Orleans public defender system "a mockery,'' judge says
New Orleans Times-Picayune[30March2007}
By Gwen Filosa
Staff writer
The public defender system in Orleans Parish is a “mockery” of what a criminal justice system must provide in a civilized nation, a judge said Friday as he vowed to no longer appoint the program to represent poor defendants in court.
Orleans Parish Criminal District Court Judge Arthur Hunter said that next month he will release 42 poor defendants who remain in custody, and suggested the public defender program should dump cases rather than continue working on them while it has only a skeleton staff, a staggering caseload and a lack of money.
Hunter, a former police officer elected to the bench in 1996, blamed lawmakers for the failure of the public defender system and pointed out that the crisis plaguing poor defendants and their court-appointed lawyers has existed for a quarter century.
“The Louisiana Legislature has allowed this legal hell to exist, fester and finally boil over,” Hunter said Friday, ruling from the bench that the poorest defendants in New Orleans are receiving the worst legal services as they face prison time. “This court must take certain measures to protect the statutory and constitutional rights of indigent defendants. Hurricane Katrina is no longer an excuse, and the state has a budget surplus.”
Hunter’s ruling isn’t final until April 18, the date he scheduled for the district attorney’s office and public defender program to present additional testimony and facts.
Steve Singer, chief of trials for the public defender program, said that $2.1 million would suffice to properly staff a post-Katrina office. That would be about one-third more than the office currently has, Singer said.
To date, the public defender program has 26 full-time attorneys working at the criminal district court, and a growing caseload that stands at about 2,524 felony cases.
Christine Lehmann, an attorney for the public defender program who filed the motion Hunter ruled upon Friday, said for decades the criminal district court has valued “speed over accuracy.”
“It shouldn’t be analogous to a shoe factory, but to a hospital,” Lehmann said after the ruling. “These are people’s lives.”
JFAL
updated: 12Jun07
Monroe News Star
Jun 8, 11:11 AM EDT
Judge: Fed prosecutors should get involved in whistle-blower case
[Federal Judge Peter Beer]
NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- The judge who unsealed a federal whistle-blower case accusing insurance companies of overbilling the National Flood Insurance Program says the U.S. Department of Justice should get involved or explain why not.
The case was brought by former insurance adjusters who say they have evidence that insurance companies overbilled the federal flood program while underpaying claims for Hurricane Katrina wind damage.
U.S. District Judge Peter Beer filed a one-sentence motion this week: "The Court, on its own motion, respectfully requests the United States Department of Justice enter this case by July 9, 2007, or show cause on July 11, 2007, at 9:30 a.m., why they are not intervening in this civil action."
The U.S. Attorney's Office in Baton Rouge, which fielded the complaint with the Department of Justice in Washington even though it was filed in New Orleans, referred a call Friday for comment to Washington. The department has no comment, spokesman Charles Miller said.
Beer said he was surprised to learn that the U.S. attorney's office in Baton Rouge planned only to monitor the case, which now is being prosecuted for the U.S. government by a private attorney who represents the whistle-blowers.
"What about the good old general public? Who better to look after the interests of the public than the U.S. attorneys?" Beer said. "This is a case the government should be involved with. The United States should be right in there, and not just monitoring it, given as far-reaching and serious as this case is."
The whistle-blowers say that they've analyzed insurance appraisals of damage and readjusted claims at 150 properties in the New Orleans area. They say all of the flood claims were overpaid - by an average of 66 percent - while the wind claims were underpaid.
The average means the overcharges could total billions out of the $14 billion paid after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in Louisiana.
Because private insurance carriers administer federal flood insurance policies and adjust both flood and wind claims, the theory is that companies may be dumping the bills for wind damage onto the taxpayer-financed flood program to save themselves money.
Insurance companies have said they stand by their claims-handling practices.
Beer's motion was copied to U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales or his deputy; Jim Letten, the U.S. attorney in New Orleans; and David Dugas, the U.S. attorney in Baton Rouge.
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JFAL
