Katrina Courthouse Blog - News and Updates

Laura Kujawski
PNN Online

Tens of thousands of Gulf Coast residents face devastating legal problems as they struggle to rebuild their lives in the wake of hurricanes Katrina and Rita, but many people cannot afford and do not know where to get the legal assistance they need. To help address this problem, four national allies in the legal aid and public defender communities have launched “Katrina Legal Aid Resource Center,” a Web-based clearinghouse of legal aid, pro bono and public defender information for persons affected by the hurricanes and the lawyers and advocates helping them.

Katrina Legal Aid Resource Center, is the result of a partnership among the American Bar Association (ABA), Legal Services Corporation (LSC), National Legal Aid & Defender Association (NLADA) and Pro Bono Net.

Source: http://www.pnnonline.org/article.php?sid=6319&mode=thread&order=0

Cathy Cockrell
UCBerkeleyNews

In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, members of the Mississippi bar assumed the daunting task of providing emergency legal assistance in disaster-relief centers across the Gulf Coast. Need was immense, and the lawyers were soon sending out S.O.S. appeals themselves. Could someone help create a resource for volunteers to refer to when fielding survivors' myriad (and often unusual) legal questions?

A new online legal manual helps address such questions, thanks in part to the efforts of Law Professor Charles Weisselberg, director of the Center for Clinical Education at Boalt.

Source: http://www.berkeley.edu/news/berkeleyan/2005/11/03_manual.shtml

SunHerald.com

JACKSON, Miss. - Hurricane-damaged court systems in two Mississippi coastal counties are receiving donations of equipment and furniture from a system in California. San Diego County Superior Court Judge William Pate and court property manager Chuck Freeman left Tuesday on a 2,000-mile truck trip to deliver goods.

Pate, a trial court judge in San Diego County, said he looked for a way to help courts and judges after Hurricane Katrina. He saw the equipment needs of Mississippi's coastal counties posted on the Web site of the National Center for State Courts. California judicial officials approved the donation of equipment and furniture that had been taken out of service.

Source: http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/news/state/13064212.htm

Paul Purpura
The Times-Picayune

Jefferson Parish public defenders will lose half their salaries in two weeks and layoffs are possible in the coming months because the number of traffic citations, the main financing source for indigent defense in Louisiana, have dropped off dramatically since Hurricane Katrina.

The pinch to pay public defenders, lawyers appointed by the courts to defend people who can't afford legal representation, is being felt in other parishes affected by the storm, including Orleans, St. Tammany and Plaquemines.

Source: http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/metro/index.ssf?/base/news-11/113091526671970.xml

MATT SEDENSKY AND RUSS BYNUM
SeattlePI.com

NEW ORLEANS -- In his third day back on the bench since Hurricane Katrina struck two months ago, Criminal District Judge Benedict Willard opens court by entering a plea of his own - for patience. "We're going to do as much as we can, with the limited resources," Willard says of this battered city's struggle to resuscitate a justice system crippled by the monster storm.

With the criminal courthouse still mired in muck, Willard presides at the old parish jail in a room once used for witnesses to identify criminal suspects in lineups. One-inch hash marks for measuring height dot the wall behind his small office desk. Attorneys sit in folding chairs.

Source: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1110AP_Katrina_Crippled_Courts.html

CURT ANDERSON
Dateline Alabama

Hurricane Wilma disrupted the court systems in six Florida counties, but most are showing signs they will begin to resume normal operations and possibly trials next week.

Even in hard-hit Broward County, where dozens of windows were blown out and offices damaged in the main downtown courthouse, Chief Judge Dale Ross said limited operations would begin on Monday.

Source: http://www.tuscaloosanews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051028/APN/510280984&cachetime=3&template=dateline

KATC.com

JACKSON, Miss. Federal judges from devastated areas of the Gulf Coast are moving their trials inland to avoid a massive backlog of cases that were put on hold by Hurricane Katrina.

U-S District Courts in Mississippi and in New Orleans were damaged by the August 29th storm. The court buildings could soon be repaired, but court officials say drawing a jury pool from a devastated community is all but impossible. The problem is made worse by flooding at many private law offices, which destroyed files that could take months to replace.

Source: http://www.katc.com/Global/story.asp?S=4041044

JOE GYAN J.
2theadvocate.com

NEW ORLEANS -- The Louisiana State Bar Association quietly reopened its St. Charles Avenue headquarters Monday, eight weeks after Hurricane Katrina struck. Now, the group needs its lawyers to come back home.

Pre-Katrina, there were more than 18,700 lawyers in Louisiana. But nearly 8,000 of them -- 5,500 in Orleans Parish, several thousand in neighboring Jefferson Parish and several hundred more in St. Bernard and Plaquemines parishes combined -- were displaced by the storm.

Source: http://www.2theadvocate.com/stories/102505/new_lawyers001.shtml

katc.com

NEW ORLEANS The district attorney's office in New Orleans is barely functioning. That's according to District Attorney Eddie Jordan. Jordan says that unless his office gets 842-thousand dollars by January, the agency will close with more than three thousand criminal cases pending.

Jordan says he's laid off all but eleven staff members and still has 79 prosecutors. But resignations are coming in _ and much of the evidence was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina's floodwaters. He's hopeful the National Archives will be able to restore much of that.

Source: http://www.katc.com/Global/story.asp?S=4014229

BUSINESS WIRE

AUSTIN, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 20, 2005--The Texas Equal Access to Justice Foundation, the largest state-based funder of legal aid in Texas, is urging victims of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita to visit www.TexasLawHelp.org, a Web site dedicated to providing individuals with free, reliable information about their civil legal rights and responsibilities.

Hurricane victims still face a variety of legal issues. Those who have lost their homes may not know if they are obligated to pay rent or mortgage payments; some are not sure how to handle insurance claims; others have lost important documents, such as financial records and government-issued identification, and do not know how to replace them.

Source: http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20051020005780&newsLang=en

BILL FREEHLING
The Free Lance-Star

Virginia lawyers are pitching in to aid victims of Hurricane Katrina, offering free legal assistance to evacuees and helping attorneys in affected areas. The Virginia State Bar has led an effort to recruit and train lawyers to give free legal help to evacuees who have relocated to the state.

And the Virginia Bar Association has set up a fund to help rebuild judicial systems in Louisiana and Mississippi. About 440 lawyers have signed up to do pro bono work to aid evacuees, said Mary Yancey Spencer, deputy executive director of the Virginia State Bar.

Source: http://fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2005/102005/10202005/138981

The Boston Globe

PROVIDENCE, R.I. --The Rhode Island Supreme Court has eased requirements for lawyers displaced by Hurricane Katrina who want to practice law in the state.

In an order Monday, the court said it was extending the application date, from Dec. 1 to Dec. 15, for the state Bar examination in February and was waiving the fees.

Source: http://www.boston.com/news/local/rhode_island/articles/2005/10/18/ri_supreme_court_eases_restrictions_for_lawyers_displaced_by_katrina/

JENNIFER LATSON
Detroit Free Press

NEW ORLEANS -- Nearly two months after Hurricane Katrina, Louisiana's largest criminal justice system is still in ruins. Court is held in the Amtrak station and inmates are penned up in an outdoor bus bay. Trial dates come and go while defendants sit in crowded prisons as far away as Florida. Criminal trials are on indefinite hold. Murderers will probably go free, admits District Attorney Eddie Jordan.

He faces two obstacles: Witnesses who've scattered with the winds and evidence vaults scoured by flooding. Before Katrina, 3,000 people were awaiting trial, including some 200 facing murder charges. Evidence in many of those cases has congealed into a sodden mess in the boggy basement of the Orleans Parish Courthouse. "The rooms are in chaos," Jordan said. "It looked like a hurricane had been inside the evidence room. The stench was overwhelming."

Source: http://www.freep.com/news/nw/storms18e_20051018.htm

Samantha Nelson
Chicago Defender

After losing his home and law office to Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans attorney Paul Massa is getting back to business by helping other storm victims get back to business, too.

Working out of a temporary office in Atlanta, Massa's network, Katrina Legal, connects hurricane victims with a group of 10 lawyers who help identify the legal assistance they need.

Source: http://www.chicagodefender.com/page/local.cfm?ArticleID=2605

Claire Taylor
TheAdvertiser.com

The federal courthouse in downtown New Orleans, closed since Hurricane Katrina hit Aug. 29, should be back in business Nov. 1, according to Gene Smith, chief deputy clerk.

Smith was on a panel of federal judges and clerks that met Thursday to discuss federal court operations in Louisiana since hurricanes Katrina and Rita hit southeast and southwest Louisiana. The meeting was held at the Judge John Shaw Federal Courthouse in Lafayette, where some of the displaced judges have been working.

Source: http://www.theadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051014/NEWS05/510140326

Christopher Drew
civilrights.org

But it could be weeks before the city's jails, police headquarters and courthouses are repaired, before witnesses can be found and jury trials begin again.

Even then, problems will remain. Floodwaters deluged evidence rooms, destroyed the police crime laboratory and wiped out courthouse computer systems. Officials have had to reconstruct from thick printouts the charges lodged against more than 6,000 inmates before they were evacuated in small boats and scattered among 39 state prisons. Judges say about 800 who were in jail on minor charges, including some who normally would have been held for just a night or two for public drunkenness, were held for two to three weeks amid the confusion.

Source: http://www.civilrights.org/issues/cj/details.cfm?id=36777

Ann Shelton
The Daily Mississippian

About 60 student and faculty volunteers from the Ole Miss School of Law worked with the Mississippi Bar Young Lawyer’s Division to update the Disaster Relief Manual after Hurricane Katrina.

The Disaster Relief Manual is being used at Federal Emergency Management Agency sites in Mississippi to help solve the legal needs of hurricane victims.

Source: http://www.thedmonline.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2005/10/13/434e60722049c

DAVID HEINZMANN
Chicago Tribune

NEW ORLEANS - (KRT) - On the second floor of the shabby Amtrak station, in a cavernous old room with missing ceiling tiles and dingy green paint, a handful of tired but well-humored people in jeans and T-shirts sat around folding tables piled with scrounged office equipment. The recent scene was like any number of makeshift relief operations that have been set up in unlikely places all over New Orleans.

But then the doors at the rear of the room swung open and two guards herded 21 men in plastic handcuffs into the back corner. A few minutes later, the doors swung again, and a burly man with unkempt gray hair and a black robe draped over his arm strode in, bear-hugged a woman he hadn't seen since before Hurricane Katrina hit and called to order the 11:30 a.m. session of bond hearings for the Orleans Parish Criminal District Court.

Source: http://www.duluthsuperior.com/mld/duluthsuperior/news/nation/12881435.htm

KRISTEN CLARKE-AVERY AND M. DAVID GELFAND
FindLaw's Writ

Post-Hurricane Katrina, how will the citizens of New Orleans be able to exercise their right to vote?

Governor Blanco has already issued an Executive Order postponing upcoming Fall elections. But, New Orleans is on the cusp of a mayoral election scheduled for February 2006 - when City Council elections are also scheduled to occur. The stakes are high, as the multi-million dollar rebuilding process is looming.

Source: http://writ.news.findlaw.com/commentary/20051011_gelfand.html