Orleans Public Defenders Office needs more funding
21st October 2019 · 0 Comments
By Ryan Whirty
Contributing Writer
Less than a month after calling for the dismissal of all existing arrest warrants, tickets and court fees, the Orleans Public Defenders Office followed up with a call for more funding equity in the New Orleans criminal justice system.
On Oct. 10, the OPD announced a resolution on an apparent disparity in the amount of funding the city traditionally provides to the OPD compared to the Orleans Parish District Attorney’s Office.
The effort, called the Campaign for an Equitable New Orleans, accompanied the OPD’s 2020 budget request for $5.5 million, which Chief Defender Derwyn Bunton said would represent 85 percent of the amount usually allotted annually to the DA’s Office. Bunton said the $5.5 million would finally fund the OPD Office appropriately and proportionally compared to the DA, which received $6.6 million in funding for 2019.
Bunton said the OPD handles 85 percent of all criminal cases in the New Orleans justice system per year, with the remaining 15 percent handled by private attorneys for defendants who are financially able to hire private attorneys.
According to Bunton, his office’s 2020 city budget request of $5.5 million would finally be in line with that workload on the OPD, which traditionally has been allotted just $1.8 million to represent defendants who can’t afford a private attorney.
“This has been a long time coming,” Bunton said of the OPD’s push for funding equity. “We’ve been criticizing the current structure found in the legal system for a long time.”
Hopefully, Bunton told The Louisiana Weekly, city officials and others will listen now. “We have a disparity in how people are represented,” he said. “There is an issue of equity in this.”
According to an OPD press release, the OPD handled nearly 25,000 cases in 2018, but a hiring freeze that was necessitated by inadequate funding has left the office with a staff of about 100 defenders. As a result, each public defender is on track to represent 220 to 275 defendants this year, compared to what Bunton said was the national standard of about 150 per staffer.
In addition, the dearth of funding means that the OPD has no investigators on its staff, compared to 30 at the DA’s disposal, Bunton said. With the local criminal justice system continuing to swell, Bunton said the urgency of fair and equitable representation has never been more apparent.
The public, he added, knows that, and that people in the community believe that the legally mandated requirement of fairness in the courtroom must be fulfilled for the justice system to remain healthy, efficient and fair.
“We’re finding in talking with the community and with decision-makers,” he said, “they feel that our justice system is stronger when representation is fair and just. They believe equity is important.”
Bunton said that the city’s skyrocketing incarceration rate, as well as the city’s alarmingly high percentage of wrongful convictions, are symptoms of a flawed system that puts more emphasis on prosecution rather than equal justice. “It we have any respect for the legal system, the community must believe that everyone has a fair shot,” he told The Louisiana Weekly.
Orleans Parish District Attorney’s office’s communications director Ken Daley said the DA’s office is unable to comment on the OPD’s resolution and comments.
“Our office has no public comment on budget complaints of the public defender’s office,” Daley said in an email to The Louisiana Weekly.
However, Daley did note that the DA’s office handles several functions that the OPD doesn’t, such as litigating appeals and post-conviction petitions (the appeals courts include defense representation); the running of the city’s Juvenile Court, where the defense is handled by the Louisiana Center for Children’s Rights; and operating a diversion program.
Daley called such functions “critical programs” that are operated out of the DA’s budget.
Mayor Cantrell’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
Several City Council members also didn’t offer comments on the OPD’s resolution and criticisms. Tiffaney Bradley, communications director for Councilwoman Kristin Gisleson Palmer, said Palmer was on site at the collapsed Hard Rock Hotel, adding that Palmer won’t be able to comment on the OPD’s call until the Councilwoman is briefed about the upcoming budget development.
Cantrell delivered her proposed budget for 2020 last Thursday, and the City Council will hold budget hearings between Oct. 28 and Nov. 15.
As city officials assemble the 2020 spending plan, Bunton said he remains optimistic that the OPD’s message will be heard.
“We want to work with the City Council and the mayor on this budget cycle,” he said, “and once the cycle is complete, we want to bring folks together for real, equitable change.
“When poor people come to court,” he added, “we must ensure that they have a fair shot and are going to be represented adequately.”
This article originally published in the October 21, 2019 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
