Chief Justice: Improve Defender System

    May 9, 2007
    The Advocate
    By Will Sentell

    The chief justice of the state Supreme Court urged lawmakers Tuesday to enact a better process for providing lawyers for criminal defendants who cannot afford their legal defense.

    “Please help create a system that allows public defenders to have the time, tools and training to present an adequate defense for their clients,” Chief Justice Pascal F. Calogero Jr. told a joint session of the Legislature.

    “Please create a system that gets it right the first time so that we reduce the costly number of mistrials and re-trials that all too frequently beset the system,” he said.

    Louisiana’s setup for defendants who cannot afford an attorney — it is called indigent defense — has come under fire in recent years.

    Eight of 10 criminal defendants in Louisiana require the state to appoint a lawyer.

    National civil rights groups have charged the state’s system is so underfunded and poorly organized the legal representation poor people receive at criminal trials fails to meet constitutional standards.

    In 2005, the Legislature approved a bill that backers described as a small first step toward improving indigent defense. That measure allowed a state board to collect information about public defenders and whom they represent and set standard criminal court fees to partially fund local defenders.

    The changes cost taxpayers about $55 million per year.

    Earlier that year Calogero took the unusual step of asking lawmakers to pass the legislation.

    Calogero said Tuesday that, while those changes represented improvements, hurricanes Katrina and Rita interrupted state progress on the issue.

    “Without an adequately-funded and well-managed indigent defense system the entire criminal justice system suffers,” he said.

    Better management and more money “is still a critical need,” Calogero told legislators.

    Calogero said, while he would not endorse specific legislation, he is encouraged a consensus appears to be developing among district attorneys, sheriffs and others for more improvements.

    “I am encouraged with the change I am seeing in how the Legislature goes about the business of building consensus around important criminal justice issues,” he said.

    The chief justice said adequate funding for indigent defendants “does not make one soft on crime or against victim’s rights.”

    The House Criminal Justice Committee is considering legislation today that would create a Louisiana Public Defender Board.



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