The public defender?s office here has shrunk from a staff of 62 to 12 in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. But there is more staff this week because the University of Maryland law school in Baltimore has come to the rescue with three dozen students lending a hand.
The students are conducting background interviews with defendants and locating family members in the hopes of getting reasonable bails set.
Brigid Ryan, Maryland ACLU chapter president at the law school; Shakeya Currie, Black Law Students Association vice-president; and faculty professor Doug Colbert are part of the Maryland Katrina and Indigent Defense Project, a student group leading nationwide efforts to help the New Orleans justice system recover.
The student hurricane network began in Oct. 2005, a month after Katrina, and now has 70 law schools involved, including the University of Baltimore Law School, also in New Orleans this week.
About 49 cases wait to be called in the magistrate?s courtroom across the street from the public defender?s office during the Wednesday-morning session. The recent arrestees are not allowed in the court, however. For most, their only chance to contest a high bail set by Judge Gerard Hansen will be through their public defender.
Colbert explained that the bail system here is different than in Maryland, where 10 percent of the bail set at a preliminary hearing can often be met with a bond with a local bail bondsman.
In New Orleans, Colbert said, bail is nonrefundable and set at 12 percent, making timely advocacy crucial.
A first-year Maryland law student from Texas, Melinda Freeman, 26, recently located one defendant?s godmother, brought her to court and helped successfully reduced his bail. The middle-aged man did not have a criminal history, and his godmother?s presence demonstrated he had ties to the community.
Without making bail, a suspect could sit in the jail for 30 days before learning if his case was even going to be prosecuted ? 45 days, if charged with a felony.
While some Maryland students have been interviewing recently arrested inmates in the cramped detention center, others, like Michael Stallings, 26, a third-year student from Pigtown, and Michael Melic, 28, a first-yearstudent from Hampden, have been interviewing inmates by phone through glass windows for details to be placed in the defendant?s files by the public defenders office.
“You try to develop a rapport with the client in a short time,” said Sandra Goldberg, a first-year law student from Montgomery County. “You ask questions about them and their family. If I can make a difference in one case or give someone hope that they?re not being forgotten, I?ll feel like the trip has been worthwhile.”
