After deadly failures of GPS monitoring, Louisiana is setting tighter rules, tougher oversight

After several high-profile incidents in which GPS monitoring failed to stop violent crimes, Louisiana recently passed a bill that aims to bring oversight to the state’s fractured and loosely-regulated system for electronically tracking pre-trial offenders.

East Baton Rouge officials are lauding the changes, saying they address a lack of accountability for both offenders and those tasked with monitoring them. 

“We have come together to develop a legislative solution that we hope will positively impact public safety in Baton Rouge, as well as cities all across our state,” Baton Rouge Police Chief Murphy Paul said Thursday.  

Under the bill, offenders found to have tampered with their ankle monitors could be fined up to $500 and face up to six months in jail. Those accused of a felony face even harsher penalties: up to $1,000 in fines and a year of imprisonment.

Service providers will also be required to alert municipal authorities within minutes if they find someone has tampered with their device or if they are found to have violated any boundaries set upon their release. 

Prior to the bill, there were virtually no standards under Louisiana law governing electronic monitoring providers, East Baton Rouge District Attorney Hillar Moore III said. The new uniform standards for ankle monitor companies make the criminal justice process easier for everyone involved, he said. 

“I think it helps everyone. It helps the judge because they’ll know what’s standard. It helps the defense lawyers, and I think it also keeps the defendant in check,” he said. “In the long run, it helps the defendant know that hey, these are really being monitored.”

While court-ordered GPS monitoring has grown in popularity in recent years amid shifting views about mass incarceration and its costs to taxpayers, critics say Louisiana’s monitoring system lacks meaningful oversight, and local leaders have long pushed for harsher punishments for offenders caught tampering with their devices, as well as for the companies tasked with tracking them who fail to report the violations. 

In 2021, 71-year-old St. Francisville resident Peggy Beasley Rayburn was shot to death in her home by her estranged husband, Marshall Rayburn, who had been handed a restraining order and ordered to wear a tracking device after he was accused of repeatedly drugging and raping his wife during the couple’s 15-year marriage. Since her death, questions have emerged surrounding the ability of GPS monitoring to effectively track offenders. 

Records subpoenaed from the company that issued Rayburn’s device, Adapts Electronic Monitoring, showed that Rayburn – who ultimately turned the gun on himself – had violated his restraining order numerous times. There were also several instances when his monitor appeared to go off the grid, including on the day of the shooting, when he wrapped the device in duct tape to kill the signal and hid in a shed in his estranged wife’s backyard for hours with a backpack filled with knives, zip ties and chloroform. 

West Feliciana District Attorney Sam D’Aquilla said Adapts Electronic Monitoring never notified the parish about any of the violations. Months later, a grand jury indicted the company’s owner, Van Hopkins, on negligent homicide in one of the state’s first cases to bring criminal charges against an electronic monitoring company for an oversight failure. 

Since then, there have been numerous instances of people committing crimes while under GPS surveillance, District Attorney Moore said. 

Over the last four months alone, Moore said that he’s filed over 30 subpoenas requesting ankle monitor information for people who have been re-arrested for serious alleged offenses while out on bond. 

He described the bill as “common sense” legislation. 

“This could not have come at a better time,” Moore said. 

This is a developing story.