Report Sees Little Justice for Poor in New Orleans
For poor criminal defendants, "justice is simply unavailable" in New Orleans now, concludes a Justice Department report that calls for a major overhaul of the city's public defender system.
The report, obtained by The Times, says the city needs 70 full-time public defenders, more than six times the number of part-time defenders it has now, and a $10-million infusion of cash to have an adequate system.
New Orleans had 39 public defenders before Hurricane Katrina struck last August, all but eight of whom were laid off because of a funding crisis precipitated by the storm.
The devastating storm exacerbated existing problems, according to the report, which says categorically that it would be a bad idea to try to redo the system that was in place before the hurricane.
"No effort should be made nor money spent on recreating the public defender philosophy and focus
Instead, the entire system of indigent representation needs to be changed and the people running it should be replaced, the report says.
"There appeared to be little accountability within the office" of the Orleans Parish Indigent Defender program, according to the study prepared by three experts for the Justice Department.
"There were no client files or any other records or data, save a monthly tabulation of cases closed and how they were closed
Public defenders in New Orleans "rarely meet with their clients, particularly when their clients are in jail," the report says.
And the way the office has operated, indigent defendants have no representation between the time bail is set after arrest and many weeks later when the district attorney's office decides whether to take the case to trial or to drop the charges.
That means that during the crucial time after arrest when prosecutors are investigating the case, the defendant has no representation.
The report was written by Nicholas L. Chiarkis, Wisconsin's chief public defender, Randolph N. Stone, who runs the clinical criminal law program at the University of Chicago, and D. Alan Henry, a consultant and former executive director of the Pretrial Services Resource Center in Washington, D.C.
Attorneys at the Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Assistance, which commissioned the report in conjunction with the Southeast Louisiana Criminal Justice Recovery Task Force, edited the report before sending it to Louisiana officials.
