Ronald Dauphin is the last detainee held for the so-called La Scierie massacre,[3] that Lavalas opponents claimed happened in the city of St. Marc, Haiti in February, 2004.
Louis Joinet, the United Nations Commission on Human Right's Independent Expert on Haiti, concluded after investigation that there was no "massacre" at La Scierie, but instead a clash between two armed groups.
[5] On June 10, 2009, U.S. Representative Maxine Waters wrote two letters, one to Haitian Prime Minister Michele Pierre-Louis, the other to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, urging both to act to ensure justice for Ronald Dauphin.
[6] In October 2006, the National Lawyers Guild urged the Haitian government to release the remaining political prisoners, with particular emphasis on the defendants held in the La Scierie case.
Numerous human rights reports[1][9] document that prisoners are dying inside the sweltering, overcrowded 3800-person National Penitentiary in the country's capital, Port-au-Prince.