Imprisoning 1300 people 4 years without trial is a crime | Opinion - NOLA.com

Even with Louisiana's well-earned reputation as the incarceration capital of the world, it was still shocking to hear this week that about 1,300 people have been locked in local jails for the past four years just waiting for their day in court. They have been accused of a crime but not convicted.

How can such a thing happen in the United States of America with a Constitution that guarantees "the right to a speedy and public trial"? How can we keep that many people behind bars for years without the opportunity to confront their accusers or plead their case? It's the sort of thing we expect from Third World dictatorships.

And it may be even worse than that.

"I think the number is actually higher," Michael Ranatza, executive director of the Louisiana Sheriffs' Association, said after a budget hearing Monday (April 9) before the House Appropriations Committee on Monday.

"I want you to understand that there are people in the state of Louisiana who have waited over five years to be tried in criminal court," Ranatza told the committee. "There's a higher number at the four-year level, about almost 1,200." Another 70 or so have been waiting even longer.

The sheriffs' association compiled the numbers in part because holding those prisoners awaiting trial is eating into jail budgets.

Louisiana's state public defender, Jay Dixon, said he was surprised by the figures. He said that public defenders have a system that automatically alerts them if nothing has happened in a case for six months. That would allow for a defendant to file a motion for a speedy trial, which in Louisiana would have to commence within 120 days for someone charged with a felony -- or 30 days for a misdemeanor -- unless a judge determines a delay is justified.

Dixon said he didn't have an easy way of verifying the sheriffs' association numbers, explaining that the people counted aren't necessarily represented by public defenders. There could be a number of factors that force someone to sit in jail awaiting trial, including the ability to afford bail, he said.

This would be another example of how Louisiana's heavy dependence on requiring bail, even for defendants deemed a low risk for flight, is clogging the jails with poor people who remain innocent in the eyes of the law. Add to that an overworked and underfunded public defender's system, and justice becomes even more perverted.

Keeping dangerous or flight-risk defendants off the streets is one thing. But four years without a trial?

If that doesn't spark your outrage, studies have shown that it is four or five times more expensive to hold someone in jail awaiting trial rather than to use alternatives like community supervision or electronic monitoring. Tough on crime doesn't have to mean being reckless with taxpayers' money.

The fact that 1,300 people could slip through the cracks for four years is almost unfathomable. If the sheriffs' numbers are anywhere close to accurate, the state's criminal justice and judiciary have a lot of questions to answer.

The sheriffs' association did not provide details on where these prisoners are being held or shed any light on where the system is breaking down. But it's not surprising that many of the state's parish and local jails are filled with people waiting for trial.

A report by Vera Institute of Justice found that of the 1,591 people held in Orleans Parish jail on March 2, 2016, 90 percent were waiting for their day in court. That means just 160 had been convicted or pleaded guilty to a crime and were serving a sentence.

The same study found that in the first quarter of 2016 the largest number of people to be released from the New Orleans jail were those whose cases were resolved either because they were sentenced to probation or to time-served or because their cases were refused for prosecution. That group spend an average of 47 days in jail before release, including those whose charges were dropped. The second group included those people who posted bond after spending an average of nine days in jail.

It is bad enough that our jails have become long-term holding cells for poor people who can't afford bail or lawyers, unfair to the accused and expensive for taxpayers. But when 47 days awaiting trial becomes 48 months, the unconscionable is also unconstitutional.

This is bad even for Louisiana.

Tim Morris is an opinions columnist at NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune. He can be reached at tmorris@nola.com. Follow him on Twitter @tmorris504.

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