The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog

New Orleans is home to the Louisiana Supreme Court, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, and the U.S. District Court and U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana, as well as the city's criminal courts building. The evidence room of the Orleans Parish Criminal Courts Building, a massive structure at the corner of Tulane Avenue and Broad Street, is believed to be under water.

As the flooded streets of New Orleans are brought under the control of law enforcement, legal experts are trying to determine how they are going to prosecute cases and how thousands of defendants can get a speedy trial guaranteed to them under the Constitution.

Evidence for an untold number of criminal investigations might be lost, along with records from hundreds of private law firms.

Records from the Court of Appeals may be under water along with a handful of city, district, civil and circuit courts.

Now, legal issues as basic as the constitutional right to a speedy trial are being discussed between judges in broken conversations on cellular phones. At emergency meetings in Baton Rouge, prosecutors and defense attorneys are debating how to alter laws that give judges authority only in stretches of Louisiana where courthouses have been destroyed. The objective is to enable judges to hear cases outside their jurisdictions.

Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco signed an executive order this week suspending deadlines for almost all state court proceedings and throwing out statutes of limitations. But legal experts say it will be difficult to get around constitutional issues not covered under the governor's order.

Defendants must be put before a magistrate judge within 72 hours in Louisiana where it is determined if there is probable cause to hold them in custody or require bond. They must be formally arraigned within 60 days.

Of the 8,000 prisoners transferred from flooded prisons, about 4,500 have not had charges filed against them, or they have a trial or an appeal pending, said Julie Cullen, director of the criminal division at the Louisiana attorney general's office.

All of them have the right to a speedy trial, and time is running short.

"There are the short-term concerns and we're dealing with that, but there are long-term ramifications in how we protect constitutional rights of individuals in the midst of a disaster," Cullen said.

Temporary facility

The state has set up a temporary facility near Baton Rouge that has been able to handle the defendants who must go before a magistrate.

Yet the New Orleans infrastructure that supported myriad legal services, private and public, does not exist there, including things as simple as bonding agencies, said David Price, president of the State Association of Criminal Defense Attorneys.

The state Supreme Court, the District Attorneys Association and other legal experts were drafting a series of proposals this week for an executive order that would allow Blanco to override or suspend some statutory requirements, giving the state breathing room, Cullen said.

Those proposals could be on the governor's desk by early next week.

Defense attorneys have played a part in crafting the proposals, but concerns remain for people who were already in jail, or who may have been arrested in the chaotic days after New Orleans' levees broke.

"My concern is that this drags on for a month, two months, who knows," Price said. "People are no longer going to get their day in court, which is their right. At that point, they're just citizens sitting in jail."

Members of the Supreme Court are meeting with district attorneys, the Louisiana attorney general and other experts to determine how to put defendants on trial outside of parishes where they were arrested.

No one is making predictions on when the city will be habitable again, much less when a jury pool could be assembled.

"There is an allowance for a change of venue, but that's typically the defendant asking for that," Price said. "The state could make the argument that it can't get a fair trial in New Orleans because there is no courthouse and no jurors. No one knows."

Federal judges affected

Hurricane Katrina did not limit the disruption to state courts. Laws that prohibit federal judges from doing court business outside their jurisdiction have handcuffed Louisiana's Eastern District judges.

In the face of a catastrophe, Congress acted quickly to remedy that.

The House unanimously passed legislation Wednesday that would allow federal courts to operate outside their jurisdiction in the event of a disaster and the Senate followed suit Thursday.

President Bush could sign the changes into law as early as Friday.

Talk of such legislation began in earnest after the Sept. 11 attacks.

"The proposed legislation goes back a couple of years and was intended for use in an emergency," said Dick Carelli, spokesman for the federal courts administrative office in Washington. "Here's your emergency."

Federal judges from Louisiana's Eastern District have scattered to three cities and were awaiting authority from the president.

Hurricane Katrina did much more than destroy courthouses and make jurisdictional boundaries ludicrous.

"There were about 16,000 dues-paying attorneys in Louisiana and half of them were in Orleans, Jefferson, St. Bernard and Plaquemines Parishes," said Frank Neuner Jr., president of the Louisiana State Bar Association.

Up to eight district attorneys offices were flooded or destroyed, said Pete Adams, president of the Louisiana District Attorneys Association.

"There is going to be a big backlog, that is all that anyone can be sure of," Adams said. "I can't really guess when we will be returning to any sense of normalcy. We're not going to give up, though."

For those in private practice, the return to normalcy may have to be found elsewhere, some attorneys said.

Larry Arcell, 53, an attorney with the New Orleans firm Barker, Boudreaux, Lamy & Foley, left all the records behind in his downtown office. He is tracking down clients using his memory and the Internet in Houston, where he is staying.

----------
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0509090158sep09,1,5848767.story?coll=chi-news-hed

csheehan@tribune.com
Copyright © 2005, Chicago Tribune