New Orleans Begins Freeing Inmates Who Can't Afford Lawyers

A New Orleans judge has approved the release of seven people who’ve been incarcerated while awaiting trial—some for well over a year—because the city was unable to secure lawyers to represent them. The inmates had been stuck in jail in part because they had been declared indigent, meaning they didn’t make enough income to afford an attorney. The city’s public defenders are normally the attorneys who would represent indigent clients, but they began withdrawing from certain cases in January essentially because they ran out of money.

The Louisiana legislature is responsible for funding public defenders services. However, instead of funding these services with a reliable stream, state lawmakers decided the bulk of the public defenders office’s budget should come from revenue from traffic tickets and court fees. Louisiana is the only state in the nation that does this. The ACLU has called this funding mechanism “inherently unreliable” and filed a lawsuit in January to change it, charging that such fines and fees are disproportionately imposed on people of low income.