Posted on 10/06/2006 4:54:24 PM PDT by SmithL
NEW ORLEANS -- A judge upset by the backlog of cases decided to release four New Orleans inmates from jail Friday and postpone their trials until they can get adequate representation from the spread-thin public defender's office.
District Judge Arthur Hunter warned that more releases could be coming as he criticized what he called the city's decades-long failure to protect the rights of poor defendants.
"It's only gotten worse since Hurricane Katrina," Hunter said.
Hunter has been threatening to release defendants because he said their constitutional right to adequate legal counsel was being violated.
The inmates' release involved three cases of misdemeanor drug possession and a fourth in which the defendant is accused of felony crime against nature, what Hunter called a minor felony.
The cases had been assigned to the city's public defender's office, which has struggled through budget and staff shortfalls since the hurricane struck in August 2005. Before Katrina, the indigent defender program had 70 lawyers, six investigators and six office workers with a $2.2 million annual budget, 75 percent of which was financed by traffic court fines.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Does this suggest that he had carnal knowledge of an alligator? lol
Then they wonder why the cops don't want to do their job. Why bother if the Judges are going to let them skate?
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.
U.S. Constitution, Amendment VI.
Isn't there somewhere in our laws about a speedy trial? If you spend months or years in jail waiting for your turn I can hardly see how that's speedy.
That is how protitution is categorized in NO. I learned that thanks to COPS.
Her used a knot-hole in a tree to relieve himself
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