A knowledge report filed in March raises essential questions concerning the knowledge behind proposed legislative cuts to the Orleans Parish judiciary. 

The info report, filed to the Supreme Court docket by the Orleans Parish District Clerk of Court docket on March 2, 2026, exhibits that the legislature is contemplating solely half of the defendants who transfer via the courthouse at Tulane Avenue and Broad Road. Due to these a lot smaller numbers, those that championed the cuts to Orleans have been in a position to argue that Orleans is a bloated courtroom that must be “right-sized.”

Sen. Jay Morris, a Republican from West Monroe who authored the laws, had proposed the cuts based mostly on knowledge he’d pulled from a “Orleans Parish Court docket Weighted Case Counts” report from the Supreme Court docket, he instructed his colleagues throughout a March 31 Senate Judiciary committee listening to. 

However a comparability between the Supreme Court docket report utilized by Morris and the info reported by the Orleans Parish Felony District Court docket for 2025 exhibits that the Supreme Court docket report captured solely 4,109 “filings,” whereas Orleans knowledge exhibits that the courtroom dealt with roughly twice as many defendants: for a complete of 8,009. The chart beneath additionally exhibits the gaps in these totals and inside the felony and misdemeanor ranges.

The variations within the knowledge assist to clarify why the 12 Orleans Parish judges are shocked on the legislature’s sense of their workload, whereas legislators have a look at Orleans and see a courts system that’s “out of whack” with the remainder of the state, as one senator described it.

The Orleans judges who testified on the legislature described the prolonged dockets they face each weekday and the lengthy hours they spend on the bench, actively dealing with instances, typically till late within the afternoon. Solely as soon as they go away the bench are they in a position to learn courtroom filings and write choices, they are saying.

And on weeks that they’ve trials, the judges and their staffs typically need to focus for a whole week on a single case. Throughout the courtroom, knowledge exhibits that criminal-court judges dealt with 137 trials in 2025, almost one trial per decide per 30 days.

The newly revealed defendant totals elevate bigger questions on these caseloads.

On the very least, the questions appear to name for measured evaluation and planning, not a rammed-through proposal to chop judges and a clerkship, critics say. The legislators are pushing to verify the payments are signed earlier than Might 4, when Calvin Duncan is slated to be sworn in because the clerk of Orleans Parish Felony District Court docket. If Duncan begins his four-year time period, the logic goes, the clerk’s workplace merger can’t happen for 4 extra years.

In Orleans, 4 different ranges of judges are additionally going through cuts. It’s unclear whether or not the info Morris used was equally flawed for these different branches of Orleans judiciary, as a result of Morris stated in committee testimony that he consulted no Orleans judges or judicial directors. “Nobody needs to cut back their fiefdom,” he stated.

Within the March report, a lot of the Orleans Parish criminal-court knowledge for 2025 counts defendants, not filings.

However there are obvious apples-to-apples comparisons — with wildly completely different counts.

As an example, the Supreme Court docket reported 4,109 filings for the courtroom. However the Orleans Parish clerk’s personal knowledge for filings confirmed a complete of seven,556 filings, a complete 84% increased than the totals Morris used.

In some methods, that is an outdated drawback. Due to the divergent methods wherein state courts tally caseloads from parish to parish, the legislature has had lengthy issue making direct comparisons between courts in numerous parishes.

The Supreme Court docket’s “weighted caseload” calculation was an try to deal with that drawback, in a approach that allowed the legislature to extra pretty evaluate caseloads between different parishes and Orleans, which has a a lot increased fee of difficult felony instances than wherever else within the state.

However the weighted caseload evaluation could also be irrelevant if the caseload rely itself is in query.

‘When do you establish {that a} case exists?’

The Orleans clerk’s report represents all courtroom defendants, ranging from shortly after arrest, once they make appearances within the Orleans Parish Felony District Court docket’s Justice of the Peace division, stated Orleans Parish Felony District Court docket Clerk Darren Lombard, who mentioned the info discrepancies with The Lens. By comparability, the Supreme Court docket’s weighted-caseload report solely displays instances if the district lawyer accepts the costs, shifting the defendants right into a trial part — a transfer that usually occurs months after arrest, after the defendants have made a number of magistrate-court appearances.

“The query is, when do you establish {that a} case exists? stated Lombard, whose workplace submitted the rely of defendants to the Louisiana Supreme Court docket on March 2, 2026. The March report was marked “amended” on the highest in giant black handwritten script as a result of it represented knowledge gathered from the clerk’s new laptop system, Clerk Join, as an alternative of the hand-counted totals that the clerk had lengthy submitted to the Supreme Court docket utilizing its workplace’s outdated IBM AS/400 laptop system.

It’s unknown how the Supreme Court docket considered the amended report it acquired from the Orleans clerk and why that wasn’t included into the weighted-caseload evaluation. The Supreme Court docket spokesperson didn’t return repeated queries from The Lens concerning the report.

In the long run, as a result of the Supreme Court docket opted to not rely any Justice of the Peace instances with fees that have been in the end refused by the district lawyer, the March 2 report is now perceived as what Lombard described as a “laptop glitch.”

However the total knowledge appears essential to the debates occurring in Baton Rouge.

“The entire crux of the matter is that the Supreme Court docket has not assigned a uniform approach of counting for all clerks … so we aren’t counting our numbers the identical,” Lombard stated. “Some parishes give a case quantity for each arrest. But when the Supreme Court docket instructed everybody, ‘we’re solely going to rely these case filings which might be truly billed by the DA,’ then we’d all be on equal footing.”

It does really feel like there needs to be some sort of acknowledgement of instances that undergo courthouse that don’t make it as much as a trial courtroom part, he stated. “As a result of that’s assets proper there. Typically it takes a very long time to make it as much as trial courtroom or get it refused.”

It’s such a definite workload, the truth is, that the prison courtroom clerk — which is predicated out of workplaces on the courthouse’s second flooring — has a separate suite of rooms on the primary flooring, dedicated to the Justice of the Peace clerk’s workplace.

Confusion about Supreme Court docket experiences

Even throughout the latest Senate judiciary committee listening to, on March 31, there was some confusion about what Morris based mostly his cuts on. At first, a few of Morris’ Senate colleagues learn a distinct Supreme Court docket workpoint report and disagreed with Morris’ conclusions about that report. “What I discover unimaginable is that you simply sat on the desk and stated that an professional Louisiana Supreme Court docket report recommends decreasing the variety of judges,” stated Sen. Gary Carter, a Democrat from Algiers who sits on the Senate judiciary committee. “However I learn the report and it doesn’t say that.”  

“It’s not that report, it’s this report,” stated Morris, referring Carter again to the “Weighted Caseload” research that incorporates the numbers analyzed by The Lens. “The Supreme Court docket issued this report; they despatched all of you one,” Morris stated, selecting up the report throughout his Senate Judiciary committee testimony and displaying it to Carter. 

Morris stated that his focus was to deal with the “bordering-on ridiculous variety of judges in Orleans” when in comparison with comparable courts within the state and the nation.  “When you have twice as many judges as you want, why wouldn’t you cut back some?” Morris requested.

However, some would possibly ask, if Orleans Parish prison courtroom truly has twice as many defendants, does it want to cut back any?

The Orleans Parish clerk’s personal knowledge for filings confirmed a complete of seven,556 filings, a complete 84% increased than the totals Morris used to plan cuts for 4 judges and the clerk’s workplace inside the Orleans Parish Felony District Court docket.

subcategories, similar to felony and misdemeanor, the general impression is, once more, that the Supreme Court docket numbers are an undercount. The Supreme Court docket reported 1,218 misdemeanor filings for Orleans whereas the amended clerk’s knowledge exhibits 3,046 misdemeanor defendants with a complete of 9,631 fees filed. For felonies, the Supreme Court docket report displays a complete of solely 2,732 case filings whereas the amended clerk’s knowledge exhibits 4,963 defendants with a complete of 20,716 fees filed.

In complete, Morris’ payments suggest to slash 11 judgeships throughout Orleans Parish judiciary and remove the criminal-court clerkship that Calvin Duncan was slated to step into in Might, after being elected by 68% of the New Orleans citizens in December.

The Senate handed Morris’ trio of payments final week: Invoice 256 would merge the clerk’s workplaces from civil and prison courtroom into one Orleans Parish clerk’s workplace. Senate Invoice 197 cuts two of the 12 judges on the Fourth Circuit Court docket of Appeals.. Senate Invoice 217 cuts a complete of 9 judges; 4 of 12 judges within the Orleans Parish prison courtroom, two of 14 from civil courtroom, two of 4 from municipal and site visitors courtroom; and one in every of 4 from juvenile courtroom.

The payments might be heard within the Home subsequent week for last approval after which would transfer to the governor for his signature.

Under are the 2 paperwork in query, the Supreme Court docket’s weighted-caseload report and the amended knowledge for the Orleans Parish Felony District Court docket. This story was up to date to replicate that Morris is from West Monroe, not Monroe.

---

Associated