New Orleans Judges Say More Lawyers Needed to Represent the Poor

    Nov. 21, 2006
    Times Picayune


    NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Nine criminal court judges have ordered the board overseeing the indigent defense system here to hire more attorneys to represent impoverished criminal defendants.

    The order, issued on Monday by judges with the Criminal District Court, said mismanagement of the Orleans Parish Indigent Defender Program has effectively 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.

    Under the order, the public defenders office must hire an additional attorney for each section of court by December 1. Right now there is one attorney in each of the 12 courtrooms.

    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 on Dec. 8 if the order is not complied with.

    Denise LeBoeuf, chair of the Orleans Indigent Defense Board, said her office does not have the money to hire the additional attorneys and she said her office 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.

    The newest disagreement is the latest in a string of conflicts as a reconfigured indigent defense board has begun to make changes in the program since Katrina. Several judges have been critical of a decision to make the program's lawyers work full time instead of maintaining a side-line practice.

    But LeBoeuf said that for too many years judges allowed public defenders to provide insufficient defenses, including hiring part-time lawyers who did not visit clients in jail, keep files or investigate cases.

    "They let that system stand for years and years without a peep," she said. "I'm pretty suspicious that this is all done for the altruistic benefit of poor people."
    But her critics argue that the sudden switch to full time pushed out a handful of veteran attorneys at a time when they were needed.

    And Bigelow, the chief judge, has questioned why the indigent defense board has hired Ronald Sullivan, a Yale Law School professor and former head of the Washington, D.C., public defender office, and paid him about $100,000, plus travel expenses, to redesign the office.

    The indigent defense office also has two written contracts worth up to $152,000 with a trainer and recruiter who live out of state. Bigelow has said these funds do not actually result in the defense of clients.

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

    Judge Arthur Hunter said the indigent office should not be held responsible for inadequate legal representation. He's held a series of hearings aimed at exposing the insufficient state financing for public defenders.



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