Study: The poor in Louisiana get lousy legal help
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Louisiana does a miserable job of protecting the rights of the poor in court because of a woefully underfunded indigent defense system, according to a new study.
The study, released by the National Legal Aid and Defender Association on Tuesday, blasted Louisiana for allowing indigent defenders to be overworked, underpaid and inexperienced — all leading to sloppy representation.
“Louisiana has constructed a disparate system that fosters systemic ineffective assistance of counsel due primarily to inadequate funding and a lack of independence from undue political interference,” the study said.
The study found “a lack of oversight, training and supervision of those entrusted with the defense of the poor. When combined with the crushing caseloads public defenders are forced to carry, these factors prevent the state from securing justice for all, protecting the peace, and promoting the general welfare of its people.”
Louisiana is the only state that pays its indigent defense lawyers mostly through local court surcharges, the study said. More than half of the states’ systems are funded largely by the state government.
Louisiana spends about $31 million on defending the poor, or about $1.70 per person. By comparison, states with populations close to Louisiana’s spend much more. Colorado spends $9.36 per capita, or $40 million, and Minnesota spends $10.47 per capita, or $50 million.
Oregon, where the population is about 39 percent smaller than Louisiana, spends $76 million on indigent defense, or about $23 per capita.
The study found that, on average, Louisiana prosecutors outspent indigent defenders by nearly three times, with prosecutors spending more than $75 million statewide and indigent defenders spending about $25 million. That figure for prosecutors does not include the amount of time and money “provided at no cost to the prosecution by police, sheriffs, or FBI,” the study added.
“The system functions pretty well. It’s not the best it could be. We’re forever trying to improve it. We’ve always got an eye towards making it better,” said E. Pete Adams, executive director of the Louisiana District Attorneys Association.
A team of lawyers from the National Legal Aid and Defender Association visited the Avoyelles Parish courthouse to see how the poor were represented and found numerous problems.
One defense attorney, the study said, let a client with whom he had spoken to for 30 seconds plead guilty to “the equivalent of statutory rape” even though the defendant “could not have been found guilty because he was not the requisite number of years older than his girlfriend — who was in court to support him.”
The state district judge recognized the error and corrected it, the study said.
“With one attorney, the representation was so deficient that the accused individual was left to advocate on his own behalf, despite the fact that counsel was in the courtroom. The attorney’s practice was to stand 15 feet or so away from the defendant during guilty pleas, including those defendants in chains. The attorney was at times laughing with prosecutors or court staff during the proceeding in which his clients were forced to provide their own representation,” the study said.
“You could practically sit in any courtroom on any day and observe the types of things we observed,” said David Carroll, the principle author of the study.
The study said national standards say a lawyer should handle no more than 400 misdemeanor cases a year, but that in Avoyelles one misdemeanor attorney handled 1,088 cases.
Despite the study’s findings, Carroll said he was “optimistic that Louisiana will get it right.”
Last year, the state Legislature called for the creation of a Blue Ribbon task force to look at ways of improving the system.
Carroll said the state could lessen the workload of indigent defense lawyers by decriminalizing some misdemeanors and low-level felonies.
“By investing in the indigent system, there are cost savings down the road,” Carroll said.
The study said sheriff’s offices and district attorneys in Louisiana had over $310 million sitting in reserves at the end of 2002, enough money to fund the indigent defense system for a decade at current costs.
“Louisiana legislators must examine and repair the system that allows vast amounts of unused resources to sit in bank accounts across the state while constitutional rights are not protected due to lack of funding,” the study argued.
Adams dismissed as “terrible” the idea that money in reserves should be tapped into because it would take money away from district attorneys and sheriff’s offices activities.
The study also faulted Louisiana’s system for lacking “independence from undue political interference.”
In Louisiana, the judiciary appoints members to local indigent defense boards, and that erodes the independence of the boards, the study argued.
“Courts should have no greater oversight role over lawyers representing indigent defendants than they do for attorneys representing paying clients. The courts should also have no greater oversight of indigent defense practitioners than they do over prosecutors,” the study said.
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On The Net:
National Legal Aid and Defender Association: www.nlada.org
Louisiana Indigent Defense Assistance Board: http://www.lidab.com/