Officials at the 14th Judicial District Court are hoping that a change in the way felony cases are allotted will clear up confusion as to which division cases should be assigned.

Under the previous rules, cases were randomly allotted, but if a defendant had a previous conviction or pending felony, any new charges that arose were to be placed in the same division as the previous convictions or charges. That led to problems, though, court officials say, because there was no limit to how far back an old felony was to be followed.

For instance, Chief Judge David Ritchie said, if a defendant was convicted of a felony 30 years ago, any new charges were to be placed into that same division.

“It was a burdensome system,” Ritchie said. “It was burdensome on the people that had to do all the research.”

“That just got to be very confusing, people didn’t understand it and sometimes it wasn’t followed,” fellow Judge Clayton Davis said. “It was hard to figure it out sometimes. This just streamlines it in a good way.”

Under the new rules, which went into effect Oct. 13, cases are to be allotted by date of offense. Cases will be allotted in the division of the “duty judge,” whose week it is to sign warrants and set bonds.

There are exceptions — defendants with pending felonies will remain in the same division and cases with hard-to-pinpoint dates of offense, such as drug distribution or sexual abuse, will be randomly allotted.

First- and second-degree murder, as well as manslaughter, will always be allotted by date of offense, with no regard to any pending felonies.

“Date of offense made a lot of sense because the duty judge on the date of offense will normally get the case and everyone will know immediately the judge, the prosecutor, the public defender,” Davis said. “That helps. Anything that speeds up the process and gets information to people sooner is good.”

Allotment became a topic of discussion earlier this year at the 14th JDC when a multi-defendant drug case, Operation 27, prompted debate about which division the defendants were to be placed.

The judges, court personnel, prosecutors, public defenders, members of the local bar and law enforcement all met to discuss the rules, Ritchie said.

“It was a real collaborative effort to make sure we got it all right,” Ritchie said. “We tried to simplify it and make it as least complicated as possible.”

While “one size doesn’t fit all” in an allotment process, the new system will be “better in the long run,” said Harry Fontenot, head of the Public Defender’s Office.

“I think it’s a step in the right direction,” Fontenot said. “I think the judges and everybody is working hard to straighten this out.”

Clerk of Court Lynn Jones agreed.

“We’re trying to work with all the parties,” he said. “I do think in the long run, it will help the system.”

Both Fontenot and Jones said any unforeseen problems will have to be dealt with as they arise.

“There’s less chance of error,” Jones said. “This is a lot more forthright and it’s less complicated.”

District Attorney John DeRosier has been pushing date-of-offense allotment so that it will be immediately be known which prosecutor will handle the case. While DeRosier or prosecutor Cynthia Killingsworth currently visit murder scenes, now the prosecutor who will actually try the case can go out to the murder scene, he said.

“Now the prosecutor that will handle it in court will actually have a first-hand view of the scene,” DeRosier said. “He will see the room, for example, where the homicide took place, or the area where it took place.

“It gives us such an advantage of not having to put back a crime scene from photographs.”(MGNonline)