BATON ROUGE -- Louisiana needs to provide better legal representation for indigent people accused of crimes or be prepared for more lawsuits, criminal defense attorney Barry Scheck told a state task force Thursday.

Scheck, president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, which coordinated such a suit filed recently in Calcasieu Parish, said his organization does not want to be involved in more litigation. But a report this spring about inadequate financing and overwhelming caseloads for public defenders in Avoyelles Parish could prompt another case, he said.

Scheck, who is also a co-founder of the Innocence Project, which works to exonerate innocent people in prison, often using DNA technology, said he has been involved in Louisiana public defense issues for more than a decade. He testified as an expert in a landmark case in Orleans Parish about indigent defense in the early 1990s. In a 1993 decision on that case, the Louisiana Supreme Court found that indigent defendants were often not provided adequate representation by public defenders, but the court did not mandate any changes, leaving that to the Legislature.

Although the Legislature has increased financing only in small, incremental steps, Scheck said "it is our firm belief that this task force will get it right." The Louisiana Task Force on Indigent Defense began meeting this summer, with the intention of filing a report with recommendations to revamp the system before the spring legislative session.

A proper legal defense provides a needed check to law enforcement, Scheck said, pointing out that since 1999, three people on death row have been executed and six have been exonerated.

Louisiana spends about $30 million on legal counsel for the poor, while public defenders in some parishes have caseloads as high as 400 felony defendants, far more than the 150 cases recommended by legal experts

But Scott Perrilloux, the district attorney in Tangipahoa, Livingston and St. Helena parishes, said that although he supports changing the system, money isn't the only problem. "There is a total lack of accountability with the public defender's office," he said, noting that some public defenders are just not doing a good job.

Scheck said he agreed that changes need to be made to the overall system for public defenders, which is run by 41 local boards. Many of the boards' appointees have no legal experience or criminal defense knowledge, he said.

A better system would be more centralized, either with one commission or regional boards, which would be kept separate from the judiciary to ensure independence, he said.

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