Louisiana Has No Recording Ban, But a 25-Foot Approach Order Became a Crime in 2024

There is no Louisiana counterpart to an express right-to-record statute, and there is no Louisiana offence of recording an officer. The state's eavesdropping law runs the other way. R.S. 15:1303(A) makes it unlawful to wilfully intercept a wire, electronic or oral communication, but Subsection C(4) exempts a person not acting under colour of law who intercepts a communication where that person is a party to it, or where one of the parties has given prior consent, unless the interception is for the purpose of committing a criminal or tortious act or another injurious act. Subsection C(3) grants the equivalent exemption to a person acting under colour of law. That is one-party consent, and a person filming an exchange they are part of, such as their own traffic stop, is inside it.

The definitions narrow the exposure further. R.S. 15:1302(17) defines an oral communication as one uttered by a person exhibiting an expectation that it is not subject to interception under circumstances justifying that expectation, and expressly excludes electronic communications. R.S. 15:1302(13) defines intercept as the aural or other acquisition of the contents of a communication through an electronic, mechanical or other device. Both definitions matter for a recording made in public, because the statute protects a communication only where the speaker's expectation of non-interception is a justified one.

The live constraint is spatial. R.S. 14:109, created by Acts 2024, No. 259 and headed "Approaching a peace officer lawfully engaged in law enforcement duties", provides that no person shall knowingly or intentionally approach within twenty-five feet of a peace officer who is lawfully engaged in the execution of his official duties after the peace officer has ordered the person to stop approaching or to retreat. Three features of that drafting decide how it works in practice. First, the offence is triggered by an order, so standing at fifteen feet filming an arrest is not an offence until an officer tells you to move. Second, the statute contains no exception for journalists, for people already inside the zone, or for a person recording, so the same words apply to everyone present. Third, Subsection B borrows the peace officer definition from both R.S. 14:112.4(B) and R.S. 40:2402, which pulls in a wide range of commissioned officers rather than city police alone.

Subsection C supplies the defence that most often decides these cases: it is an affirmative defence if the defendant can establish that the lawful order or command was neither received nor understood by him, nor capable of being received or understood under the conditions and circumstances that existed at the time of the issuance of the order. In a noisy, crowded or fast-moving scene, the burden of proving that sits with the defendant.

One more Louisiana provision reaches people recording at a scene. R.S. 14:108(B)(1)(e) makes it obstruction of an officer to knowingly interfere with a police cordon by intentionally crossing or traversing it, and defines a cordon to include crime scene tape, rope, cable, wire or metal barricades, or the posting of uniformed officers. The subparagraph expressly says the cordoned area includes the airspace above it, so an unmanned aircraft system flown over a scene is inside the offence, and where a drone in the cordon endangers the public or an officer's safety, law enforcement or fire department personnel are authorised to disable it. On the police side, R.S. 40:2552 has required since January 1, 2022 that any law enforcement vehicle whose dash camera can record automatically when the emergency lights are activated must use that capability.

S. 14:109 is punished under Subsection D by a fine of not more than five hundred dollars, imprisonment for not more than sixty days, or both. S. 14:108 and carries a fine of not more than five hundred dollars or imprisonment for not more than six months, or both. S. 15:1303(B) sets the penalty for an unlawful interception at a fine of not more than ten thousand dollars and imprisonment at hard labour for not less than two years nor more than ten. S. 15:1312 adds a civil cause of action for anyone whose communication is intercepted, disclosed or used in violation of the chapter, recovering actual damages but not less than liquidated damages at one hundred dollars a day for each day of violation or one thousand dollars, whichever is greater, plus reasonable attorney's fees, litigation costs and punitive damages, with good faith reliance on a court order as a complete defence.

A person who believes an arrest at a scene was unlawful can invoke La. art. I, section 5, which secures every person against unreasonable searches, seizures or invasions of privacy and gives any person adversely affected standing to raise the illegality.