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Louisiana Justice Coalition Applauds Recent Court Decision
For immediate release April 4, 2005
Contact Heather H. Hall: 504-522-3949 (o), 504-701-0155 (c)
NEW ORLEANS — Louisiana's Supreme Court issued a call for immediate and substantive reform of its indigent defense system in a decision handed down April 1, 2005 in State of Louisiana v. Adrian Citizen and State of Louisiana v. Benjamin Tonguis. Significantly, the Supreme Court recognizes that the current indigent defense system violates the defendants' due process rights and grants trial judges the authority to halt the prosecution of indigent defendants if funds are inadequate to provide for their constitutionally guaranteed right to a lawyer and quality defense. The decision is a call to action for the state legislature to address Louisiana's broken indigent defense system.
Defendants Benjamin Tonguis and Adrian Citizen were charged in April 2002 and October 2002 respectively. The Calcasieu Parish Public Defender's Office was unable to take either of their cases because of their prohibitive caseloads. Both Citizen and Tonguis have been unable to proceed to trial with their court-appointed private attorney because she lacks adequate resources to mount a qualified defense. Citizen has been languishing in jail for more than 30 months waiting for his trial, under the presumption of innocence that our nation affords all defendants as the most basic due process right.
In this decision, the Supreme Court calls on state legislature to respond this session to the significant funding and structural issues of its indigent defense system. It reiterated the warning it issued more than a decade ago in State v. Peart (1993) that if the legislature continues to delay in implementing reform, the court will develop more intrusive means of ensuring Louisiana complies with both the State and U.S. Constitution. Experts from the National Legal Aid and Defender Association (NLADA) have estimated that the state needs $55 million to create a functional indigent defense system. The NLADA has been working with the Indigent Defense Task Force to offer recommendations on how to best provide these funds.
The Indigent Defense Task Force was created in 2003 and charged with studying the problems and proposing viable remedies to the legislature. However, after failing to convene even once in 2003, it was re-established in 2004. Despite its promise to examine the problem and provide meaningful reform, meetings have been sporadic, there has been no agreement on proposed solutions and there is no indication that any legislation laying out substantive reform will be offered in the 2005 session.
Louisiana Justice Coalition Director Heather Hall said, "The decision in Citizen and Tonguis is an affirmation of the State Constitution and the principle that justice shouldn't depend on how much money you have in your pocket. Further, the decision echoes the demands of the Louisiana Justice Coalition and all its members for the state to develop a comprehensive plan to implement a statewide, uniform system of indigent defense that complies with national standards. We hope that the state will act on the Supreme Court's strong articulation of the severity of the problem and our urgent need for a remedy."
The state is required by its Constitution to create a uniform system for securing and compensating qualified counsel for indigents. The Supreme Court recognized that while the legislature has enacted statutes which require the state to provide the funds for indigent defense, it has at the same time failed to provide adequate appropriation to support these services.
A 2004 report examines the legal services provided to indigent defendants in Calcasieu Parish. The report documented: caseloads of public defenders in Calcasieu Parish are four times greater than national standards allow; the average time from arrest to sentencing is approaching three times the national average; the District Attorney's office had a 2004 budget of $3.7 million and 88 employees as compared to the Public Defender's Office 2004 budget of $1.2 million and 17 staff, and; a glaring disparity in investigative resources as the prosecutors have 14 staff investigators as well as access to law enforcement while the public defender's office had only two investigators for its entire caseload. Similar reports in parishes around the state document the same findings. (This report, and other information, can be found at: www.lajusticecoalition.org)
Additionally, a recent investigation of the Calcasieu Parish jail found that of the 1000 inmates on that given day, 53 had been in jail longer than the possible maximum sentence to which they could have been sentenced if they were guilty. LJC member Kathleen Hawk Norman said, "The state's broken system is a burden born by taxpayers. Inefficiency creates lengthy and unnecessary pre-trial detention, frequent re-trials, settlements with innocent people who have been unfairly convicted and incarcerated, and wasted resources spent defending the state against systemic litigation."
Louisiana spent only about $7.8 million state dollars on indigent defense in 2002. The remaining funds came from traffic ticket surcharges and court fees. This funding stream has been proven unreliable and inadequate. Louisiana is the last and only state in the nation to fund its indigent defense system in this way. In all, just over $29 million was spent on indigent defense statewide that year.
The Louisiana Justice Coalition supports the creation of a statewide, uniform indigent defense system that complies with the American Bar Association Ten Principles of a Public Defense Delivery System. Standards for juvenile defense are set by the American Council of Chief Defenders and the National Juvenile Defender Center Ten Core Principles for Providing Quality Delinquency Representation through Indigent Defense Delivery Systems. These national standards ensure a sound criminal justice system and fairness for all individuals. The LJC recently released report cards for Louisiana's poor performance on these standards. For the services it provides to adult clients, Louisiana fails 8 of the 10 principles. For kids assigned a public defender, the system fails them on every single principle.
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