Put LA public defense board out of misery

This space earlier this year mused whether Louisiana needed a board of appointees to oversee public defense. It appears recent events  reveal it doesn’t really matter as it seems largely irrelevant.

This week, the Louisiana Public Defender Oversight Board met to decide whether five of the state’s district public defenders had lost their jobs at the end of last month. The Board itself had just turned a year old, having been overhauled with many of its functions transferred to the state public defender Remy Starns. However, it retained its powers over financial matters, including contracting with DPDs.

Starns, originally appointed by Democrat former Gov. John Bel Edwards then reappointed by Republican Gov. Jeff Landry, after its new formation that saw several new members as a result of its changeover, brought to the Board a changed salary plan designed to address the challenging funding environment inherent to the state’s method of providing public defense, largely dependent as it is on contingent local sources. It rejected that, because some substantial salary cuts would have occurred.

Undaunted, Starns went ahead with the annual contracting process but adding a codicil to most contracts where DPDs waived their interests in the authorized salary schedule and instead accepted the one Starns had pitched. He then also declared he would not renew the contracts of five DPDs, all of whom perhaps not coincidentally publicly had opposed the pay plan that Starns had backed.

The quintet complained to the Board of this, which haltingly decided it could intervene due to conflicting statute, where one gives the SPD the power not to renew a contract for any and unstated reasoning but another says there shall be continuity in DPDs. It took several tries even to hear the matter as within the past month more members bailed out, leaving essentially four appointed last year and five appointed last month,

Buttressed by an attorney general’s opinion — one solicited by Starns last year during the period around the rejection of his pay plan — the Board voted 5-4 not to reinstate the DPDs cut loose. All “old” members were in the minority to the “new” members.

Lest any conspiracy theories start, the split vote came from a mixture of appointees — some by Landry, some of those mediated by other organizations, and from the Legislature and Supreme Court. So, it wasn’t a matter of Landry or anybody else imposing singular will onto the matter in favor of Starns.

The deposed DPDs may invoke legal action, but the legislative record makes clear the intention was that the SPD have the invoked discretionary authority. And it certainly makes sense that DPDs once appointed not to have a job for life. Still, the Legislature at its earliest convenience should clarify statute in these cases.

That said, there’s even less for the Board to do than before. About a third of states don’t have one. There’s no real case to keep it when all functions can be folded into an executive like the SPD and research on outcomes shows administrative superstructure doesn’t matter.

Louisiana politicians love to have appointments. But maybe it’s time just to call it quits on this panel.