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Try CasePortal for FreeJ. DeGravelles denies a request by the secretary of Louisiana’s correctional department to exclude an email he wrote in 2016 from a class action alleging Louisiana has been unlawfully overdetaining thousands of prisoners each year and that the Secretary has known about the state’s misconduct since at least 2012. The secretary unsuccessfully argues that the email is irrelevant, has not been authenticated and that its late production is untimely and unfair. The state official’s objection “rings exceedingly hollow.” Not only did the secretary turn over the email in discovery, he authored the letter which is relevant in that it tends to show that there was an overdetention problem in Louisiana which he and the state recognized before a former inmate filed suit in 2020.