With a budget in crisis and potential layoffs on the way, the East Baton Rouge District Attorney’s Office is struggling to stay afloat.
As WBRZ-TV reports, last year the D.A.’s office prosecuted 17,500 cases. Of that number, 2,200 were juvenile cases handled by five attorneys, which divides out to 440 cases per ADA. The American Bar Association says the maximum number of juvenile cases to be handled each year is 200.
The remaining 15,000 were a combination of misdemeanors and felonies. Divided among 32 attorneys, each of them prosecuted 468 cases. The Bar Association says that these types of cases should be handled separately.
The maximum should be 400 misdemeanors or 150 felonies. Now District Attorney Hillar Moore says he’s going to have to ask at least five more attorneys to leave.
“We are piling more cases on assistant D.A.’s and those investigators are left behind, so they’re picking up the work of another (assistant district attorney), another investigator, which is difficult because our caseload is extremely high as is,” Moore says.
Moore says the caseload could affect how well his office handles cases but notes it has always been understaffed.
