The legislature has seen heated debate in regards to the trio of payments poised to chop 11 Orleans Parish judges and its criminal-court clerk. To clarify the rationale for the cuts, invoice creator Sen. Jay Morris and different legislators cite information collected by the Louisiana Supreme Courtroom.

That appears to make sense. The Supreme Courtroom is the designated keeper of Louisiana’s judiciary information, ostensibly the perfect repository for perception in regards to the state’s 42 district courts. The courtroom’s 2025 report additionally gives the look that the district-court information could be analyzed as an entire, in response to the info’s abstract, which begins: “Louisiana District Courts reported a rise in complete filings for 2025, rising by 5% ….”

However pulling aside the info reveals a loopy quilt of courtroom statistics that fall so wanting apples-to-apples comparisons that some parishes don’t even appear to belong in the identical produce part.

As an illustration, the twenty sixth Judicial District Courtroom recorded 8,468 felony filings for 2025 for Bossier Parish, the twelfth largest parish within the state. That’s greater than double the 4,110 circumstances recorded by Orleans in 2025, although Bossier has solely one-third of the inhabitants of Orleans.

Equally outsized submitting numbers could be discovered throughout the 4th Judicial District Courtroom, the courtroom that covers Morris’s residence parish, Ouachita.

Ouachita, which is half the dimensions of Orleans, recorded 18,266 felony circumstances throughout the 4th Judicial District Courtroom – close to 5 instances the Orleans case rely. 

That’s about one criminal-court case for each 9 individuals in Ouachita Parish and one for each 16 individuals in Bossier, a a lot increased ratio than Orleans, which recorded about one courtroom case for each 87 individuals.

Every of the state’s huge inhabitants facilities – Jefferson, St. Tammany, and East Baton Rouge – had filings topping 6,000, far exceeding Orleans.

Caddo Parish, the sixth largest parish, had 8,341 felony circumstances, although its inhabitants is roughly two-thirds of Orleans. Different mid-size parishes like Calcasieu (4,657 circumstances) and Lafayette (4,350 circumstances) had fewer felony filings – however sufficient to exceed the totals in Orleans, regardless of appreciable inhabitants variations. 

‘We’re not counting our numbers the identical. That’s the crux of the matter.’

However the state’s submitting totals have lengthy been a problem, the Nationwide Middle for State Courts famous in a bit entitled “information high quality” inside a 2014 report commissioned by the Louisiana Supreme Courtroom. 

“The Louisiana information in felony circumstances endure due to a scarcity of consistency in statewide guidelines for counting felony circumstances,” the report part famous. “A single crime wherein one defendant is charged with three expenses may be counted in a single jurisdiction as a single case, whereas in one other jurisdiction it could be counted as three circumstances – making it laborious to pretty examine judicial work.” 

“It’s a quite common and widespread downside,” stated Andy Davies, director of analysis on the Deason Felony Justice Reform Middle on the Southern Methodist College Courtroom of Regulation in Dallas. “You may have all these totally different businesses within the justice system, they usually all monitor their work for various functions. So it’s not shocking that the numbers don’t match up.” Nonetheless, it’s clear that Louisiana has been grappling with this challenge for a very long time, Davies stated. “The truth that there’s a 10-year-old report saying, ‘You must repair this,’ is the smoking gun.”

It appears very attainable that the courtroom clerks in Bossier and Ouachita are counting each arrest, counting each cost – or simply counting it nonetheless they see match. “The Supreme Courtroom doesn’t have a uniform manner that every one the clerks are counting their numbers. We’re not counting our numbers the identical. That’s the crux of the matter,” stated Darren Lombard, the clerk of Orleans Parish Felony District Courtroom.

“Finally the (district) clerks rely the circumstances primarily based on their parish’s prosecution and docket-management follow and certify these numbers for us to publish,” spokesperson Trina Vincent of Supreme Courtroom advised The Lens. “Some jurisdictions might mix codefendants or mix felony and misdemeanor expenses in a single case, whereas others create separate circumstances by defendant or class of cost.”

That makes comparisons between courts nearly inconceivable. Even seemingly goal measures like inhabitants and district case filings “don’t precisely decide caseload,” stated John Weimer, chief justice of the Louisiana Supreme Courtroom, throughout a January joint-budget committee listening to. 

The Louisiana Supreme Courtroom was as soon as within the forefront of attempting to make sure circumstances have been counted pretty, as Weimer described in his January testimony. Within the mid-Nineteen Nineties Hugh Collins, the courtroom’s deputy judicial administrator, served on the advisory committee to a nationwide analysis venture on the matter. The courtroom developed “work factors” to explain the common quantity of judicial time required for every of 9 case varieties, starting from visitors circumstances to felonies. 

The tactic that Collins helped to develop was used to find out when parishes wanted new judgeships.

However now legislators try to grab on information to scale back judgeships. For many years now, Republican legislators have believed that Orleans wants to chop its judgeships. Now their quest is backed by Gov. Jeff Landry. 

The cuts could also be crucial – or they could be a political necessity, in response to those that need them. However legislators who see a greenlight for the cuts throughout the Supreme Courtroom’s present information have been politely cautioned in any other case.

As an illustration, in the course of the January listening to, Rep. Jerome Zeringue of Lafayette expressed frustration that a spot like Terrebonne Parish was in a position to course of hundreds of filings with 5 judges whereas Orleans Parish courts staffed dozens of judges, to deal with related numbers of circumstances. “This factor is screwed up,” he stated. “And we haven’t addressed it in a long time and a long time.”

“You need to transcend the numbers,” Weimer suggested. “These are simply the filings.”

These disparities can exist inside any department of the justice system as nicely. A number of years in the past, Davies, from the Deason Middle, was employed by the New York state public defenders workplace to journey the state of New York, asking public defenders how they tracked their numbers. “They have been all counting it in a different way,” he stated. 

Over a yr’s time, Davies went from workplace to workplace. “I requested, ‘How do you do it? How do you do it? How do you do it?’” he stated. After visits to every place, he began to grasp information methods and capacities. And after his tour, the state issued uniform case definitions for public defenders and directions on tips on how to rely them. “You need to get everybody on the identical web page and that’s a course of,” he stated. “It’s tough, but it surely’s actually not insurmountable.”

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