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[Enzom21]

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WASHINGTON ― Renata Singleton is a black woman who spent five days in a New
Orleans jail because she couldn’t afford her bail. Away from her three children, she lost
eight pounds before her mother was finally able to purchase her release.

When Singleton got home, she had an 8 p.m. curfew and started wearing bell-bottom
jeans to hide the electronic monitor on her ankle from her kids. Despite having a master’s
degree in business administration, she’s worried she’ll have trouble finding a new job:
Her mug shot and a record of her arrest are still floating around online.

None of those facts make Singleton’s story extraordinarily noteworthy: Legally innocent
defendants unable purchase their freedom ahead of trial are regularly locked up. Here’s
what does: Singleton wasn’t accused of a crime. She was the victim of one.

About three years ago, in November 2014, Singleton got into an argument with her
boyfriend. He shattered her phone. Her daughter called the police. The boyfriend was arrested.

Singleton’s ex-boyfriend was able to pay a $3,500 secured bond at his arraignment the next day, and he was
released. He later pleaded guilty to two misdemeanors and was sentenced to probation without jail time.

Singleton, the victim in the case, didn’t have such an easy go of it. When a victim-witness
advocate for the Orleans Parish District Attorney’s Office reached out to her, Singleton
said she wasn’t interested in pursuing charges. She had a job that paid by the hour, and
she didn’t want to miss out on work or time with her kids. She’d broken up with the man.
She was ready to move on.

Prosecutors didn’t let her let it go. According to a lawsuit filed Tuesday against Orleans
Parish District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro and others in his office, investigators drafted up
“subpoenas” requiring Singleton to appear for a meeting at the district attorney’s office in
April 2015, when the case against her ex-boyfriend was still pending.

Those documents were not actually subpoenas ― but the district attorney’s office
misleadingly labeled them as such to compel Singleton to show up to a meeting.
Singleton didn’t know that at the time, but she didn’t go to the meeting because a friend
in law enforcement told her that she hadn’t been validly served.

The day Singleton missed the meeting, an assistant district attorney applied for a material
witness warrant, asking the court to jail Singleton. Believing the fake subpoenas were
actual subpoenas, a judge issued the arrest warrant.

Singleton eventually met with prosecutors, but told them she wouldn’t talk to them
without a lawyer present. Rather than granting her access to a lawyer, prosecutors had
Singleton led out of their office in handcuffs, and she was arrested on the warrant.

It was the first time Singleton had ever been arrested. She was taken to jail and forced
into an orange jumpsuit. Her bail was $100,000 ― more than 28 times the bail amount
set for her alleged abuser. She spent five days in jail before she went before a judge, who
reduced her bail to an amount her mother could afford.

Singleton is now the main named plaintiff in a lawsuit against Cannizzaro and his office
that alleges that his prosecutors “routinely issue their own fabricated subpoenas directly
from the District Attorney’s Office ― without any judicial approval or oversight ― in order
to coerce victims and witnesses into submitting to interrogations by prosecutors outside
of court.”

Cannizzaro had challenged members of the New Orleans City Council last month to show him one person who was ever arrested on one of the D.A. notices. It evidently wasn’t too hard: Civil rights investigators have already found at least 10 cases in the past three years in which prosecutors applied for arrest warrants by relying on the assertion that a witness didn’t obey one of the office’s fraudulent subpoenas.

 

[Rygar 8 Bit]

sue em for all they got

 

[Derwind]

The fact that she still had to pay bail, I would be fucking livid.

 

[Yukiari]

Lock up the victim... the victim... there are no words

 

[Yaphett Kotto]

There are too many stories like this one and each one is a depressing reminder that this can literally happen to anyone of color.

Hope she gets every cent they are worth for and collect on them until they wither away.

 

[Pollux]

Lock up the victim... the victim... there are no words

There is nothing wrong with material witness warrants in theory - sometimes the on,y way to convict a defendant in domestic violence cases is by forcing the victim to testify. Maybe she's afraid, maybe she loves him, don't know - but if that's what it takes to put a man who causes physical harm to his girlfriend or kids in prison then that's what it takes.

 

[Yukiari]

There is nothing wrong with material witness warrants in theory - sometimes the on,y way to convict a defendant in domestic violence cases is by forcing the victim to testify. Maybe she's afraid, maybe she loves him, don't know - but if that's what it takes to put a man who causes physical harm to his girlfriend or kids in prison then that's what it takes.

It takes locking up the victim and potentially causing them more trauma? Can't this backfire in a way that they might never report the violence again because they fear something like this would happen to them again?

 

[Dali]

Hope they throw these fucks under the damn jail. Having bail set that high is 10000% punitive and on some "you didn't respect this [phony] court order? Well I'll show you..." type bullshit. The whole fucking criminal justice system from the cops, to the judge and DA get pissed when people, especially fucking black people, show a little backbone or exercise their legal rights (in this case DA was pissed because she wouldn't talk without a lawyer present).

 

[robochimp]

The fact that she still had to pay bail, I would be fucking livid.

The fake subpoena turned into a real warrant.

 

[Dr.Acula]

There is nothing wrong with material witness warrants in theory - sometimes the on,y way to convict a defendant in domestic violence cases is by forcing the victim to testify. Maybe she's afraid, maybe she loves him, don't know - but if that's what it takes to put a man who causes physical harm to his girlfriend or kids in prison then that's what it takes.

In that case they could get a subpoena.

 

[Pollux]

In that case they could get a subpoena.

Yeah. I'm not talking about the bullshit in this article but actual material witness warrants when the victim does not show for a trial not just a office pretrial conference. And they've been validly personally served with the valid subpoena.

 

[Waddle Dee]

Absolute bullshit. Hope she sues them to oblivion.