Indigent Staff Rise is Ordered;
Judges Say Office Not Competently Run

Nov. 21, 2006
Times Picayune
By Laura Maggi


Criticizing recent changes to reshape the Orleans Parish Indigent Defender Program, nine Criminal District Court judges Monday ordered the board overseeing the system to hire more attorneys to provide representation to impoverished criminal defendants. The order states that mismanagement of the office has effectively denied poor defendants their 6th Amendment-guaranteed right to effective legal representation, citing the "policies and practices" recently implemented by the lawyers who took over running the program in late April.

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

The judges' order requires the public defenders office to hire an additional attorney for each section of Criminal District Court by December 1. There is currently one attorney in each of the 12 courtrooms. The office also needs to provide the judges with 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.

If the office does not comply, the order says a hearing will be held on Dec. 8 about whether the board members and management team should be held in contempt of court.

Returning fire

In response, leaders of the public defenders office said judges don't have the money to hire the additional attorneys and shouldn't be micromanaging how they are deployed to defend clients.
"To the extent to which we are in agreement with the judges is that we need more money and more staff," said Denise LeBoeuf, chair of the Orleans Indigent Defense Board.

Judge Arthur Hunter refused to sign the order, and said later he did not agree with the comment about the policies of the indigent office being responsible for inadequate legal representation. Hunter has held a series of hearings in recent months aimed at exposing the insufficient state financing for public defenders.

Judges Julian Parker and Darryl Derbigny also did not sign the order. Bigelow said that was because they were not present at the meeting where it was discussed.

The new leaders of the indigent defense program said the order is a prime example of judges interfering where they don't belong, noting that while the local judges appoint the board, they aren't supposed to tinker with the day-to-day management. Instead, judges need to allow time to see whether the recent changes end up providing better legal representation for people accused of crimes, said LeBoeuf.

LeBoeuf said that for too many years the judges at the courthouse on Tulane Avenue
and South Broad Street 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."

A key change

The exchange is the latest in a string of disagreements in recent months, as the reconfigured indigent defense board has begun to make changes in the program. Several judges have been particularly critical of the decision to make the lawyers with the program work full time instead of maintaining a side-line practice.

Proponents said this would provide needed accountability and ensure that poor defendants get a vigorous defense, noting that the change was advocated in numerous reports over the years critical of the indigent defense system in New Orleans. Critics argued that the sudden switch to full time pushed out a handful of veteran attorneys at a time when they were needed.

The simmering tensions have boiled over in the aftermath of the flood, which brought the justice system to its knees and laid bare long-standing problems with indigent defense in New Orleans. After the storm, thousands of jailed pretrial inmates were scattered to prisons across the state. Most waited for months for any contact with a lawyer.

The indigent defense office was crippled by a lack of financing, as the agency is largely dependent on court fees that dried up when daily operation of the court system ceased. Most of the work tracking down defendants was done by local law clinics.

Pockets turned out

Now, the public defenders office doesn't have the money to comply with the judges' order that new attorneys be hired for each section, said Steve Singer, the new trial chief for the office who also works at the Loyola Law Clinic. Singer said he has found attorneys for most of the capital defendants who have needed lawyers. The office is working on hiring contract lawyers for the remaining seven or eight cases, he said.

At the Dec. 8 hearing, the judges likely will be armed with questions about the financial decisions made by the indigent board. Bigelow recently sent the office a public records request demanding information about the spending, including questions about various contracts.

Judges have zeroed in on what Bigelow termed an "oral" contract with Ronald Sullivan, a Yale Law School professor and former head of the Washington, D.C., public defender office who is being paid about $100,000, plus travel expenses, to redesign the office. The office also has two written contracts worth up to $152,000 with a trainer and recruiter who live out of state. Bigelow noted that these funds don't actually result in defense of clients.

But LeBoeuf said that Sullivan has been putting in intensive hours to reshape the office, saying he was a necessary "transitional figure" while they look for a new full-time executive director.

Singer said the trainer has already begun sessions to prepare new attorneys to properly represent clients.


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