From Chris

New Orleans maintains a rhythm and vibrancy that is unlike any other U.S. city. In tourist areas, particularly the French Quarter, brash neon signs mingle with murals and Creole townhouses. It’s hard not to rub shoulders with street performers, revelers and fortune tellers at all hours of the day and night. The bar bands start up at noon and do not stop until the next morning. The Big Easy’s vibe is infectious and invigorating. It is easy to forget, however, that outside the tourist haunts of the French Quarter, large portions of the city are plagued by poverty and slow recovery from the 2005 Katrina disaster. The city’s crime rate is among the highest in the country. The New Orleans legal system is strained by the sheer number of criminal cases it processes, and most of the criminal defendants in New Orleans cannot afford private counsel. The city’s legal system, particularly its overburdened Public Defenders offices, continues to be in need of additional funding and personnel. Although I had finished my last exam less than 24 hours before we departed D.C., the New Orleans atmosphere and the opportunity to provide real legal assistance gave me a second wind.

The Orleans Public Defenders’ office is housed on the seventh floor of Tulane tower, a block from the City Courthouse. Many of the staffers are highly motivated young people, a few of whom wrangled our group into our designated workroom and gave us a rundown of the challenges facing the OPD.

The staffers explained that there can be months between a defendant’s first appearance and arraignment, meaning that many people simply plead guilty at the time of arraignment, and are sentenced to time already served. This means that for even misdemeanor offenses, a person who cannot make bond will sit in jail for months before they are tried. During these months, defendants can lose their jobs, are not able to care for their families, fall behind on rent and car payments, and endure numerous other problems. As such, OPD staffers have begun to restructure the office to accommodate rigorous pretrial services work, and have developed a law student volunteer program to assist with these pretrial services.

Rising 2^nd years like me would be attending first appearances at detention facilities to collect information from defendants to determine whether they qualified for Public Defender representation. We would also be trying to get in touch with friends and family of the defendants, to alert them that the defendant had been arrested, and to inform them of the defendant’s bail amount. We were trying to help people get released on bond to fight their charges from outside of jail, where they could continue to work, pay rent, and care for their families.

Pretrial services work is the very essence of public service work. Some of us spoke with youths many years younger than us, as they sat, shackled, on a courtroom bench, awaiting their first appearance. Others walked into one of the seven New Orleans detention facilities, with little more than a few names and boilerplate forms, and would talk to people, over the phone, through thick glass. The people we spoke to were rarely hardened criminals, rarely angry. Some were frustrated, some scared, many were confused, nearly all were grateful for our time and attention. In many ways, we were their only connection to the outside world, and the first friendly face they’d seen in days. They were worried about their jobs. They were worried about their cars that had been left behind at the scene of the arrest, worried about their children being left home alone. We had to get names, addresses and phone numbers of family members. We collected information to determine whether they qualified for representation by the OPD. We would then go back to the office and call their families. We would tell their parents, spouses and children they had been arrested, and that it would cost hundreds of dollars to satisfy their bond.

Although we were only there for a week, many of us who worked in pretrial services became emotionally invested in the work. It is easy, or even normal, to think of criminal defendants at the “bad guys.” Prime time television teaches us that people in orange jumpsuits are thieves, murderers, and lairs; that they are one-dimensional villains, deserving of scorn, not sympathy. These misconceptions fall away when a person in an ill-fitting jumpsuit sits across from you in a hot concrete room, their voices muffled over old telephones, confused and ashamed, trying to think of a family member who will help pay their bail. They have been convicted of nothing. They have families. They do not have much money. Their livelihood and delicate financial stability rest on keeping their jobs, and on not being sunk by fines and court costs. They are human beings, and they need help.

Some of us made multiple jail visits to see the same inmate. Others drove around the city, searching for neighbors and family members who might be able to help. Some of us even worked over the weekend, visiting inmates and conducting legal research. As rising 2^nd year students, most of us had spent the last year in the cold library, reading cases, and trying to understand law in the abstract. For one hot week in New Orleans, our cases had faces, voices, and families. Exam exhaustion forgotten, we were motivated.

Pro bono trips like ours are essential to a legal education. They drive home a fundamental legal principle that's easily lost and forgotten in the classroom and library: cases are about people.

Pictures