Judge Urges Reduction of Court Backlog

NEW ORLEANS -- A Louisiana judge Thursday backed off for now a threat to release New Orleans inmates who have been jailed for months without court dates or lawyers, but said the district attorney must begin weeding out cases he has no chance of winning.

New Orleans has been beset with a huge backlog of cases since Hurricane Katrina. Judges can handle no more than six cases a day and can hold court only every other week because of repairs at the courthouse. Also, there are not enough public defenders to go around.
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On Thursday, he said, it is "not my purpose to flood the streets with criminals."

"The releases will be done on a case-by-case review, hopefully starting with the misdemeanors," he said. "But I have to warn that the Constitution makes no distinction between murder and misdemeanor."

Hunter insisted District Attorney Eddie Jordan sort through the 6,000 cases and figure out which ones he cannot win.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/31/AR2006083101249.html

Or some other solution? Maybe open the court full time for a stretch and then go back to the bi-weekly schedule?

"On Thursday, he said, it is 'not my purpose to flood the streets with criminals.'"

If they have not been tried and found guilty, THEY ARE NOT FUCKING CRIMINALS! If the accused are not getting speedy trials, then there's a worthless piece of paper out there that says a fundamental right is being denied to them. But if the damned judge is ignorant of the concept of "presumed innocent until proven guilty," I suppose the Sixth Amendment is like fucking rocket science to him.

he should issue arrest warrents for FEMA officials, or for Dubya the other day. ;-)