Justice system struggles in New Orleans

The remedy?
Metzger, the Tulane professor and member of the local indigent board, says two dozen lawyers have volunteered to participate in a "quick fix" plan, representing the poor from the time of the arrest until charges are filed. "It gives them an advocate and ... it ensures some accountability," she says.

These changes and the new focus on the system have given many people hope.

"I truly believe that we are on the cusp of something new and better," says Jelpi Picou, director of The Capital Appeals Project. "It's what gets me out of bed every morning."

Calvin Johnson, former chief judge of the Orleans Parish criminal courts, sees it much the same way. "I think we're finally seizing the moment," he says.

The immediate task is to undo or at least cope with the extraordinary damage the hurricane did to people and property — a process Johnson estimates could take two years.

After Katrina, thousands of inmates were evacuated to jails and prisons around Louisiana, some as much as six hours away.

Private lawyers mobilized to represent inmates on an emergency basis after indigent defenders were laid off. But since there was no central list of clients, it was hard to figure out at first how many people were being held, what they were charged with — or even where they were locked up.

'Bayou Guantanamo'
Hundreds of prisoners were eventually sprung after lawsuits were filed. They included inmates awaiting trial on petty offenses who'd already served more time than they would have if convicted and those held past their release dates without anyone noticing.

"Bayou Guantanamo" is the phrase that Neal Walker, director of the Louisiana Capital Assistance Center, used to describe their predicament — a reference to the U.S. naval base in Cuba where detainees from the war on terror have been held indefinitely.

"People were hundreds of miles from a courthouse, with no court date and no lawyers," he says. "If these conditions existed in Mexico, our State Department would have been issuing a blistering human rights report."

One man who got in a fistfight three days before Katrina was jailed 4 1/2 months before prosecutors decided not to file charges, Walker says.

Another pleaded guilty to marijuana possession before the storm hit and received a six-month suspended sentence — meaning no jail — but was rearrested because he couldn't pay court costs. He was locked up for three months, the lawyer says, "for being poor."

A man accused by an ex-girlfriend of taking $50 after he entered her house while she was gone was jailed for a year without being interviewed by his public defender, according to the Southern Center for Human Rights.

Jordan, the district attorney, says he knows some inmates fell through the cracks early on and his office has tried to be reasonable in working with defense lawyers.

But he says each case needs to be judged on its own merits and simply throwing open the prison doors would be irresponsible. "There are a number of individuals who should be in jail," Jordan says, "and we're going to fight to keep them in jail."

The debate over inmates is just one part of the lingering turmoil in the system.

Prosecutors still aren't back in their building, which were severely damaged by floodwaters. But the district attorney's office recently moved out of its unlikely temporary home — a dimly lighted nightclub — to more suitable accommodations.

Judges and lawyers whose homes were damaged or ruined still commute from as far as Georgia and Ohio. And witnesses and victims remain scattered across the nation.

"I never would have imagined, entering a new hurricane season, that the criminal justice system continues to scratch, crawl and drag its way to some level of normalcy," says Criminal Court Judge Arthur Hunter.

Judges face a backlog of an estimated 6,000 to 7,000 cases, compared with about 3,800 before Katrina. They had been using two federal courtrooms, handling a sharply reduced number of cases for security and transportation reasons, as their 1930s Art Deco courthouse was repaired.

Even now, only 7 of 13 courtrooms have reopened. When jury trials resumed this month, the fire marshal restricted the number of people allowed inside because of limited exits.

The actual prosecution of cases poses its own obstacles, says Rick Teissier, a defense lawyer appointed by Hunter to evaluate the indigent defender program.

"How do you find the victims? What do you do about the cops who were fired? Do these cases wash away with them running away?" he says, referring to the testimony of police dismissed after failing to report for duty in the tumultuous days after the storm. "How long is it going to take to process the evidence?"

Drugs, weapons, clothing and safes containing cash and jewels all were submerged in flooded police and court evidence rooms. "I was stepping over guns and hoping none of them were loaded," says Katherine Mattes, a Tulane law school professor who videotaped the waterlogged areas for an official record.

Mattes says some evidence has been lost, some contaminated. "How much? I don't if anyone can rightfully say," she says.

MORE FROM KATRINA: THE LONG ROAD BACK

Katrina: The Long Road Back Section Front

Apologetic Nagin visits N.Y. Bush sees rebirth from ‘sadness’ of Katrina Special report: Rebuilding lives Katrina exodus felt far and wide A tangled tale of Katrina survival ‘New Orleans is still crying’ Brian Williams: We were witnesses Developers' past includes fraud Special report: Rising from Ruin Dateline video blogs: Covering Katrina Katrina: The Long Road Back Section Front   Add Katrina: The Long Road Back headlines to your news reader: