Parish and Regional Studies

The Case for Community Defense in New Orleans (released December 2006)

Download Brennan Center New Orleans Report (May 2006)

Findings include: 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. The report makes six broad recommendation to achieve this model office:

Reinvent defender culture
Reach out to client communities
Investigate police misconduct and help clients avoid negative police interaction
Make contacts with social service providers and, where appropriate, divert clients at first appearance
Improve communication with clients
Facilitate client reentry at front and back ends of the criminal justice process

A Strategic Plan to Ensure Accountability and Protect Fairness in Louisiana's Criminal Courts (released September 2006)

Download NLADA Orleans Parish Study (September 2006)

Findings include: 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.

An Assessment of the Immediate and Longer Term Needs of the New Orleans Public Defender System (released May 2006)

Download Department of Justice Orleans Parish Study (May 2006)

Findings include: 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:

In the vast majority of cases, the bail amount requested by the prosecutor is granted.
Sometimes the Orleans public defender gives the defendant his or her court papers to retain because there is no filing system or location at this time to keep such material.
There was no data that would give us the caseload of the office of individual public defender attorneys.
Orleans public defenders rarely meet with their clients, particularly when the clients are in jail.
75% of the indigent defense lawyers in Orleans Parish have been laid off, while arrests continue to average between 85-100 per day.

Access Denied: Pre-Katrina Practices in Post-Katrina Magistrate and Municipal Courts (released April 2006)

Download Northwestern Orleans Parish Study (April 2006)

Findings include:

Staff working in the temporary misdemeanor court face a number of challenges. Space is limited. Hearings that are supposed to be open are closed to the public, defendants are forced to sit on the floor, and the proceedings are chaotic.
Defendants frequently appear in court without the assistance of an attorney. Although the judges typically announce at the start of court that the Public Defender will be appointed for those who cannot afford a lawyer, in practice, there is rarely a formal appointment. While a Public Defender may be present in court during the proceedings, he rarely participates in the proceedings.
Court is conducted in an assembly line fashion. Except in rare cases, the Court is not provided with relevant information about the detainees and consequently does not engage in a meaningful individualized bond determination.
An overwhelming majority of the cases we observed were minor drug possession or public intoxication cases. Bonds were usually set at $500 or $1000. Each bond hearing usually lasted less than a minute.

An Investigative Report of Indigent Defense in Orleans Parish (released March 2006)

Download Safe Streets/Strong Communities Orleans Parish Study (March 2006)

Findings include: The indigent defense system in Orleans Parish was broken before Hurricane Katrina, and further compromised because of the hurricane. The study found 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.
Poor people accused of felonies and unable to afford an attorney typically sat in jail for more than 60 days before even being appointed an attorney.
After appointment, the OID Program's attorneys by and large did not visit the crime scene, did not interview witnesses, did not check out alibis, did not procure expert assistance, did not review evidence, did not know the facts of the case (even on the eve of trial), did not do any legal research, and did not otherwise prepare for trial. One interviewee described talking to his attorney for the first time while sitting at counsel table waiting for his trial to begin, and his dismay at discovering that his attorney could not remember his name and had apparently not spoken to his alibi witness.
With few exceptions, attorneys with OID Program never met with their clients to discuss their case. Appointed counsel did not take calls from the jail, did not respond to letters or other written correspondence, and generally did not take calls or make appointments with family members. The men and women we interviewed uniformly reported that OID Program attorneys did not ask for names of witnesses or alibis, did not respond to requests that critical witnesses be interviewed, and frequently did not know the names of their clients.

The Provision of the Right to Counsel in Caddo Parish, Louisiana (released July 2004)

Download Caddo Parish Study

Findings include: 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 Caddo Parish Public Defender's Office suffers from inadequate and imbalanced funding, crushing caseloads and other barriers to providing effective representation. Further, the study found that:

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.
Caddo public defenders carry caseloads far in excess of standards set by the Louisiana Indigent Defense Assistance Board.
The failure to promptly meet with clients costs taxpayers money. The Commander of Caddo Correctional Fenter 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.
Fully 65% of "indigent clients" had full-time jobs at the time of their arrests and detention.
People of color are disproportionately affected by the failure of the system to adequately protect their right to counsel.
Inadequate public defender funding and staffing increases the likelihood that indigent clients receive poor outcomes.

Defending the Indigent in Southwest Louisiana (released July 2004)

Download Calcasieu Parish Study

Findings include: 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. Further, the study found that:

The Public Defender's Office in Calcasieu Parish represents nearly 90% of the 3,000 people accused of felony crimes annually.
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).

In Defense of Public Access to Justice: An Assessment of Trial Level Indigent Defense Services in Louisiana 40 Years after Gideon (released March 2004)

Download Avoyelles Parish Study

Findings include: 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.

In each district in Louisiana, the Public Defender Office is overseen by an Indigent Defender Board. In Avoyelles Parish, turnover on the board has been extremely high, resulting in a lack of continuity regarding oversight. At the time of the report, the local Indigent Defender Board consisted of a vice-principle, a real estate developer and a nightclub owner. None were attorneys or had any background in criminal justice.
In Avoyelles Parish, one public defender handles the workload of more than 6 full time attorneys, while only working part-time. Assuming a 1,387-hour work year, clients facing felony charges are afforded, on average, approximately two hours of the attorney's time, including those charged with capital offenses.
Contrary to constitutional requirements to investigate cases, this report demonstrated public defenders who rarely if ever make motions for experts, and who make it a policy to refuse to conduct defender investigation.

Indigent Defense in Northeast Louisiana: a Study of the Public Defense Systems in the Third, Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Judicial Districts (released December 2004)

Download Monroe-Region Study

Findings: 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.