Public Defenders Hard To Come By In Louisiana

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In Louisiana, people arrested for serious crimes who can't afford a lawyer often are put on a waiting list for representation. A new lawsuit says the situation is unconstitutional.

Frederick Bell is one of the plaintiffs in the class action suit. Bell lives "down the bayou" as locals say — in LaFourche Parish, defined by its proximity to the Gulf of Mexico. He does cement work in the oilfield industry, but things are on hold as he awaits trial on a drug charge from last October. Officers say they found drugs in his car during a traffic stop. Bell says he saw the public defender the day after he was arrested, in jail, for about 5 minutes.

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they didn't speak again until a court appearance a month later. He says when his name was called, the lawyer told him what prosecutors were offering in exchange for a guilty plea.

"I hadn't spoken with anybody about what went down for them to even give me a plea deal," he says.

He declined the offer, and his trial was set for April. But just a few weeks out, he still has not discussed his case with a public defender.

"I wish my attorney would at least get in touch with me or let me know what's going on," Bell says. "If they do have evidence or if they don't? But no word.".

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Public defenders say they're performing a balancing act themselves. They handle more than 80 percent of criminal cases in Louisiana.

"I'm the only full-time employee with the public defenders' office," explains Rhonda Covington, the public defender for East and West Feliciana — two mostly rural parishes.

Covington says she's got 265 open cases. Seven of them are felony life without parole situations, and she also handles juvenile delinquencies, family services and misdemeanors. "Everything from doing 60 in a 55 to first-degree murder, so it's a wide expanse," she says. "And I clean the office."Public defenders say they're performing a balancing act themselves. They handle more than 80 percent of criminal cases in Louisiana.

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Covington says her budget is a fraction of what prosecutors get. "People think that criminals have more rights than victims. You hear that a lot," she says. "This is giving rights to people who are accused. They haven't been convicted of anything. They're innocent until proven guilty. That's the American system." At issue is the way Louisiana pays for public defense. While the state provides some money, the system depends primarily on traffic tickets and local court costs, which vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, and have nothing to do with the demand for court-appointed lawyers.

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