New Orleans Defendants Lost in Legal Swamp

Post-Katrina, thousands still wait in jail for justice from a broken system

By Christopher Hayes

Even years before the water came to New Orleans, many of its indigent criminal defendants had been left to drown in the state's criminal justice system. During the last decade, Louisiana's indigent criminal defense was so underfunded that in 1993, one public defender in New Orleans [RETURN TO ARTICLE]