News Releases
Law students lend a hand in New Orleans
Monday, May 14, 2007
A group of Valparaiso University law students will travel to New Orleans this May to help the public defender's office deal with a backlog that has left minor offenders sitting in jail for months before their first court hearing.
Derrick Carter, an associate professor of law, and eight students will spend the week of May 21 assisting public defenders in New Orleans with bond hearings, legal research and other matters.
"The public defender's office in New Orleans is poorly funded," said Carter, who was a public defender in Michigan before joining Valparaiso's law faculty. "There are a lot of arrests for minor offenses and high bonds being set on those offenses, which means prisoners often end up waiting in jail for months before their first probable cause hearing. It was a problem before Hurricane Katrina, but it's become much worse since then."
Even more concerning, Carter said, is the fact that many of the cases against these minor offenders are weak and prosecutors drop the charges before a trial begins.
"Minor offenders are getting released after they've already spent months in jail, so the time they were in jail was for nothing," he said. "The students want to help these people get fair treatment from the criminal justice system."
This will be the second contingent of Valparaiso law students to provide legal assistance in New Orleans. A group of 15 students spent a week helping the public defenders office during spring break in March.
"Those students were just marvelous," Carter said. "They paid for all of their travel, hotel and food expenses, and were working 10 hours a day or more, which was a tremendous help to the office."
For students interested in criminal defense work, getting an opportunity to see the issues faced by the public defenders in New Orleans and work with clients is a valuable learning experience, Carter said.
"This is a real eye-opener for our students," he said. "They see first-hand the conditions in the jail - which has been affected by flooding from Katrina - and how prisoners are treated with disdain."
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