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In a ruling on Friday, Criminal District Court Judge Arthur Hunter suggested that holding a person for several months in jail without representation is unreasonable. He ordered that seven such men be released, though their charges won't be dismissed. Our criminal justice reporter Ken Daley wrote about this today: http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2016/04/orleans_judge_halts_prosecutio.html

One goal, if not the main goal, of the lawsuit was to put pressure on the Legislature to repair the inadequate way it funds public defense in the state, which is primarily through court fines and fees. For example, defendants pay $40 for a public defender and an extra $45 if they're found or plead guilty. At the time the suit was filed, Marjorie Esman, executive director of the ACLU of Louisiana, wrote this in a statement: "In Orleans Parish, as in the rest of Louisiana, funding for public defenders is inherently unreliable and prone to crippling shortages. To pay for public defense, the state relies on the fines and fees collected from the public for traffic tickets and other convictions — a system that makes public defenders dependent on excessive policing and draconian sentencing that work against the people they defend." Read more here: http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2016/01/aclu_lawsuit_comes_as_no_surpr.html

Gov. John Bel Edwards is proposing a 61.9% reduction to the Louisiana Public Defender Board budget. People in the state can write to their legislators and oppose such drastic cuts through this link: https://www.votervoice.net/mobile/LACDL/Campaigns/44709/Respond

The problem is particularly bad here, but it’s definitely not limited to New Orleans or Louisiana. The public defender’s office in Missouri recently warned that they too could face a federal lawsuit if things don’t improve. They’ve asked the state for a $25 million increase for the next fiscal year, but the governor’s budget proposal calls for just $1.5 million extra, according to KMBC.com

Derwyn wrote about how widespread the problem is in an Op-Ed for the New York Times here

“A 2013 study in Missouri provided a snapshot of the problem. For serious felonies, defenders spent an average of only nine hours preparing their cases; 47 hours were needed. For misdemeanors, they spent two hours when 12 hours were necessary...."

“The problem of grossly underfunded public defender organizations with grossly excessive caseloads is a systemic, endemic problem going back 50 years,” said Stephen F. Hanlon, general counsel for the National Association for Public Defense, who is overseeing the current studies.

Here's a link to the donation page on the OPD's website: http://www.opdla.org/donate