Ready to leave for New Orleans!

We leave in 45 hours, I have such a mixture of feelings. I'm excited, anxious, nervous, passionate, and emotional about seeing the area firsthand and re-living how our country has failed these communities. I can't wait to get down there, meet people, hear their stories, take pictures and pitching in.

I just found out my placement assignment which I'm very excited about! In addition to cleaning up and repairing homes, I will be working with the Right to Counsel project. There are several thousand indigent defendants sitting in jail in New Orleans because there are not enough public defenders still living in the city to represent them in court. It's a huge problem of due process, right to counsel, and of course - disproportionately affects the poor.

We are staying at the India House Hostel www.indiahousehostel.com - looks pretty cute!

Here is the description of the rIGHT TO COUNSEL program so far:

PROJECT TRIAGE
Louisiana Right-to-Counsel Project
(Proposal Updated as of March 8, 2006, 3:00 pm)

Overview:

Over the next three weeks (March 6th through March 24th), law students will conduct the first stages of a massive triage and major criminal defense initiative. There are currently 4,000-5,000 indigent defendants from Orleans Parish in prisons throughout Louisiana who do not have any meaningful legal representation, and for whom there are no prospects of legal representation.

In partnership with the Tulane and Loyola clinical programs, criminal defense attorneys throughout Louisiana, and the Student Hurricane Network (SHN), this Project’s participants will develop an informational database of the status of criminal detainees in various sections of the Louisiana court system to be used in assessing what steps can be taken to address this crisis.

The Project will be conducted in three phases: (1) Project Triage volunteer trainings, (2) docket processing and database creation, (3) court visits and observation by Project workers.

Project Structure:

Phase One: Project Triage Volunteer Training Sessions

Trainings, to be conducted Monday, March 13, will provide Project Triage volunteers with the forms and information necessary to create the proposed database.

Phase One Logistical Requirements:
1. Identify facilities and defendants to be studied
2. Develop material for processing docket print-outs
2.1. Draft a “decoding guide” – training material that provides an explanation for how law student volunteers can review Orleans Parish criminal docket report print-outs
2.2. Draft a standardized form that law students can fill out when reviewing the criminal report print-outs
2.3. Develop protocol for processing print-outs
3. Plan March 13 training and docket processing event:
3.1. Locate site for event
3.2. Identify professors and attorneys to supervise event
3.3. Identify/compile set of docket print-outs law students will process
4. Other logistical requirements:
4.1. Identify SHN students that will be working on the Project
4.2. Create list of Tulane and Loyola students interested in working on the Project

Phase Two: Docket Processing and Database Creation

Project Triage law student volunteers will review the docket printouts from the Orleans Parish criminal court system and create a database of relevant information from March 14 to March 17.

Phase Two Logistical Requirements:
1. Identify sites/locations for docket processing workshops
2. Create supervision schedule for New Orleans-area attorneys who will be responsible for answering volunteers’ questions
3. Create centralized system for data entry and processing of completed forms
4. Secure food/catering for program, if necessary, and secure related funding

Phase Three: Court Visits

Project Triage law student volunteers will attend Orleans Parish criminal court and/or magistrate’s court in shifts over the course of the week (March 13 to March 17) in order to observe the ramifications of the project on the Louisiana court system

Phase Three Logistical Requirements:
1. Identify attorneys who will be utilizing database information and/or filing any related motions (including those not directly related to the Project)
2. Schedule Project volunteer students in shifts to travel to the related courthouses
3. Organize transportation to and from courthouses
4. Provide students with a feedback/informational form related to their courthouse visit.