By JIM BUTLER

Chief Rapides Public Defender Deidre Fuller and those in several other area parishes won a round last week in their continuing effort to keep their jobs. 

According to Louisiana Illuminator, legislators for the second year in a row pushed back on State Public Defender Rémy Starns’ efforts to gain total authority over Louisiana’s sprawling indigent defense system. 

His proposal would also have made it easier for him to fire the small group of public defense attorneys who have publicly clashed with him. 

Two lawmakers hastily pulled bills from consideration Thursday after members of the House Committee on Criminal Justice questioned Starns’ motivation for pushing the legislation. 

The committee’s vice chair, Rep. Vanessa LaFleur, D-Baton Rouge, criticized the proposal as a “power grab” from Starns and then asked her colleagues to squash it.

Attorneys who run local public defender offices in central and north Louisiana also testified Thursday that Starns was using the legislation to push them out of their jobs. He was upset, they said, because they had opposed his bills at previous legislative hearings. 

“We are about to have our careers wiped out because Mr. Starns doesn’t think that we should come before you and share with you when we disagree with his policies,” said Michelle AndrePont, the head of Caddo Parish’s public defender office and one of the attorneys Starns is trying to dismiss. 

All of the attorneys at risk of losing their jobs testified during Thursday’s committee meeting. They said Starns was trying to fire them, primarily because they have criticized his policies in front of state lawmakers and the state public defender board. 

Collectively, the attorneys said they have over a century of experience working in public defense. None have received a negative performance review, they added. 

“What do we five have in common? We are active in the legislative process,” said Brett Brunson, who has run the public defender office in Natchitoches Parish for 18 years and is at risk of losing his job. “At times, we have been at odds with Mr. Starns and his proposals.”

When the public defenders testified last year, they warned they might lose their jobs over speaking out publicly against Starns’ proposals. A few legislators appeared taken aback Thursday that Starns was attempting to fire them.

“You all are the same ones who came in opposition? And all of you are the same ones who are now terminated?” Rep. Alonzo Knox, R-New Orleans, asked the attorneys. 

“Yes,” responded Trisha Ward, chief public defender for Evangeline Parish.

House Bill 447, sponsored by Rep. Les Farnum, R-Sulphur, would have eliminated a review process AndrePont and other chief public defenders are in the middle of now to fight Starns’ decision to fire them.  

It also would have taken away some limited power lawmakers bestowed on the State Public Defender Oversight Board just last year. House Bill 516, sponsored by Rep. Roy Daryl Adams, D-Jackson, would have consolidated authority over local public defense funds and operations with Starns. Both bills were scuttled temporarily by the authors but could be brought up for reconsideration later in the session. 

At the urging of Gov. Jeff Landry, state lawmakers in 2024 transferred significant authority for managing the state’s public defender system from an oversight board to the state public defender’s position, which Starns has held since 2020. 

Starns had clashed with the previous state public defender board on several issues and told legislators last year its members were interfering with his ability to improve the public defender system overall.

The new version of the board, which has less power than its previous version, is made up of appointees from the governor, legislative leaders and the Louisiana Supreme Court.

 It oversees the public defense system’s largest contracts, mostly with private attorneys who provide death penalty defense, and it sets the salary scale for chief public defenders hired to run local offices. 

Yet even on these limited issues, Starns has had difficulties getting along with the new board, whose members were seated last July. 

The new board initially declined to go along with Starns’ proposal to route the death penalty contracts through local public defender offices. Its members have also twice turned down his proposed pay scale for chief public defenders, primarily because it would have cut the salaries of some by tens of thousands of dollars.

Previous legislation prohibits termination of any defender contracts before July 1 of this year.

In March, Starns sought an opinion from Attorney General Liz Murrill’s office on whether   he could unilaterally end district defender contracts this summer when they expire.

“There is no right to a hearing or an investigation if the annual contract is simply not renewed,” Assistant Attorney General Chimene St. Amant wrote in the memo of opinion.