New Orleans' Priorities

Just today, the Times-Pic reported that "New Orleans judges have in the last three...years illegally used public money to buy more than $800,000 in supplemental insurance, and spent excessively on travel and lodging expenses." Their actions contravene a Louisiana statute that prevents judges from paying a different rate on their insurance premiums than other state employees.

There's a lot to pick at here. A curious soul might wonder whether Leon Cannizzaro, a former New Orleans judge and the city's current DA, was aware that his actions were illegal when he "may have participated at some time in the conduct [1]." Perhaps our intrepid inquisitor would inquire as to where the $800,000 came from in the first place. Presumably, this person would be shocked to learn that the cash came from a judicial expense fund that judges order criminal convicts to pay into: as much as $250 for a misdemeanor and $2,000 for a felony [2].  If our swiftly jaded protagonist dug a little deeper, they would find that Cannizzaro (who, it seems, ought to know) has claimed that judges extort money from convicts with the threat of revoking their probation [see 1].

From Been There, Done That.

So, in short, judges have been extracting a tax (of sorts) from convicts that is supposed to be used to fund necessary court operations, but is actually used to pay for the judges' healthcare.

One of the more disheartening aspects of this story is the fact that many parts of New Orleans' criminal justice system desperately need more funding. Orleans Public Defenders is always on perilous financial footing [3], as is the nascent pretrial services program.

The pretrial services program seeks to assess defendants and determine the risk that they will fail to appear for court dates or be rearrested if released. It is an attempt to provide judges with more information, and more knowledge about what information matters, so that those judges can make an intelligent decision about bail. A well-run pretrial services program can lead to cost savings (less people will be detained pending disposition), increased public safety (potentially dangerous defendants are flagged and detained), and a more just system (release decisions are based on evidence and not on a defendant's ability to pay for bail).

From NOLA.COM

The New Orleans pretrial services program started on April 30th, and has been screening roughly 60% of felony defendants. The program has cost New Orleans only $200,000 because of grants from the Bureau of Justice Assistance and Baptist Community Ministries. Those grants are expiring, though, and - if the program is to continue and expand to screening all defendants - the city will need to find $623,000. At the moment, it has only scrounged up $184,000 [3].

I truly hope that the Landrieu administration is putting on a show in the hopes that the tab will be picked up by someone else, and that they are not actually considering ending the program.

After its first three months of operation, the program had screened 928 felony defendants. Nearly 30% of those defendants were released on low or no bond ($325 or less), and 93% of the released defendants had appeared at their next court date. The program screens for indigence (i.e. whether the defendant needs a public defender) and for the DA's diversion program [4]. The program is still young, but stakeholders from every part of the criminal justice system of have praised it, and it is reasonable to expect that it will lend a strong consistency to bail decisions in New Orleans (for a concise report on the otherworldly pre-Katrina situation, take a gander at the Metropolitan Crime Commission's 2005 report on bail bond) and help reign in the cost of pretrial detention. In 2010, New Orleans' jails held roughly 1,956 defendants [5]. At $22.39 a day, for a year, the detention of those men cost New Orleans almost $16,000,000 [6].

$623,000 seems a small price to pay.

Thanks for reading.

J