Justice delayed in New Orleans

AP/MSNBC:

Their faces glisten with sweat, their red-rimmed eyes stare ahead vacantly as they're herded into the sweltering room where another day of court is about to begin.

"Sorry you have to sit on the floor," Commissioner Marie Bookman says to about 50 men and women in orange shirts and pants and leg shackles before she calls her first case in the bond hearing.

It's a spring morning in the New Orleans court system's long road back from Hurricane Katrina.

This session of magistrate court is temporarily being held in a police lineup room furnished with plastic tables. Flies buzz about. Two giant fans offer no relief; a few deputies seem about to nod off in the oven-like heat.

Bookman spots a gray-haired inmate with an arm cast leaning against a wall, and asks that he be given a seat. But a deputy reminds her a chair can be used as a weapon. So the man remains standing, mopping his brow with a black bandanna.

Most of the men here have been arrested on drug charges; most of the women — some barefoot, some in stiletto heels — have been accused of prostitution. Few can afford lawyers.

Everybody else is represented by the same public defender, who hasn't had time to interview anyone beforehand. It's the commissioner — blue jeans peeking out from under her black robe — who flips through manila folders and questions the prosecutor.

...

No one can make bail, so it's back to jail for what can be a long wait — up to two months — before they see a lawyer again.

As one man shambles up the stairs, Tulane University law professor Pam Metzger leans over to a visitor and whispers: "How do you like our brand of justice?"

The criminal justice system — like so much else in New Orleans — was ravaged by the hurricane. The courthouse was flooded. Files were ruined, evidence contaminated. Judges and lawyers lost their offices and homes. Witnesses and victims fled for their lives.

Ten months later, this vision of legal hell is slowly being cleared away. As the city heads into a steamy summer, judges are back in court and trials have begun.

...

There is more and it is not pretty. A grimy look at the unwashed masses and their collesion with the justice system or something like it in New Orleans makes you are glad you are not there and makes you question why people are returning.