"In our case, he stepped on the wrong people's constitutional rights because we knew our rights."
By Elizabeth Nolan Brown
http://reason.com/blog/2017/09/08/sheriff-settles-over-blogger-raid/printHas a bullying Louisiana sheriff learned his lesson about abusing power? The targets of an illegitimate
and unconstitutional 2016 raid he ordered think he has. Yet Terrebonne Parish Sheriff Jerry Larpenter has
received no formal discipline for his conduct.
Larpenter has reached a settlement in the civil suit filed against him by Jennifer and Wayne Anderson, whose
home was raided by Larpenter's deputies in 2016 after Jennifer blogged critically about the sheriff.
"I think the sheriff's finally learned that he can't bully people and violate people's constitutional rights,"
Wayne, a Houma police officer, told local station WWLTV. "In our case, he stepped on the wrong people's
constitutional rights because we knew our rights. Hopefully, he thinks twice the next time he gets his
feelings hurt."
The trouble stems from Jennifer's pseudonymous blog, ExposeDAT, which billed itself as the area's
"Underground Watchdog" and was critical of Terrebonne Parish leadership, including Larpenter. Among
other things, the blog questioned the business relationship between Larpenter, Parish President Gordon
Dove, and Tony Alford, an insurance agent and a commissioner on the Terrebonne Parish Levee and
Conservation District Board. Alford filed a defamation complaint.
Under Louisiana's defamation statute, the crime is defined as "the malicious publication or expression
in any manner, to anyone other than the party defamed, of anything which tends to expose any person
to hatred, contempt or ridicule, or to deprive him of the benefit of public confidence or social intercourse;
or to expose the memory of one deceased to hatred, contempt or ridicule; or to injure any person,
corporation, or association of persons in his or their business or occupation." But the Louisiana Supreme
Court has declared this statute unconstitutionally broad when applied to public figures—like Larpenter,
Dove, or Alford . . .
