Hurricane Katrina: Legal Issues - Columbus School of Law

timely manner – that is, Plaquemines Parish. For other parishes, it has all gone much slower than the lawyers
anticipated. Some attorneys who have been to Louisiana report that some people have been held pre-trial longer than
they could have been held if they had been convicted.
Thus, if your client were to return and be held in Louisiana, he may experience a much longer pre-incarceration
period because of the evacuation than one would ordinarily expect, even for minor crimes.
Finding a lawyer to represent your client once he or she returns to Louisiana is another issue. It is not clear whether
there will be sufficient number of lawyers to represent the indigent from New Orleans and surrounding parishes after
the hurricane. Even before the storm, the Supreme Court of Louisiana found the funding of indigent defense in at
least one Parish to be constitutionally inadequate. During the month following Katrina, there have been issues with
regard to client visiting inmates of the evacuated parishes. All lawyers must now obtain pre-approval from the DOC
before being allowed to visit inmates. Clients considering hiring out-of-state lawyers should be warned that approval
to visit inmates has been particularly difficult for out-of-state lawyers after the Hurricane.
Have records been destroyed so the government will not know whether your clients are in default or not? Will
the evidence be there to try your client?
This is important because so much depends upon records – from court files to criminal records to probation records.
There are reports of the OPP computer system being submerged for a lengthy period with data possibly obliterated.
The answers also vary parish to parish but here’s a guide. In New Orleans, jail records have been recreated from lists
taken from the buses and boats as people left the Parish Prison. The Department of Corrections print-out is purported
to be over one thousand pages long. The court records from New Orleans parish are also expected to be available.
Evidence rooms were badly damaged; the District Attorneys office for New Orleans has described evidence boxes
floating in water where snakes swam. It is unclear how many cases will end up being dismissed as a result. In
Jeffersion parish, records were not destroyed and the court will open in October 2005. Hence it is difficult to predict
whether information important to your client’s case will be available or not. Lawyers may want to call LACDL for
updates on particular locations.
In sum, clients who need advice about returning to New Orleans voluntarily to face criminal charges should
understand that they will probably be held longer and receive more limited representation if they return before the
system is repaired. In addition, some of this information may be useful in a creative motion to postpone extradition or
permit release on bail if a warrant is sought against your client.
Extradition
If you are outside Louisiana and have a client who has an outstanding default warrant from before the
hurricane in New Orleans, what advice do you have for him or her?
If a client decides not to turn himself or herself in to Louisiana on an outstanding default warrant, the client risks
being charged as a fugitive from justice, a charge that initiates extradition proceedings. The U.S Constitution, art. IV,
cl. 2 provides for delivery of persons who have been accused or convicted of a crime in one jurisdiction but who
reside in another. See 18 U.S.C.A. § 3182 The fact that your client was evacuated from the demanding state would
not be a defense because the fugitive from justice charge does not claim that the person has fled or intentionally
failed to appear in the demanding state. It is just a mechanism for bringing someone to a place where charges are
pending.
In order to be charged as a fugitive from justice, the demanding state (Louisiana) must forward an arrest warrant,
bench warrant or indictment to the asylum state. The asylum state is the state where your client is located. There is a
two step process involved. Step one: When your client is arraigned on the fugitive charge, your client may either