'Wholesale Destruction' Awaits as Louisiana Public Defense System Goes Broke

[rangerrebew]

Published on
Friday, March 04, 2016
by
Common Dreams
'Wholesale Destruction' Awaits as Louisiana Public Defense System Goes Broke

http://www.commondreams.org/news/2016/03/04/wholesale-destruction-awaits-louisiana-public-defense-system-goes-broke

Public defense offices in world capital of incarceration poised for massive shutdown by 2017, which could leave tens of thousands in jail indefinitely
by
Nadia Prupis, staff writer
 

A spokesperson for the Orleans Parish office said defenders there had already turned away 39 cases, leaving 28 people in custody. (Photo: Sandra Cohen-Rose and Collin Rose/flickr/cc)

The public defense system of Louisiana is on the brink of financial collapse.

A new assessment by the Louisiana public defender board, obtained by the Guardian, is warning that most of the state's district offices providing legal counsel to low-income people are set to cancel new cases or shut down completely by next summer.

The Guardian reports:

    y July of 2017, as many as 33 of the state’s 42 districts are likely to be so short of cash they will be forced to stop representing clients. Eleven of those districts may be forced to shut down by this October.

    [....] The crisis is part of the wider financial malaise of Louisiana that sees the state struggling under a $1.6bn budget shortfall. In the 2017 annual budget proposed by the state’s new governor John Bel Edwards and approved last month by the legislature, the public defender service is dealt a crushing blow – 62% cuts that will slash state funding from $33m to under $13m.

Already the world's prison capital, the situation could consign tens of thousands of people to sit in jail indefinitely without representation.

There's something in the air...

"The system is on course to collapse by next summer—we will have no public defense system in any sense of the word. We are talking about the wholesale destruction of a public function," Brandon Buskey, staff attorney with the ACLU's Criminal Law Reform Project, told the Guardian.

State public defender James Dixon added, "This is an absolute injustice—that the poor will sit in jail without any representation just because they have no money."

A spokesperson for the Orleans Parish office said defenders there had already turned away 39 cases, leaving 28 people in custody.

As Common Dreams previously reported, the ACLU of Louisiana and the ACLU national office in January filed a lawsuit against Orleans Parish and the public defender board for placing new clients on a wait list for representation.

"So long as you're on the public defender waiting list in New Orleans, you're helpless," Buskey said at the time. "Your legal defense erodes along with your constitutional rights."

He noted in a blog post that those who end up on the list are "most at risk in our justice system: usually poor, often a person of color, and facing severe sentences."

"[T]his is not a problem of the public defender’s making. It is the result of the state of Louisiana’s stubborn refusal to fund its public defender system adequately," he wrote.

Minors could be hit the hardest by the shortfall as public defenders are increasingly forced to prioritize the most serious charges. Dixon told the Guardian that most offices will stop taking on cases involving defendants under 18 on July 1.

"We will no longer be able adequately to represent the kids in this state," Dixon said, citing research which found that spending any time in custody exponentially increases the chance of minors returning to the system.

"If a child is charged with burglary or theft, they are going to go unrepresented, and that scares me," he said.

http://www.commondreams.org/news/2016/03/04/wholesale-destruction-awaits-louisiana-public-defense-system-goes-broke

[flowers]

 

[mountaineer]

A sinking ship, like so many of our states (mine included). Incidentally, the governor is a Democrat.


Louisiana Senate, John Bel Edwards push back on House's deeper budget cuts
 By  Julia O'Donoghue, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune  
on March 03, 2016 at 8:16 PM, updated March 04, 2016 at 9:50 AM

The Louisiana Senate leadership mostly rejected a larger set of budget reductions put forward by the Louisiana House last week, instead siding with Gov. John Bel Edwards and suggesting a more modest budget cut plan that relies on additional tax increases.

The Senate Finance Committee approved the plan on Thursday (March 3), and expressed hope that the House could raise $67 million in tax increases to solve Louisiana's financial crisis by early next week. The full Senate is expected to vote on -- and likely pass -- the plan Friday.

The plan includes an additional $36 million worth of budget cuts that will be implemented before June 30. It is relatively similar to the plan Edwards suggested, adding just $7 million of additional cuts to Edwards' original proposal released on Feb. 13.

The $36 million in cuts would come on top of those already made in February, November and September. The budget year started on July 1, and over $500 million has been slashed out of Louisiana's spending plan already.

The Senate Finance Committee added to the reductions proposed by Edwards by taking an additional $2.2 million from the Department of Education and about $900,000 each from the governor's office and other elected officials. But it was far more generous than the one put forward by the House, which included $69 million in cuts over and above what the Senate approved.

The Senate Finance Committee said the House's cuts were mostly unworkable. The extra $69 million the House took out of the state budget mainly came from the Department of Education's central office in Baton Rouge.

Louisiana Superintendent John White has said the size of the House cut, $51 million overall, would effectively shut down his department. Senate Finance members concluded the cuts were unreasonable and restored almost all of the department's funding eliminated by the House.

The Senate Finance Committee  also found some extra money to help get the state through the end of June. It will ask Louisiana's bond commission to refinance some debt, freeing up an additional $80 million this year. State Treasurer John Kennedy has also apparently found $8 million in extra cash Louisiana can use for the current fiscal crisis.   

But the Senate says the House still needs to approve more tax increases that total at least $67 million over the next four months. The lower chamber has not acted on an alcohol tax hike or business utility bill tax change that would bring in money needed by June 30. The House also hasn't take up any of its three bills to remove exemptions from the existing sales tax, all of which would produce more money.

The House did agree to pass one more tax increase, the cigarette levy hike, Thursday afternoon. Senate leadership took that as a good sign.

But the House is likely to want more budget cuts than the Senate feels it can live with. House leaders say they would like the Legislature to come up with an additional $20 million to $30 million in reductions.

House members believe some more money can be taken out of the Department of Education, particularly funding set aside for testing this year. Other than that, House leadership hasn't offered much in the way of specific cuts, though they keep saying they want more of them.

The House also isn't happy about the Senate's plan to refinance the state debt to produce $80 million in the short term. State Rep. Cameron Henry, R-Metairie, said that could end up costing the state more money in future years.

It is also a temporary funding source -- something that isn't a permanent fix and couldn't be used next year.

"Rating agencies will look upon this unfavorably," Henry said.

Still, the Senate says there aren't really any more areas to cut. If the House doesn't agree to raise taxes, higher education and health care will have to take on a larger share of reductions. Much of that money would come from the deals with private hospital groups who took over the old charity hospitals' duties.

The private hospitals who took over the old charity functions have already indicated they might walk away from their deals with the state if they have to take on more budget cuts. If that happened, poor people would have access to health care disrupted and the state would be forced to take over hospitals it privatized just two years ago.

Several of the state's health-related higher education programs -- occupational therapy, physical therapy, nursing and similar degrees -- would be eliminated as well. While the medical schools could stay open, many of the other health care schools would have to shutter because of lack of funding, according to LaFleur.

While the disagreement over whether to raise additional taxes or cut more is still lurking, legislators did seem optimistic that they were making some headway over the current budget deficit.

"It's look like we are getting closer to solving this year's problems," said Senate President John Alario, R-Westwego.

But very little has been done to resolve next year's $2 billion shortfall so far. The Legislature and Edwards still have not found a way to fill about $1.3 billion of that hole, and they are supposed to have a full plan worked out by next Wednesday.

"We are light years away from solving next year's problem," said Jay Dardenne, Edwards' budget chief.