PD's office says it can't accept any more cases; ethics prof sees triage system
Citing an overload of cases, public defenders in New Orleans say they need a moratorium on any new case assignments.
In a “bombshell request,” the Orleans Parish Public Defenders office asked Judge Arthur Hunter on Friday to stop assigning it any new cases, the New Orleans Times-Picayune reports. The office plans to ask judges in other New Orleans court sections to do the same.
Deputy District Defender Jee Park told Hunter that defendants are shortchanged because of the office’s excessive caseloads and shortage of investigators. Public defenders can’t provide “constitutional, effective representation,” Park said.
Hunter began hearing testimony on the request and will continue the hearing on Monday, when Innocence Project founder Barry Scheck will testify.
On Friday, New York’s Cardozo School of Law ethics professor Ellen Yaroshefsky told Hunter that judicial intervention is needed, according to the Times-Picayune account.
“To call this a ‘justice system’ is really a misnomer,” Yaroshefsky testified. “The lawyers here are compromising some clients in order to represent others. They make a decision to triage, and triage is a conflict of interest.”
Derwyn Bunton, chief of the Orleans Public Defenders, said the office is short staffed because of $700,000 in state budget cuts, local funding shortfalls and a hiring freeze.
