New law to give $300K boost to district defender

A new state law will provide a nearly $300,000 boost in annual funding to the 16th Judicial District Public Defender’s Office, which the district defender says will greatly improve her office’s service to defendants. But she is also concerned about cuts the law made to capital defense and appeal programs.
Act 571 signed by Gov. John Bel Edwards mandates that the Louisiana Public Defender Board send at least 65 percent of its budget to the district defenders. Rep. Sherman Mack, R-Albany, brought the bill to the regular legislative session.
State funding for the 16th Judicial District Public De-fender’s Office will rise from $680,000 during the 2015-16 fiscal year to around $973,000 for the 2016-17 fiscal year that began July 1, District Defender Cecelia Bonin said. The law goes into effect Aug. 1 and also reduces the number of state board members from 15 to 11.
The district defender’s office represents defendants in St. Mary, St. Martin and Iberia parishes charged with a crime who cannot afford to hire an attorney.
“I am extremely happy with this new infusion of funds,” Bonin said. “It is going to help us to provide much better services.”
Extra funds will allow Bonin to hire more attorneys and the current staff attorneys to work more hours. More funding will particularly help with conflict cases, which are cases with multiple defendants, each of whom needs a different attorney. At the end of March, Bonin had to put all defendants who weren’t currently in jail on a wait list to receive an attorney because of a lack of funding, she said.
Bonin is now able to provide attorneys for defendants who aren’t jailed, with the exception of 35 defendants in conflict cases, she said. Bonin believes that defendants in those conflict cases will have attorneys within the next two weeks, she said.
Last year, Bonin’s office received about 40 percent of its funds from the state and 60 percent from local sources. The new law puts the state and local funding split at roughly 50/50, assuming local funding doesn’t continue to decrease as it did last year.
The governor also recently signed Act 638 that requires city courts in the 16th Judicial District to deposit 30 percent of the fees they collect into a special fund from which they can hire their own public defenders. That law includes the city courts of Morgan City, Franklin, New Iberia, Jeanerette and Breaux Bridge.
Bonin was opposed to Act 638, in part, because she said the district may receive $80,000 to $90,000 less annually in local funding from city courts.
Bonin also has some concerns about Act 571 because it will cut funding for capital defense programs and the Louisiana Appellate Project, she said.
The capital defense pro-grams are needed if the district attorney decides to pursue death penalty cases, which are a huge financial burden, she said. Bonin relies on the appellate project as well to handle any appeals of district court rulings.
Capital Defense Project of Southeast Louisiana Director Kerry Cuccia said, as a result of the new law, his organization’s budget was reduced from $2,063,000 to $1,135,000.
The law reduces the maxi-mum number of cases the defense project can handle from 18 cases to about 10 cases at a time, and the group is currently maxed out on the cases it can handle, he said. Cuccia’s office is one of three capital defense projects in Louisiana.
The Capital Defense Project of Southeast Louisiana primarily handles cases in the southeast part of the state but takes cases throughout the state, Cuccia said.
All capital defense projects in the state will do every-thing in their power to represent defendants in capital cases, Cuccia said.
State Public Defender Jay Dixon said that the state public defender board had already approved in May allotting 65 percent of the state’s budget to the district defenders.
The state board’s budget is designed to supplement local funding sources, primarily traffic tickets, Dixon said. Between 2009 and 2014, case filings in Louisiana have dropped over 30 percent, which has caused a corresponding loss in local funds, Dixon said.
Increases in state funding to district defenders will temporarily help close that funding gap. But, if local funding continues to decrease, they’ll be in a similar situation to where they were before the state funding increase, Dixon said. The cuts will cause the state office to provide less training to its attorneys and decrease travel, he said.
Most districts in the state have turned over their capital cases to the state office to provide the service through different capital defense projects, Cuccia said.
Louisiana Appellate Project Director Jim Looney said he doesn’t know yet how the cuts from the new law may affect the organization. The appellate project receives state funding and handles any direct appeals that come out of any district in the state.
The state district defender’s office has put many districts in restricted services during the past two years, Looney said. Therefore, district courts haven’t been handling as many cases as they used to, so appeals have been down, too, Looney said.
“We’re just going to keep on doing what we always do, handle as much as we can,” Looney said.