Who We Are
Open Letter to Mayor Cantrell to Equitably Fund New Orleans' Criminal Legal System
We recently submitted an Open Letter to Mayor Cantrell, urging her to prioritize equity in our criminal legal system and fully commit to a fair and just system by equitably funding OPD and public defense in New Orleans. The letter was signed by more than two dozen community organizations, members and leaders.
Sign Our Petition for an Equitable Criminal Legal System
We're fighting for a more fair and just criminal legal system in New Orleans. Help us get there by telling our city leaders to prioritize public defense and equitable resources and funding. Justice depends on it.
OPD Hosts 4th Annual Second Line for Equal Justice
We will once again join together with our community, our partners and allies in justice reform for our 4th annual Second Line for Equal Justice.
Focusing on a fair and equitable criminal legal system, we will call on New Orleans' decisionmakers and leaders to create equity in funding and resources between OPD and the District Attorney. For too long, New Orleans' criminal legal system has tipped too heavily in favor of arrest, prosection and incarceration.
Make plans to join us on Saturday, November 2! For more information, check out the Facebook event page.
Want to get involved and join us? Reach out to Lindsey Hortenstine.
OPD Launches Campaign to Create an Equitable Criminal Legal System in New Orleans
The Orleans Public Defenders Office (OPD) officially launched its campaign to create an equitable criminal legal system in New Orleans, calling on the Mayor and City Council to establish funding and resource equity in New Orleans’ criminal legal system. In September, OPD submitted its appropriation request of $5.5 million to the Mayor for the 2020 city budget. That budget reflects nearly 85 percent of the appropriation historically given to our direct system counterpart – the District Attorney – whose 2019 appropriation was $6.6 million.
We are operating under our third Restriction of Services (ROS) plan in seven years. As a consequence, we are unable to assign investigators to most cases, and soon we will have to cease providing counsel in cases where we have ethical conflicts. Louisiana’s and New Orleans’ user-pay criminal legal system desperately needs reform – it is inadequate, unreliable, and unstable. It is also inequitable and unfair. The effects of these inequities are manifest: wrongful convictions, overdetention, mass incarceration, inefficiency, waste, high costs, and community distrust.
OPD represents 85 percent of all criminal cases in Orleans Parish, and is responsible for thousands of municipal and traffic court cases each year. In 2018, OPD represented nearly 25,000 cases. Yet, OPD received less than one quarter the local appropriation given to the District Attorney. In 2019, New Orleans will spend a staggering $258 million to arrest, prosecute and incarcerate our citizens, but just $1.8 million to protect innocence, provide accountability and ensure a fair and equitable criminal legal system.
The Appeal: Louisiana Prosecutors Use the Habitual Offender Statute to Jail People for Life. Attorneys for Lifers are Fighting Back
The Appeal dug into Louisiana's practice of using the habitual offender statute to penalize people for prior convictions and obtain substantially longer sentences from defendants, frequently life sentences.
Under Louisiana’s habitual offender statute, a district attorney can file to have a person’s punishment enhanced based on their criminal history. In 2011, Bernard Noble was sentenced to 13 years in prison after he was arrested in New Orleans for possessing two marijuana joints because of prior drug convictions. Noble served seven years and was granted an early release. In 2016, Jacobia Grimes faced 20 years to life for allegedly stealing $31 worth of candy bars from Dollar General store in New Orleans after Orleans Parish DA Leon Cannizzaro charged him under the habitual offender statute. The case received national attention, and Grimes later entered a guilty plea in which he was sentenced to two years in prison.
Antigravity Magazine: Looking for Justice at Tulane and Broad
Recently, Antigravity Magazine sat down with Staff Attorney Alexis Chernow for its new series Looking for Justice at Tulane and Broad to discuss everything from her experiences as a public defenders, managing an aggressive district attorney's office, Louisiana's astronomical incarceration rates and recommendations for reforming the system.
"Everyone deserves to be treated with dignity, whether incarcerated, in the street, presumed innocent, adjudicated guilty. I feel honored to be able to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with my clients and to have the opportunity to learn about who they are beyond a police report or a rap sheet. I think one of the most important things we as public defenders can do is to be the one person in the room who remains in our client’s corner, continuing to view, treat, and advocate for our clients as human beings, rather than as case numbers, criminals, or statistics."
To read the full interview visit Antigravity Magazine.
