Woman Jailed in NOLA 9 days without seeing Judge

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"Somebody didn't get that information. Something didn't happen here," attorney Anna Lellelid said of Merren's case. "This is routine. They get arrested ... they sit in jail for days and sometimes weeks." The law requires that new arrestees get to a courtroom within 72 hours, and a recent local court protocol says people such as Merren — who are arrested on old warrants that don't automatically plant them on the court docket — should be placed on the jail list for a court appearance within 48 hours.

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"It's an inefficient system that needs to be improved," said Blake Arcuri, an attorney for Sheriff Marlin Gusman. "We are working on our part to improve that process and ensure defendants are brought to court in a timely manner." Arcuri described a paper system that leaves much to human error and has resulted in similar troubles in the past. Like other officials, he said it's unclear how many arrestees have sat in jail under similar circumstances, and there may be no way of knowing. "I don't know of anybody who's been lost for an extended period of time. I don't know of any of these that have lasted more than two weeks," Arcuri said. "There may be some defendants who don't raise that as an issue. It makes the numbers difficult to track."

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