NOLA's Rejuvenated Public Defense Program
By: Steve Grumm
Radical left-wing commy pinko magazine Mother Jones looks in on indigent defense in the Big Easy. Oddly enough, it was from Hurricane Katrina’s devastation that a renewed defender’s office emerged.
“When the storm hit, it certainly did better than any lawsuit could have done to show the problem,” says Derwyn Bunton, the chief of the Orleans Public Defenders. Katrina demolished the city’s public defense system: The lawyers were funded by traffic fines, and there was no traffic anymore. Civil rights activists, lawyers, and the Justice Department stepped in, and by August 2007, a brand new OPD office was ready to do things differently.
The office culture has changed, too:
“Their vigorous client-centered representation is such a dramatic contrast to the previous meet-’em-and-plead-’em system of days past,” says Sara Totonchi, executive director of the Southern Center for Human Rights. In 2006, the center published a damning report on the city’s indigent defense; in 2009, it gave OPD its prestigious Frederick Douglass Human Rights Award, calling it “an inspiration.”
But the program still faces challenges, funding chief among them:
In order to keep up [with demand for services], OPD needs $12 million a year; in 2012, it will get only $9.5 million. The Justice Department grant has run out, and the cash-strapped state has cut its funding. New Orleans’ mayor has, for the first time ever, prioritized public defense in the budget, but that won’t cover the difference. After my visit, OPD cut nine lawyers and froze hiring. Bunton vows to continue to provide representation to anyone who needs it, though it’s unclear how his remaining staff will manage.