SADOW: Obtuse Louisiana Public Defense Board Unnecessary

If this level of slovenliness is what we get from Louisiana’s Public Defender Oversight Board, policy-makers might as well chuck the whole thing.

Earlier this year, State Public Defender Remy Starns declared he wouldn’t renew the contracts of five district defenders—out of the state’s 35. Perhaps not coincidentally, those five had opposed a pay plan Starns had pushed last year that would have cut their salaries, a plan that was largely rejected.

As part of last year’s legislative changes, the Board’s role shifted away from direct management and more toward, as its new name implies, “oversight.” It retained financial oversight authority to a point, including control over funding decisions related to existing contracts. However, the power to negotiate and renew those contracts moved to Starns’ office.

However, the power to negotiate such contracts shifted to Starns’ office. And after receiving notice of their ouster, the quintet appealed to the Board, arguing they hadn’t been “fired” for legitimate “cause” under statute.

But Starns had already anticipated this move. Last year, he solicited an opinion from an attorney general on whether, essentially, “non-renewal” equated to “firing.” Republican Atty. Gen. Liz Murrill’s office issued one confirming the two were distinct, and just days later, Starns followed through with his decision.

Despite this, the newly restructured Board—now packed with members selected by the governor, legislative leaders, the judiciary, and various special interest groups—insisted on hearing the appeals. Their claim was a supposed lack of information. But all they had to do was ask one simple question: Were the contracts set to expire on June 30, as Starns had indicated? The answer would have been all they needed to shut down the appeals.

Statute–the law– is crystal clear: the State Public Defender has sole authority over contract offers, renewals, and terms. And it certainly doesn’t take an AG opinion in reading statute to understand cause is a non sequitur in this instance. So, if the Board is this thick-headed and inept, what’s the point in having one?

Indeed, a third of U.S. states function just fine without such a board. While a third have an independent commission running indigent defense, Louisiana falls in the middle, using a hybrid model of board oversight and executive administration. The remainder have no independent entity involved at all and is overseen by the executive branch. Sparse studies show that systemic structure has little impact on outcomes—what actually matters is whether the government provides enough resources for a competent defense.

Louisiana’s indigent defense system has undergone major reforms—first in 2007 and again last year—to curb cronyism and provide a better structure by which to address problems of under- and overly disparate funding. Critics who claim last year’s changes weakened the system fail to recognize that the state’s model now aligns more closely with others.

Now, the reconstituted board faces a choice: eschew from gumming up the works and avoid unnecessary, unwinnable legal battles such as in regards to these “firings,” or continue to muck things up and prove that Louisiana doesn’t need this bureaucratic mess in the first place. If they choose the latter, lawmakers should seriously consider joining the ranks of the one third of states that function without one.

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