The Orleans Parish public defender's office will soon restore services slashed during a budget fiasco in February, partly thanks to recent increases in fees that criminal defendants, traffic ...

claude-kellyjpg-b4b06996ab45ef52.jpg. Kelly, 52, replaces Virginia Schlueter, the longtime federal public defender who resigned in October after the office was forced to make deep budget cuts.

Louisiana's new governor, Democrat John Bel Edwards, acknowledges the public defender overload. But he says there's no plan for more funding with the state facing a $1.9 billion budget shortfall.

Attorneys at the New Orleans public defender's office are taking a drastic step - they're refusing to take certain felony cases. That's because they say budget cuts have left them overwhelmed.

But legal filings document how, for more than three years, the sheriff’s deputies and his post-Katrina hodgepodge of jail buildings have made work more difficult for the Orleans Public Defenders ...

New Orleans' chief public defender tells Anderson Cooper that until he can ensure every client gets the defense they deserve, he'll continue to turn cases away.

Judges hearing an appeal on whether putting poor defendants on wait lists for attorneys violates their constitutional rights appeared skeptical as to whether it was the federal court’s job to step in.

The city's chief public defender, Derwyn Bunton, is stepping down.After almost 14 years of defending the poor in the state's busiest courthouse — he says it's time, and feels the office is in a ...

If you go to jail in New Orleans, chances are you'll be represented by an Orleans Parish public defender.The Orleans Public Defender's Office has recently faced a million-dollar budget deficit.