We've always done it that way

The subpoenas have always been fake. Cannizzaro's real innovation was slightly better formatting, it seems.

In defending the notices, Assistant District Attorney Chris Bowman said earlier this year that they had been used for decades before Cannizzaro took office.

Harry Connick, who served from 1973 to 2003, said in an interview that was true, calling it an “accepted practice by predecessors.”

Connick, who was Herman’s boss when she was a prosecutor, said he didn’t know how frequently the documents were used. In the case reviewed by The Lens, prosecutors sent 10 notices telling witnesses to come in for questioning.

Connick stressed the differences between the documents from his time and the ones used under Cannizzaro. He said he doesn’t believe the notices his prosecutors sent truly resembled court orders.

“The only thing that I can see is that Karen Herman added a note that said ‘subpoena,’” he said after reviewing the documents. “That’s not what those things were.”

The DA subpoenas from Connick’s era were similar to those used until this year by North Shore DA Warren Montgomery’s office and looked like genuine subpoenas in use at the time. They said “CRIMINAL DISTRICT COURT” at the top and declared, “YOU ARE HEREBY NOTIFIED to appear before the District Attorney in the Criminal District Court for the Parish of Orleans … to testify to the truth according to your knowledge.”

Montgomery stopped sending them because they looked too much like genuine subpoenas and could mislead people.

In other words, it's a thing they all did as a matter of course until someone finally objected. Decades later. There are so many ways in which entitlements like this exist as a matter of course forever until people start to notice. Typically the play, then, is to blame it all on the one bad actor who happens to get called out at the time. In this case, that's Cannizzaro. But, really, the abuse extends far beyond just him. Odds are it will continue in some form after he's gone.