Judge Vows To Free 42 Suspects

From The New Orleans Times Picayune:

The Louisiana Legislature has allowed the public defender system in Orleans Parish to remain a “legal hell” that has reached disastrous proportions, a local judge ruled Friday as he vowed to no longer allow the program to represent poor defendants in his court.

Orleans Parish Criminal District Court Judge Arthur Hunter said that next month he will release 42 poor defendants who remain in custody, and he suggested the public defender program should dump cases rather than continue working on them while it has only a skeleton staff, a staggering caseload and a pitiful budget.

Hunter, a former police officer elected to the bench in 1996, blamed lawmakers for the failures of the public defender system and pointed out that the crisis plaguing poor defendants and their court-appointed attorneys has existed for 25 years.