A black Labrador retriever named Karissa Justice has spent three years sitting quietly beside crime victims and witnesses inside New Orleans courtrooms, and now a new Louisiana law bears her name. Karissa works out of the Orleans Parish District Attorney's Office, where she has helped traumatized witnesses find the composure to testify in cases too painful for words alone.
Karissa's story, and the case that helped inspire the law named for her, was detailed in a report by WWL-TV, which named her its Patriot of the Week. Reporter Meg Farris described how the dog offers comfort and strength to victims and witnesses navigating New Orleans' criminal courts, and how Orleans Parish District Attorney Jason Williams said Karissa redirects traumatized people toward feelings of love and sits with witnesses so they are not alone.
A Grandmother's Long Wait for Justice
Among the people Karissa has helped is Lurline LaBeaud-Duncan, who is raising three grandchildren after violence killed her son and daughter-in-law in 2018, according to the station's report. Her son, 23-year-old Gregory Heisser III, and his 22-year-old fiancée, Darnisha DeSilva, were shot to death in their Little Woods home that October, according to WWL-TV's earlier coverage. LaBeaud-Duncan's grandchildren witnessed the violence that killed their parents, and one of them, who was 3 years old at the time, later testified at trial at age 9.
That trial did not reach a verdict quickly. It was delayed nearly six years by the COVID-19 pandemic and the deaths of three adult witnesses before an Orleans Parish jury convicted defendant Kenneth Augustine in May 2024 on two counts of second-degree murder, obstruction of justice, and firearm charges following the granddaughter's testimony, per the same outlet's account of the verdict. Karissa helped LaBeaud-Duncan's granddaughter gain the confidence to testify, and when LaBeaud-Duncan returned to the Orleans Parish District Attorney's Office this week, she said Karissa did not forget her.
From One Office's Idea to a Statewide Mandate
Karissa joined the Orleans Parish District Attorney's Office as its first facility dog on July 24, 2023, after Assistant District Attorney Meghan Falcon completed an intensive week-long training program with Canine Companions in Texas, according to the Orleans Parish District Attorney's Office. Falcon, who works in the office's sexual assault kit initiative division, shares an office with Karissa and takes her home every night. Between then and August 2026, the pair supported crime victims and witnesses in over 100 meetings and assisted in 24 criminal trials, the office says, and it notes it was among the first offices in the country to use a courthouse facility dog for victim-witness services.
Karissa is trained to sit with witnesses in the witness box, participate in trials, and help people who are otherwise unable to talk in court. Reporting from WWL-TV notes she has beds in most people's offices at the courthouse. But her presence was not always guaranteed: under Louisiana Revised Statute 15:284, originally enacted in 2018 as Duvall's Law, courtroom facility dog accompaniment was mandatory only for witnesses under 18 or with a developmental disability, meaning Karissa was at times excluded from proceedings involving adult witnesses because accommodation was left to judicial discretion.
Duvall and Karissa's Law Takes Effect
That gap is what prosecutors and lawmakers set out to close. Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry signed House Bill 126 into law as Act 616 in June 2026, expanding the statute to require courts to allow any sex-offense witness to be accompanied by an available facility dog regardless of age, according to the Orleans Parish District Attorney's Office. The law was officially renamed Duvall and Karissa's Law in Karissa's honor, and it took effect August 1. The bill was authored and sponsored by State Representative Mandie Landry and passed both chambers of the Louisiana Legislature without opposition, per WWL-TV's account of the legislation, receiving bipartisan support.
Lawmakers built in safeguards to protect defendants' rights alongside the new mandate. Louisiana law requires trial judges to instruct juries on the role of facility dogs so their presence does not influence deliberations or imply a witness is truthful, and Act 616 permits courts to obscure the dog from jury view and manage its movements outside the jury's presence, according to legislative records tracked by BillTrack50.
Part of a Growing National Trend
Karissa is not alone in this line of work. More than 300 courthouse facility dogs now operate across legal jurisdictions in the United States to assist victims and witnesses during court proceedings and depositions, according to facility dog advocates tracked by Service Dog Access Rules. Canine Companions, the organization that trained Karissa and was founded in 1975, estimates it costs roughly $50,000 to raise, train, and support each facility dog, yet the group provides dogs to public agencies free of charge through private donations, as Hoodline reported when the Glendale Police Department welcomed a similarly trained dog named Brisket in 2024.
Karissa's evolution from a single office's pilot program to the namesake of a statewide law illustrates how one dog's daily work inside an Orleans Parish courtroom reshaped legal protections for sex-offense witnesses across Louisiana. For LaBeaud-Duncan and the grandchildren she is raising, that legacy is personal: a dog who sat beside a frightened 9-year-old now has her name written into state law meant to make sure other witnesses never have to face a courtroom alone.
