Public Defenders Office continues to press forward for additional funding

11th November 2019   ·   0 Comments

As the Orleans Parish Public Defenders Office continues its full-court press toward obtaining sufficient funding to give legal representation to those who can’t afford it, members of the New Orleans City Council are examining the possibility of providing the OPD with rent-free or low-cost office as a way of trimming expenses.

“We should look at the resources for in-kind funding like finding free space for them,” Councilwoman Cyndi Nguyen told The Louisiana Weekly. “It seems like [low-cost accommodations] like it could be so critical to so many needs.”

On Oct. 31, staffers and supporters of the OPD appeared before the City Council to lobby for increased funding that would bring the department’s resources more in line and proportional with the yearly amount the Orleans Parish District Attorney’s Office receives from the city.

The City Council, which is holding several public hearings as part of the formation of the 2020 city budget process, heard from Chief Defender Derwyn Bunton and members of his staff, who said that the roughly $1.8 million the OPD received in 2019 is inadequate to carry out the public defenders’ task of providing fair and equal defense for all citizens in criminal court who can’t afford a private attorney.

The OPD presentation noted that, meanwhile, the DA’s Office received nearly $6.7 million in funding in 2019, which Bunton said is completely disproportionate to the OPD’s level of funding. In order to bring the funding in line with the DA’s coffers, he said, the OPD ideally needs to receive 85 percent of what the DA does, because the public defenders handle 85 percent of the cases that are prosecuted by the district attorney.

That means, say OPD representatives, that their office requires $5.5 million annually in order to pursue its constitutionally-guaranteed mission of defending all citizens accused of a crime, especially ones who aren’t economically well off.

“It’s part of why we’re working so hard [for funding],” Bunton told The Louisiana Weekly last week, “because we have a situation that’s very serious for the community, and very serious for our clients. It’s a problem we’ve had for too long, and we want to roll up our sleeves and make structural change in how we represent people.”

The lobbying effort before city leaders has been one method the OPD office has undertaken in recent weeks to bring attention to the dearth of adequate funding. On Nov. 2, the office held it’s fourth annual Second Line for Equal Justice, an event co-sponsored by dozens of other grassroots organizations, agencies and coalitions.

And on Nov. 5, New Orleans Saints player Demario Davis hosted a community forum at Corpus Christi Church to discuss the public defenders’ financial needs. Davis is a leader of the Players Coalition, an organization of athletes dedicated to social justice.

Another key organization has been the Campaign for an Equitable New Orleans, which earlier this autumn proposed the elimination of all traffic tickets, fines and court costs placed on citizens who, as a result, help fund the agencies who prosecute and judge them while citizens become stuck in a “user-pay system” that feeds a cycle of poverty-driven mass incarceration.

The campaign’s efforts and requests appear to have been heard by the City Council. Nguyen told The Louisiana Weekly last week that she supports the OPD’s drive for more equitable funding.

“I definitely want to see how we can get more funding for them,” she said. “It’s really critical, and it should have been addressed the year they came aboard [as a city agency].

“The needs are only getting greater,” she added.

While most of the City Council declined to comment for this story, they did refer to the Oct. 31 hearing, when many council members voiced support for more equity in the amount of OPD funding. Councilman Jason Williams said during the hearing that by cutting corners with funding and supposedly saving money by not funding the OPD for years, the policy has backfired in a big way.

“When you look at the fact that we have not had [funding] parity in a courtroom at Criminal District Court,” Williams said, “when you look at the fact that we have not had parity in the criminal justice system in New Orleans, what do we have to show for it?

“We can say we’re one of the most incarcerated places on the planet, and that does not correlate to [better] public safety. We’re not one of the safest places on the planet, because putting the most people in jail, by arresting the most people, when the data shows we have the most exonerations [of wrongly convicted defendants], not having parity is only leading to very tragic, very unfair consequences.”

He added, “Parity is not progressive. That’s the basics.”

While council members refrain-ed from making specific promises about funding increases, some stated that one concrete way to address the funding inequity, at the very least, is to find the OPD office rent-free or low-cost space in which to base the defenders’ efforts.

Councilman Jared Brossett raised the possibility of moving the OPD’s location; the office pays nearly $300,000 a year to rent its current space at 2601 Tulane Ave., while the DA’s Office is housed rent-free on South White Street.

Councilwoman Kristin Gisleson Palmer then said that city officials have been trying to work with the Orleans Parish School Board to identify empty schools or other OPSB properties that could house the OPD or other city agencies at low or no cost; such discussions have been unfruitful.

Council President Helen Moreno added her support for the idea, stating that such in-kind resource appropriations could help the OPD.

“We need to get lease information so we can move forward to get you a new place where you have a better deal,” Moreno said.

Palmer also suggested other possible in-kind funding streams for the OPD, noting that currently the OPD staff currently pays for their own work mileage and their own health insurance and have no pension plan. In contrast, DA staffers have access to city vehicles, and they have health insurance and a pension through the city. She added that the OPD has to pay its own utilities bills and security services out of the office’s own coffers.

“Y’all clearly don’t have any of those benefits, and I think this is a case of finding ways to be a force multiplier and make y’all a bit more stable,” Palmer said.

She added, “My hope is that we can find a way of right-sizing this whole thing without sacrificing [other budget items].”

Palmer asked Bunton and his staff to draw up a “template for an in-kind budget” as a way to move forward in the process.

Bunton told The Louisiana Weekly that free rent would at least start closing the funding gap with the DA. “Every little bit helps,” he said. “Any in-kind support is a way to help.”

He said receiving cost-free accommodations would allow his offices to take that $300,000 saved each year and put it toward other vital needs and expenses, such as hiring seven more investigators of the office. The DA’s Office currently has 30 staff investigators to help in prosecution, but the OPD only has seven investigators to help in defense.

“It would have a huge impact in what we can do for our clients, and what we can do for our clients’ community,” he said.

Councilwoman Nguyen told The Louisiana Weekly that a solution for the funding disparities must be found because they would impact the entire city of New Orleans in a positive way.

“I’m very committed to figuring out a way for them to move forward,” she said. “We can work to give them the assistance they need so they can continue serving a very vulnerable population.”

This article originally published in the November 11, 2019 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.