Ankle monitoring laws in force in Louisiana after incidents

Louisiana moves to regulate and investigate private ankle monitoring companies that have been profiting for years while operating with little or no oversight.

Past The Times-Picayune | Advocate investigations have found that people wearing GPS monitors often commit crimes, even though private companies market the devices as a way to keep communities safe while also giving defendants freedom ahead of trial. Often, responsible companies face no consequences, and breakdowns in communication between companies and law enforcement mean the services they advertise are ineffective, critics say.

Now, a bill that would establish a regulatory regime for these companies, House Bill 874, will soon reach Gov. Jeff Landry’s desk.

The bill passed by the state Senate on Tuesday, sponsored by Rep. Timothy Kerner, R-Lafitte, would require “sellers” of ankle monitors to register with law enforcement agencies and submit monthly indictment lists overseen by the companies. Companies will be required to submit annual reports detailing their eligibility, localities served, services offered, the number of defendants who have been delisted and the reasons for those dismissals.

“This allows the courts to get rid of bad actors,” Kerner said during a Senate committee hearing on his bill.

Under the earlier version of the law, companies that did not report data faced financial penalties of up to $1,000 and could be excluded from the market. However, an amendment introduced by Sen. Pat Connick, R-Marrero, strengthened the legislation to impose criminal penalties on employees of violating companies, who could face up to six months in prison. The Senate approved the amended bill 37-0.

Lobbying for the bill were Jill and Matt Dennis, a husband-and-wife team who run the New Orleans-based electronic monitoring company ASAP Release. They have vocally advocated for tighter regulations for suppliers, arguing that a lack of oversight allows negligent companies to make profits without taking responsibility for failures.

In an April statement, Matt Dennis said new legislation passed in Landry’s February special session that increases penalties for carjacking, armed robbery and other crimes has created a new urgency for pretrial monitoring standards.

“The influx of new arrests as a result of the special session combined with an already overcrowded prison makes this bill one of the most important,” Dennis said.

Inspection of the Louisiana patchwork GPS monitoring system installed in the wake of the murder-suicide in St. Francisville in the fall of 2021 by a man wearing a monitor strapped to his ankle.

The man, Marshall Rayburn, was arrested and charged with drugging and raping his wife, then released with a GPS ankle monitor and a ban from coming within 100 yards of her home in St. Franciscoville. The ankle monitor did nothing to stop Rayburn from storming into his wife’s house late that night, shooting her, and then committing suicide. Records show he violated his supervised release dozens of times and stalked his wife’s home before killing her.

In a rare move, the local district attorney brought an indictment against the company that allegedly monitored him.

In other recent cases – including that of a man accused of two murders in Baton Rouge who was released on an ankle monitor and then went on the run for 10 days; murdering an accused fentanyl distributor outside a Waffle House, with the court record showing he was under house arrest with an ankle monitor; and a young father who was accused of domestic violence in a tracking application, turned off his phone, shot a woman in front of her son and went into hiding for a month – the companies suffered no consequences.

Among these incidents, Attorney | In 2022, the Times-Picayune requested lists of defendants ordered to wear ankle monitors from more than 80 district, juvenile and municipal courts in south Louisiana. Many courts have said they will not order monitoring, and some have said records cannot be searched. Only six could provide complete lists.

This system varied significantly from town to town, the newspaper found. Some jurisdictions had contracts with specific ankle monitoring companies. In other cases, judges simply recommended defendants to companies they knew; or defendants purchase the service themselves, choosing from a range of mom-and-pop service providers who set prices at their discretion.

While law enforcement and government officials say the devices raise surveillance concerns, criminal justice reform advocates say they also impose costs on defendants. Defendants, most of whom have not yet had a trial, typically pay about $10 a day for the duration of their release, although some pay much more.

Kerner’s bill expands regulations tailored to companies’ needs that the Legislature approved last year – a step that some industry regulation advocates considered too lenient.

The legislation returns to the House of Representatives for final approval before heading to Gov. Jeff Landry’s desk. Kerner, the sponsor, said he would support the amendments in the House.