The Calcasieu Parish district attorney said he would like to see more cases go to trial in the new year.
Speaking about the past year and his office’s goal for 2013, John DeRosier said he wants prosecutors and judges to have more
control of the dockets to see cases go to trial more swiftly.
“One of the problems we always have is
getting these felony cases to trial,” he said. “The reason for that is,
historically,
defendants who were charged with serious felonies simply won’t
plead guilty until they see that jury walk into that courtroom
and you can imagine what that does to the system.”
The court has already begun to try to
move cases along through case management conferences, where plea
agreements can be reached,
DeRosier said. He said the conferences were “spearheaded” by the
judges.
DeRosier said the goal is to move most
of the cases through pleas, but “there needs to come a time when we have
a conference
and we need to tell the defendant as prosecutors and the judge
needs to tell the defendant, this is the way it’s going to
be. This is as good as it’s going to get. Either plead guilty to
this or we’re going to trial. There will be no further offer,
no deal.”
Not having a jury waiting in the wings only to have a plea deal reached would be a savings, he said.
“That’s a lot of people that we inconvenience to come up here,” DeRosier said.
He said he would also like to combine right-to-counsel court and probable-cause court — which he said would “streamline the
misdemeanor process.”
Representatives of the District Attorney’s Office visited Harris County, Texas, which holds a combined court. “They disposed
of a vast majority of their misdemeanor cases in a few days,” DeRosier said.
That would free the office to “move on to cases like significant violent felony cases,” DeRosier said.
DeRosier lists the parish’s DWI pretrial diversion program among his office’s top successes of the past year.
He said 1,600 DWIs were handled by the office last year. To get into the pretrial diversion program, entrants must meet and
follow “strict guidelines,” he said.
Twelve percent of those who enter the program were kicked out, he said. But of the 88 percent that made it through, there
was a 1 percent recidivism rate, according to a three-year study, he said.
“Our goal is not to put impaired drivers in prison or in jail, but to keep impaired drivers off the highway,” DeRosier said.
He said the nationwide DWI recidivism rate is 15 percent to 20 percent.
“Our overall mission is to try to make
Calcasieu a better and safer place for everybody to live and raise their
families,
and impaired drivers are a good place to start,” DeRosier said.
“With help and cooperation of all of our law enforcement agencies,
we’ve really done a remarkable job and stuck with it.”
He said the number of deaths by drug overdose in Calcasieu remained the same as last year — 21 — down from 60 in 2007. He
credited that to the work of law enforcement to keep pills from entering the state from Texas.
He said if a person is doctor-shopping in Texas, “they’re going to be hard-pressed to bring it back and get (a prescription)
filled in Calcasieu Parish, or anywhere in Southwest Louisiana. We greatly heightened the attention that’s paid to all of
these out-of-state drugs and prescriptions with all of the help from law enforcement.”
DeRosier said his office has made some moves in how it handles cases. Historically there was a prosecutor for each of the
six felony divisions, as well as special prosecutors for drugs, child abuse and domestic violence.
But felony and misdemeanor lawyers are now paired in each division, DeRosier said.
He said the move helps felony prosecutors move their caseloads and gives misdemeanor lawyers cross-training.
“That has worked well,” DeRosier said. “I think that’s one of the best things we’ve done relative to personnel.”