Joseph Cranney

3 weeks ago | nola.com | Joseph Cranney

Zayden Hills says he knew what he wanted to be when he grew up by the time he was 6 years old. A lawyer. He was a creative kid whose mom, a teacher, encouraged him to read and write. He loved “The Chronicles of Narnia” and thriller novels. He read Maya Angelou and wrote poems he performed at open mics when he was still in elementary school. But it was a workday visit to his uncle’s New Orleans law firm that really settled it.

1 month ago | nola.com | Joseph Cranney

Four months into a year that started with one of the deadliest nights in the city’s history, New Orleans law enforcement leaders said Tuesday that violent crime rates have dropped significantly compared to the first half of last year, with murders down 34% even after the terrorist attack that killed 14 on New Year’s Day. New Orleans is on track to have one of its most peaceful years on record just two years after a skyrocketing murder rate made the city one of the country’s deadliest.

1 month ago | nola.com | Joseph Cranney

Two years ago, after Orleans Parish Sheriff Susan Hutson’s proposal to double a tax that her office collects took an epic pounding — losing by 91% of the vote — some wondered if Hutson had come up on the wrong end of the most lopsided election in city history. Saturday, her office was named the winner of what might have been its closest. After more than 25,000 ballots were counted, Hutson’s latest measure to renew a decade-old tax passed by two votes, an unheard of, almost impossible margin.

1 month ago | nola.com | Joseph Cranney

By an almost surreal, historically close margin, Orleans Parish voters appeared to hand Sheriff Susan Hutson a huge reprieve Saturday, approving what Hutson described for months as a critical renewal of a tax that funds around a fifth of the jail's budget. The renewal of the decade-old Orleans Parish Sheriff's Office millage passed by just two votes, after more than 25,400 votes were counted, according to unofficial results. Hutson's measure had 12,715 "yes" votes, with 12,713 voting against.

1 month ago | nola.com | Joseph Cranney

In a hearing Wednesday on Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill’s push to eliminate "sanctuary" policies for immigrants in the New Orleans jail, a federal judge peppered a state lawyer with questions over what she at one point called “insufficient” arguments for the attorney general to be allowed to intevene in the case. U.S. Magistrate Judge Janis van Meerveld didn’t rule Wednesday on Murrill’s request, filed earlier this year in a decade-old lawsuit brought by a former pair of inmates.