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DA team lauded for trial success

Section: Community

Laura Maggi

Community leaders praised the work of the Orleans Parish district attorney's office's violent offender unit Wednesday, saying the team of experienced prosecutors helped take 54 serious criminals off the streets last year.

The unit was created in February in an attempt to focus on serious crimes, ranging from armed robbery to nonfatal shootings. In July, after widespread criticism of the previous homicide unit for dropping charges against two high-profile murder defendants, the specialized squad also took over prosecution of murder and manslaughter cases.

But the elite unit, which pays $80,000 annual salaries to the most seasoned prosecutors, ran into trouble when five attorneys quit between June and August, some after just a month on the job. A couple of the former attorneys echoed the complaints of many prosecutors who've recently left the district attorney's office , saying that despite the high pay they couldn't tolerate the administrative dysfunction.

New members join team

The unit's situation improved after the summer. During the fall, Bobby Freeman, the division's supervisor, hired new prosecutors, who racked up a series of guilty verdicts in murder cases.

The squad now concentrates on homicides, while still handling some of the other violent crime cases, including attempted murder and carjacking. The group has about 80 pending homicide cases at Criminal District Court and 65 other cases.

At a news conference Wednesday at City Hall, New Orleans Police Department Superintendent Warren Riley complimented the unit, saying its attorneys had restored police officers' faith that when they arrest violent criminals, they will be prosecuted.

"The members of the Police Department who are out on the front lines truly, truly feel that we have a true partner in the fight against crime," Riley said.

The unit won 26 guilty verdicts at trial last year, compared to four acquittals, an 87 percent conviction rate on cases taken to trial. Twenty-eight defendants in cases handled by the unit also pleaded guilty. The average sentence of the defendants was 16 years in prison, said Rafael Goyeneche, president of the Metropolitan Crime Commission and member of the New Orleans Crime Coalition, a collection of community organizations trying to help the criminal justice system rebuild after Hurricane Katrina.

The unit had homicide 12 convictions from July to the end of the year, including six defendants that took guilty pleas. The previous homicide unit had 14 convictions and six guilty pleas in the first six months of 2007.

Although the previous homicide unit handled more homicide cases, Freeman noted that his prosecutors successfully handled the murder trials while also maintaining caseloads of other violent crimes. The violent offender prosecutors were also tasked with rapidly evaluating about 100 old homicide cases when they received them all at once in mid-July, he said, which meant they needed time to get up to speed.

Few cases dropped

Freeman said the unit hasn't dropped many of its pending cases, dismissing the charges in just four cases, including one against a defendant charged with illegal gun ownership who was killed. The three other dropped cases involve a defendant facing second-degree murder charges, a gun charge and accessory to second-degree murder.

Since the unit took over the homicide prosecutions in July, it has accepted 71 percent of the 51 cases brought by the NOPD, a total of 36 cases, Freeman said.

Homicide detectives, as well as the unit's leadership and crime lab experts, attend charging conferences at which all participants discuss whether there is enough evidence to go forward with charges against a defendant suspected of killing someone. That interaction between the district attorney's prosecutors and the NOPD has made the cases stronger, Freeman said.

More help sought

Although the violent offender unit has two administrative assistants assigned to it, there is still a need to provide more support staff and technological help to the office, said Gregory Rusovich, a local businessman who is chairman of the New Orleans Crime Coalition.

Rusovich said the group is spearheading a request to Congress to get another $12 million to $15 million in federal money to provide the support, hire more experienced prosecutors for the trial sections at criminal court, provide desperately needed treatment beds for drug addicts, and bolster the NOPD's evidence and crime lab operations.

The city only recently received a $4.2 million federal appropriation that was included April in a congressional budget bill, he said.

That money will allow the district attorney's office to hire so-called "community prosecutors," who will work out of the NOPD's district stations, providing advice to police officers as they make arrests. The NOPD also plans to use some of the money to hire retired police officers as contractor workers to handle desk duties, which will free up active officers to go out on the streets, Rusovich said.

The coalition is also working on streamlining the bureaucratic process that gets federal funds to the city, working more closely with the state Department of Justice, which initially receives the funding, he said.

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