Public defenders in New Orleans are looking for a little bit of mercy this holiday season. Many indigent defense offices nationwide suffer from chronic understaffing and underfunding. But the crisis is particularly bad in Orleans Parish, where both clients and public defenders are victims of budget cuts in an illogical funding system. Aljazeera America reports:
About 85 percent of people charged with a crime in New Orleans are represented by public defenders, because they can’t afford a private attorney. With more than 20,000 indigent clients a year, the Orleans Public Defenders office needs 70 lawyers and an $8.2 million budget to “protects its clients’ constitutional rights,” according to a 2006 American University report.
Yet while the office handles the vast majority of the city’s cases, it has about 50 lawyers and a $6.2 million budget. […] And the situation will likely get worse next year. Projected budget cuts of about $700,000 will further strain the defenders office, increasing case processing time, jeopardizing everyday court proceedings and potentially causing “constitutional crises” for the local criminal justice system, according to Orleans Parish public defender Derwyn Bunton.
It was Bunton who "made an unusual request for judicial mercy" last week when he asked a Criminal District Court judge to stop giving his office new cases until the understaffing crisis is fixed.
According to Bunton, his office cannot take on more cases without “compromising the system as a whole." A number of witnesses testified for Bunton, including the co-founder of the Innocence Project, Barry Scheck, who referenced research he's done on "the effects of inadequate defense on wrongful convictions[.]" Scheck asked the judge to take a stand, stating that"if [the judge] stopped assigning cases, other judges might follow suit and not penalize public defenders who don’t take new clients."
“[This crisis] literally calls for defenders and judges to step forward together on this,” he said, according to Aljazeera. “The failure to have an adequately funded defense team … not only endangers the innocent, but it undermines public safety.”
One of the many problems with the Louisiana public defense system is funding. Defendants essentially end up paying for their representation through "user-pay systems" that rely on fines and fees. This is not only insufficient but counterproductive, as these fines and fees result in more people in the criminal system, many of whom end up needing attorneys.
As it stands, the funding and staffing situation is dire and is severely affecting clients. Maximilian Gumina, an Orleans Parish public defender, says that his clients "spend months in jail that they shouldn’t" because he simply doesn't have the time to get to their case. What's more, many of these defendants "are often arraigned without counsel present and sometimes plead guilty when they didn’t do anything wrong."
Gumina and his coworkers are untenably overworked. According to Aljazeera, "The American Bar Association recommends that a public defender’s misdemeanor cases be limited to 400 a year. Gumina … resolves an average of 400 a month." And he has been clear that these cases are often low on the list of priorities, since "clients charged with the most serious crimes get first priority."
After Bunton's request, the judge ruled that "the court couldn’t offer a remedy until the office officially notified the court that it couldn’t take additional clients." He agreed to revisit the request next month. He also said that his ruling would only apply to his section, just one out of the court's dozen.
If the office can’t take on more cases, that’s inevitably a problem for the large number of people needing representation. Yet, even as it stands now, defendants are getting an inappropriately miniscule amount of attention from their attorneys simply due to understaffing. Perhaps this drastic move is a good one.
The hope is that Bunton’s request brings more attention to the office’s needs and heightens the urgency for more funding. Quality representation requires adequate staffing and adequate funding. State officials who refuse to provide that are failing to fulfill their constitutional duties.