha Sassone’s repeated interventions on behalf of Corey “C-Murder” Miller in the dispute over alleged violations of the terms of his house arrest. On June 5, when a Gretna police officer was driving Miller to the Jefferson Parish Correctional Center, Judge Sassone phoned the officer and ordered him to return the defendant to his home. Although Sassone was within her authority, Lawson found it to be a surprising action by a judge, and a first in the six years that his department has run the home incarceration program.
Lawson also disputed a statement the Judge made last week in court when she claimed that the additional workload placed on his officers in monitoring Miller had become a “burden” to the department. “We certainly don’t feel that it was a burden. It certainly wasn’t the sentiment of our officers, the office or the program,” Lawson told the Times-Picayune. The Chief also expressed concern that Miller did not meet the standard criteria for the home incarceration program in the first place. He cited as examples the violent nature of his crime, and violations he incurred while in prison, such as possession of an illegal cell phone and an assault on an officer. Judge Sassone, who is unable to comment on cases in her court, released Miller from house arrest last week and imposed a 10 p.m. curfew instead.
