Reforming Criminal Indigent Defense in Louisiana - An Introduction to the Symposium and a Brief Exploration of Criminal Indigent Defense and its Relationship to Immigrant Indigent Defense

Abstract

This essay introduces the Loyola Journal of Public Interest Law symposium on criminal indigent defense in Louisiana held on April 4, 2008 to explore Louisiana legislative changes aimed at improving the system of providing indigent defendants facing criminal proceedings with counsel. The symposium featured local leaders in the criminal indigent defense system, including D. Majeeda Snead, Clinical Professor, Loyola University New Orleans College of Law and member of the newly created Louisiana Public Defender Board and G. Paul Marx, Executive Director for the Louisiana Public Defenders Association; and national experts, including Norman Lefstein, Professor of Law and Dean Emeritus at Indiana University School of Law-Indianapolis; National Legal Aid and Defender Association Director of Research and Evaluation David Carroll and Director of Defender Legal Services Richard Goemann; and Jonathan Rapping, Professor of Law and John Marshall Law School.

Loyola's symposium focused exclusively on systematic reform of public indigent criminal defense systems, in particular, as those reforms have developed in Louisiana. Given the increasing intermingling of immigration enforcement and criminal law enforcement, it is appropriate to explore the increasing need for legal assistance to immigrant populations in Louisiana who may be entitled to counsel at government defense to the extent they are prosecuted under a criminal statute, but who will lack any entitlement to counsel to assist them in defending their rights in the immigration context, and, thus, whose needs are not addressed by existing public defender systems.

This essay briefly explores the increasing need for pro bono counsel to assist non-citizens facing removal from the United States in the Louisiana area; explains why the current system results in the majority of immigrants facing the removal process without legal assistance; and suggests that local and state bars should more aggressively encourage their members to undertake pro bono assistance of removal cases.

Keywords: criminal indigent defense, immigrant right to counsel, pro bono legal defense