A revamped indigent defense system would bring needed change to the way the state provides legal counsel to its poor, according to the chief public defender for Iberia, St. Martin and St. Mary parishes.

The Indigent Defender Board handles an estimated 2,000 felony cases per year in the 16th Judicial District, said Chief Public Defender Craig Colwart. Colwart represents about 500 of those cases, while five other attorneys handle about 300 cases each.

"American Bar Association standards say you shouldn't do more than 150 a year," Colwart said. "When our state board was originally set up, they had aspirational guidelines - not mandatory - and those were 200 a year."

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Caseload standards would be one advantage to the Georgia model currently being endorsed by the Louisiana Public Defenders Association.

Public defenders represent more than 90 percent of people charged with crimes in Louisiana, those who cannot afford to hire an attorney, said Paul Marx, executive counsel for the LPDA.

In every other state, public defenders rely on state money. In Louisiana, the state chips in $9.5 million per year, with another $25 million coming from local sources - mostly costs added to traffic tickets.

Several studies have ranked Louisiana's total at the bottom nationwide. Oregon, which has a smaller population than Louisiana, appropriates $70 million a year to its indigent defense system.

Earlier this year, the state Legislature set up an Indigent Defense Task Force to change the way Louisiana appoints lawyers for criminal defendants who cannot afford counsel. The LPDA has proposed the state follow the model of Georgia and increase funding by about $23 million, a move Colwart said would double the local Indigent Defender Board's $1.1 million budget. The task force's plan is set to be unveiled at its next meeting in January.

"What we could do with that is meet these caseload standards, ensure that there is immediate representation, and our attorneys would have enough time to work up their cases and we could provide the representation that's mandated under the state and U.S. constitutions," Colwart said.

The Indigent Defender Board has 15 attorneys, two of whom are full-time, including Colwart. Colwart said the rest of the attorneys manage private practices in addition to their public defense work.

"We pay them so little, they need the private practice," he said. "It's just a question of figuring out how to juggle them. When it comes down to choosing, are you going to spend time on your private practice or your indigent defender work? Your indigent defender work usually suffers."

Colwart said the Indigent Defender Board is assigned to district courts in three parishes, which also include various juvenile, family and drug court divisions. The office is also assigned to city courts in New Iberia, Jeanerette, Franklin, Breaux Bridge and Morgan City.

"We've got one attorney that does juveniles in Iberia, juveniles in St. Martin and Breaux Bridge City Court," Colwart said. "But these courts sometimes sit at the same time. She can't be two places at once. She's got to pull somebody from another section, who's maybe working on a felony docket, so now you're not concentrating on your felony cases."

Under the Georgia model, all public defenders are considered full-time and are not allowed to have a private practice. Public defenders only represent cases that fall within their specialty, whether it be juveniles, misdemeanors or felonies.

"They actually differentiate felonies," Colwart said. "You have attorneys doing just major felonies, where you can get a life sentence."

Colwart said the Georgia model would allow his attorneys to spend more time with clients. It would also allow him to take more of an advisory role as chief public defender.

"At one time, when I wasn't covering two sections of court, I could meet with the attorneys and say, 'Look at this, don't look at that,'" Colwart said. "They could do it themselves, but it'll take two or three times longer for them to do it themselves when I could steer them in the right direction."

District attorneys around the state have generally, although not enthusiastically, supported the committee's work. Promoters of a revamped indigent defense system agree that the support of prosecutors is crucial to adopting the legislation necessary to revamp the system.

Sixteenth Judicial District Attorney Phil Haney said a strong indigent defender board is a necessity in any judicial system. However, he doesn't think increased funding is a means to that end.

"We need to have a good I.D. board on the other side, because if you don't have one, you will have cases reversed on you," Haney said. "But I think what the I.D. board needs to look at is, is the system broken? Or, is there just not enough accountability?"

Haney said only 1 to 2 percent of the 2,000 felony cases represented each year by the Indigent Defender Board actually go to trial. Most plead guilty or have charges reduced or dismissed.

"Some of the attorneys that are part-time... don't see their clients," Haney said. "It doesn't have anything to do with them being overloaded."

Colwart acknowledged his office tries only 20 to 40 cases per year. However, substantial work goes into representing defendants who plead guilty, he said.

"The duty of the lawyer there, in providing adequate representation, is to put a package together with testimony, evidence, witnesses, letters, whatever you need to do to give that judge as much information as possible so he can come up with the most appropriate sentence," Colwart said. "It's not being done now.

"When you've got five or six sentences set for one day, and you've worked out 40 or 50 pleas, and you've got to try two cases two weeks later, and you've got maybe five or six people set two months down the road for sentencings, when you finish doing those pleas and trying those cases, the last thing you want to do is have to go track down these people," he said.

"That's what the Georgia model would ensure, that you have the time to be able to do that. Right now, we're making choices, and we don't have a lot of time and a lot of information to make adequate choices right now, the way the system is set up."