Public Defender’s Office Must Hire More Lawyers

    Nov. 21, 2006
    Times Picayune
    By The Associated Press

    NEW ORLEANS The board overseeing the city public defender’s office, struggling after Hurricane Katrina sent an already shaky system into crisis, has been ordered to hire more attorneys to represent impoverished criminal defendants.

    The order by judges in the Criminal District Court said mismanagement of the Orleans Parish Indigent Defender Program has denied poor defendants their 6th Amendment right to proper legal representation.

    “Day to day, defendants are in jail that just aren’t getting the representation that they should be getting,” Chief Judge Raymond Bigelow said.

    Twice as many

    Under the order, the public defender’s office must hire 12 public defenders — one for every courtroom — by Dec. 1, which will double the number of public defenders in each section of criminal court. Currently, there is one attorney in each of the 12 sections.

    The office must also give the judges a list of all capital cases — those that could result in a death penalty sentence — and the attorneys who have been assigned to represent the defendants, the order said.

    The judges said a contempt of court hearing will be held Dec. 8 if the order is not complied with.

    Denise LeBoeuf, chairwoman of the Orleans Indigent Defense Board, said that her office does not have the money to hire the additional attorneys and that it should not be micromanaged.

    Problems with the system became glaring after Hurricane Katrina, when thousands of jailed pretrial inmates were scattered to prisons across the state. Most waited for months for any contact with a lawyer.

    didn’t come back

    The public defender’s office has struggled through budget and staff shortfalls since the hurricane struck in August 2005. Most of the staff loss is attributed to employees who evacuated during Katrina and did not return. In addition, funding from traffic fines has dropped sharply since the storm, in part because much of the city’s population has not returned.

    Historically, as many as 90 percent of criminal cases in New Orleans use a public defender, according to the public defender office.

    Three of the court’s 12 judges did not sign the order.



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