Terrebonne launches program to reunite families entangled in legal system
Terrebonne recently launched a program to help keep families together as they navigate the legal system.
The 32nd Judicial District gained approval March 3 to form a Family Preservation Court, one of only eight in the state, one of them in Lafourche.
One of the objectives of Family Preservation Court is to provide parents quicker access to treatment and the ability to remain in treatment longer, organizers said. Unlike traditional drug courts where the initial motivation is avoiding jail, the incentive in Family Preservation Court is maintaining child custody.
“It’s a program for families who have children that are either in foster care or are at risk of having their children be removed from the home,” Terrebonne Assistant District Attorney Ellen Doskey said. “The parents have substance abuse disorders. We’ve been working on this project for quite some time.”
State Supreme Court declines to reinstate Houma murder conviction
A Houma man will face a new trial for the murder of a former deacon after the state Supreme Court declined to reverse a lower court’s decision to overturn his conviction.
Leron Calloway, 24, was found guilty June 19, 2015, in the shooting death of 66-year-old former Annunziata Catholic Church deacon Connely Duplantis in an armed robbery of his cell phone on Carolyn Avenue in Houma Nov. 24, 2013.
District Judge David Arceneaux sentenced Calloway to life in prison during a hearing Feb. 8, 2017.
After reviewing the evidence, the Louisiana 1st Circuit Court of Appeal in Baton Rouge overturned the conviction in 2019 and sent the case back to the district court. Prosecutors filed a writ of certiorari, which petitions the Louisiana Supreme Court to review the case.