Summary: Per a technical assistance request from the Calcasieu Public Defender's Office and the Louisiana Public Defender Board, and an independent request from the 14th JDC Chief District Court Judge, the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) Criminal Courts Technical Assistance Project (at American University) reviewed and assessed numerous areas of office operations in the district public defender office, and across criminal justice agencies. Additionally, BJA created a set of 20 recommendations which include: create a client-centered office, reduce caseloads, increase salaries, provide benefits, enhance supervision capacity, increase client contact, institute performance reviews, develop a salary scale, and increase the use of investigators, among others.

Click here to read the BJA Calcasieu Report.pdf

Summary: The Louisiana Public Defender Board (LPDB) contracted with NLADA to conduct a management evaluation of the 15th JDC Indigent Defender Office, pursuant to LPDB's duties under Act 307 to review, monitor, and assess the performance of all attorneys providing counsel for indigent defendants. LPDB requested NLADA specifically to: evaluate the organizational structure, practices, and policies; evaluate the caseloads, workloads and workflow impediments; and identify the availability and use of investigators. All of NLADA's evaluations track the 15th JDC's performance against the mandates of the 2007 Public Defender Act.

Click here to read Effective Assistance of Counsel: Evaluation of Public Defense Services and Operations in Louisiana's 15th Judicial District indigent Defense System

Summary: This study presents a snapshot of Public Defender operations of both adult and juvenile defense services in the Third, Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Judicial Districts (the parishes of Lincoln, Union, Morehouse, Ouachita, West Carroll, Richland, Franklin, East Carroll, Madison and Tensas), charting many of the changes between the first study of these four Judicial Districts in 2004, making recommendations to deliver the greatest possible operating efficiencies and effectiveness within current resource constraints, and framing the continued debate for increased support.

Click here to read Defending the Indigent in Northeast Louisiana.

Summary: This study undertakes the following: Review of the program's budget, staffing, and allocation of resources; On-site interviews with Indigent Defender Board members and the Indigent Defender Office administrative staff; On-site interviews with Indigent Defender staff attorneys of all levels, as well as support staff; On-site interviews of other criminal justice stakeholders in the parish, including judges and prosecutors; On-site interviews with the Caddo Parish Commission's Director of Finance and the Parish Attorney; Court observation; Review of office policies, procedures and practice standards; Review of attorney practices, including client contact, motions practice, trials, and use of investigators and expert services; Review of the training, supervision and evaluation of attorneys; Review of all staff salaries; Review of previous reports regarding the Indigent Defender Office; Collection and analysis of indigent defense caseload data; and Review of the current indigent defense case management system.

Click here to read Review of the Caddo Parish Indigent Defender Office.

Summary: New Orleans, and in particular the Board of the Orleans Public Defender should work from the outset to establish a model community defender office that will address clients' needs inside and outside the courtroom. This is the best option if the city hopes to staunch the excessive flow of cases running through its criminal justice system, cut costs and address the most exigent problems experienced by its former clients. Building a stronger system of community defense today will help prevent more onerous and expensive steps tomorrow.

Click here to read The Case for Community Defense.

Summary: The New Orleans justice system had long-standing, pre-existing systemic deficiencies that were unmasked and accentuated by the catalyst Katrina. Pre-Katrina, the public defense system in New Orleans was not required to adhere to any national, state or local standards of justice resulting in public defenders handling too many cases, with insufficient support staff, practically no training or supervision, experiencing undue interference from the judiciary, all the while compromising their practices by working part-time in private practices to augment their inadequate compensation. NLADA concludes that the problems of New Orleans' public defense system cannot be fixed within the boundaries of the parish itself. Long lasting reform will necessarily take comprehensive statewide legislative action. The current indigent defense crisis is inextricably linked to the right to counsel struggles of Avoyelles, East Baton Rouge, Calcasieu or Caddo Parish. To uniformly fix all these crises, NLADA recommends changes to how the indigent defense services are administered and funded and offers a strategic plan to ensure accountability and protect fairness in Louisiana's criminal courts.

Click here to read A Strategic Plan to Protect Fairness.

Summary: Without indigent defense lawyers, the system grinds to a halt. People wait in jail with no charges, and trials cannot take place; even defendants who wish to plead guilty must have counsel for a judge to accept the plea. Without indigent defense lawyers, New Orleans today lacks a true adversarial process; the process to ensure that even the poorest person will get a fair deal, that the government cannot simply lock suspects up and forget about them. Despite the efforts of many professionals in the New Orleans criminal justice system, it appears to us that the only justice that can be meted out today is for those who can afford to pay for a lawyers and a bondsman. For the vast majority of arrested individuals, justice is simply unavailable.

Click here to read An Assessment of the Immediate and Longer Term Needs of the Orleans Public Defense System.

Summary: Detainees can be classified into two main groups: residents and non-residents. Both have challenges to posting bond. Most reported that they: did not have a lawyer during their bond hearings, have never spoken to a lawyer, did not understand what happened in court, other than that the judge set their bond, and did not have any idea what was going to happen next in their cases. Non-residents who came to New Orleans to work reported that the bail bondsmen require them to post 100% of the bonds because they are from out of town. Several of the detainees interviewed reported that they could post bond, but had not been in contact with any family members because cell phones do not accept collect calls. The result is that a significant number of people who have not even been formally charged (and who may never be charged) are being held in custody on relatively minor charges.

Click here to read Access Denied: Pre-Katrina Practices in Post-Katrina Magistrate and Municipal Courts.

Summary: The indigent defense system in Orleans Parish was broken before Hurricane Katrina, and further compromised because of the hurricane. The study finds that: The average number of times that each interviewee had spoken to his or her Orleans Indigent Defender (OID) Project attorney outside the courtroom before Hurricane Katrina hit was 0; The average number of times that each interviewee had spoken to his or her OID Project Attorney since the hurricane was also 0; The average number of days that the men and women we spoke to have been detained pre-trial was 385 days, with the longest wait being 1289 days and the shortest being 179.

Click here to read An Investigative Report on Indigent Defense in Orleans Parish.

Summary: In 1963, the United States Supreme Court rendered one of its most important criminal justice decisions, holding that the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendment of the US Constitution guarantee that counsel be provided to indigent persons accused of a crime in state felony proceedings. Forty years after that historic decision, this report by the American Bar Association examines whether this country has realized the noble ideal articulated in Gideon. The report spends considerable attention on a sample of states, including Louisiana. Findings include: Indigent defense in the United States remains in a state of crisis, resulting in a system that lacks fundamental fairness and places poor persons in constant risk of wrongful conviction; Judges and elected officials often exercise undue influence over indigent defense attorneys, threatening the professional independence of the defense function; Efforts to reform indigent defense systems have been most successful when they involve multi-faceted approaches and representatives from a broad spectrum of interests; Model approaches to providing quality indigent defense services exist in this country, but those models are often not adequately funded and cannot be replicated elsewhere absent sufficient financial support.

Click here to read Gideon's Broken Promise.

Summary: The goal of any public defender system should be to provide quality legal services to the poor. Lack of available resources and consistent funding too often results in less than favorable outcomes. The obvious need is for adequate funding to reduce burdensome caseloads. Additionally, given the experience and expertise of the counsel involved, benefits such as health care and retirement are a dire need. Finally, any system requires accountability. The indigent defense system of Louisiana is no exception; however, currently no mandated quality control component is in effect. Record keeping is inconsistent, at best, and non-existent, at worst. Funding is needed both to administer the indigent defense system, and to ensure that all of the players within the system perform according to the standards that justice and the canon of ethics require.

Click here to read Indigent Defense in Northeast Louisiana.

Summary: Contrary to national guidelines, resources for the Public Defender's Office pale significantly to those of the District Attorney's Office in Caddo Parish on every financial indicator. The total financial resources available to the Caddo Parish District Attorney's Office are three times greater than those available to the Public Defender's Office. The Caddo Parish Public Defender's Office suffers from inadequate and imbalanced funding, crushing caseloads and other barriers to providing effective representation. The failure to promptly meet with clients costs taxpayers money. The Commander of Caddo Correctional Center estimates that Caddo Parish residents must bear the financial burden of six months additional pre-trial detention on average per inmate, at an approximate annual cost of one half million dollars. Inadequate public defender funding and staffing increases the likelihood that indigent clients receive poor outcomes, with a disproportionate impact on minority clients.

Click here to read The Provision of the Right to Counsel in Caddo Parish.

Summary: In the public defense function in Calcasieu Parish, there is little client contact, little investigative and/or legal work performed on cases prior to trial, no use of experts, and minimal assertions of clients' legal rights. The study identifies two reasons for this: one is a lack of resources to carry out the public defense mission, and the other is a judicial process that tolerates delays. The felony caseload of attorneys in Calcasieu Parish Public Defender's Office is three times greater than state guidelines recommend. The average time from arrest to disposition of a felony case in Calcasieu Parish is 501 days, compared to a national average of 214 days. Cases often languish for more than three years before they are resolved, and often by a plea bargain. Data from 2001 showed the Public Defender Office in Calcasieu had 17 staff members and 5,100 cases, while the District Attorneys Office in Calcasieu Parish had 88 staff (more than 500% in excess of the Public Defender Office) and a caseload of 6,000 (only 15% more than the Public Defender Office).

Click here to read Defending the Indigent in Southwest Louisiana.

Summary: In direct violation of the state and federal constitutions, Louisiana government (both state and local) has constructed a disparate system that fosters systemic ineffective assistance of counsel due primarily to inadequate funding and a lack of independence from political interference. These two main systemic deficiencies produce numerous ancillary problems including a lack of oversight, training and supervision of those entrusted with the defense of the poor. When combined with the crushing caseloads public defenders are forced to carry, these factors prevent the state from securing justice for all, protecting the peace, and promoting the general welfare of its people.

Click here to read In Defense of Public Access to Justice.