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Public defenders say new criminal justice laws will further stress office

New Orleans City Hall
Carly Berlin
/
WWNO
New Orleans City Hall

Recent changes to state criminal justice laws have strained local courts and jails, and the Orleans Public Defenders Office says it anticipates it will soon need more attorneys to handle the workload.

As he presented the office’s proposed 2025 budget to the council on Monday (Oct. 21), New Orleans Chief Public Defender Danny Engelberg pointed to a slew of recent state interventions in the city under Gov. Jeff Landry, who came into office this year promising a return to a tough-on-crime approach in the state, which had been working to reduce its incarcerated population under former Gov. John Bel Edwards. Those include Troop NOLA — the contingent of state police troopers now patrolling the city — and the additional prosecutorial force of the state Attorney General’s office, which has partnered with Orleans Parish District Attorney Jason Williams.

Engelberg also pointed to new laws passed during a special legislative session on crime earlier this year that all but eliminated parole and allowed prosecutors to charge 17-year-olds as adults as factors he said will increase the workload on his office.

“Sweeping legislative changes from the last crime session have significantly impacted our work and the effects on our clients,” Engelberg said.“All of these changes stress an already overburdened system ill-equipped to adequately and appropriately address a myriad of public health and social needs of the community, and require OPD to adapt even more to meet the moment and best serve our clients.”

Mayor LaToya Cantrell’s proposed 2025 budget allocates approximately $11 million to the Orleans Public Defenders. This would put the office above a parity benchmark established in 2020, which requires it to be funded at at least 85% of the level that the District Attorney’s office is funded. The public defenders office handles about 85% of criminal cases in the city.

In an effort to hire and retain more lawyers, the office is now offering salaries comparable to the District Attorney’s office, but they still need more money to hire the staff necessary to meet the needs of the local community.

“Our workload is entirely dependent on the demands brought by the prosecution,” Engelberg said. “If the workload increases from the prosecutorial side, we have to respond with the resources to adequately respond.”

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According to Engelberg, who did not request additional funding for hiring in next year’s budget, the office has 37 attorneys working on low-level felony cases. “We should have more than triple that,” Engelberg said. Currently, the office has 13 attorneys that handle the most serious cases — where their clients are facing life without parole.

“We know that there should be upwards of 55” of those attorneys, he said.

But the recent criminal justice overhaul is not the only challenge facing the city’s public defenders, according to Engelberg. As tenants of Tulane Tower, they also are currently facing a potential threat of eviction.

“One of the things that is still outstanding is that our counterpart [the D.A.’s office] has a home, an office, that’s funded by the city, and we don’t, so we’re looking to tackle that,” Engelberg told the council.

Engelberg said that his office currently pays approximately half a million dollars in rent for their current office, located at 2601 Tulane Avenue. However, the building is up for sale, putting the public defenders at risk of eviction if the building changes owners.

Engelberg asked if the city might be able to help the office make an offer on the building – which he said was listed for $7 or $8 million – so that they can stay in their offices and remain in close proximity to the corner of Tulane Avenue and South Broad Street.

Tulane and Broad is the locus of the criminal justice system in New Orleans. Orleans Parish Criminal District Court, the New Orleans Police Department, the city’s jail and the District Attorney’s Office are all located near the intersection.

Councilmembers expressed openness to the idea, asking about details of the arrangement: how much money would be required for a down payment, what the overall vision of the office building would be and who would be responsible for maintenance of the building. Details remained fuzzy. But all councilmembers present appeared to at least agree on the need for a stable, long-term location for the public defenders.

“I think the idea of having a permanent home, putting actual roots in the community you serve, as well as revitalizing something that can anchor the neighborhood in itself, it’s all worthwhile,” Councilmember JP Morrell said. “Also, it’s very difficult to find any suitable building near Tulane and Broad, generally speaking. So, if not this property, there really isn’t much else around there.”

The council will continue its budget hearings over the next three weeks before finalizing and passing the budget by Dec. 1.

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