TIMELINES FOLLOWING THE PROBABLE CAUSE HEARING

The Magistrate’s court monitors the case through periodic status hearings, every 28 days from the Probable Cause Hearing.

After the Probable Cause Hearing of the suspect, the DA is required to decide what formal charges will be brought against the accused, and determine whether to move forward and take the case to trial.

• This determination must also be made within strict time limits, ranging from 45-150 days, depending on the severity of the crime and whether the suspect is in jail or released on bail.

• Formal charges are made either by filing a Bill of Indictment (from a Grand Jury) or a Bill of Information (from the DA’s office) with the Clerk of Court’s office.

CASE MANAGEMENT CONFERENCES (NOPD AND DA)

The DA conducts weekly Case Management Conferences – also called charge conferences – with NOPD detectives at the DA’s office. The agencies work together to assess their information and prepare the charges. At these regular meetings, detectives will present their findings to the team. In violent crime cases, the DA’s office may do a non-arrest consult in order to evaluate the case with detectives before the arrest of the suspect(s).

The DA has specialized screening teams (like for homicide and sexual assault cases), made up of two ADA’s and a DA investigator, who help assess and prepare the case.

• Also present will be senior staff from both agencies, which might include: the First ADA, the Chief of Case Management ADA, seasoned trial ADA’s, NOPD supervisors, as well as any other relevant agencies. For each case, the Case Management Team will carefully consider the evidence, and because there are “more eyes” on the case, it increases the chances of a successful conviction or a plea bargain; this has been proven statistically.

Personnel and resources will be assigned according to the complexity of the case.

• Issues they might consider include: Are witnesses needed, or is the NOPD report enough? Will field tests (such as gun residue at the crime scene) or crime lab reports be needed? Will the Coroner’s findings be necessary? Survivors and witnesses may be contacted by the ADA’s with respect to the case, but they do not attend these conferences. The team will assess the credibility of witnesses or victims and note if there is a lack of cooperation. They may also seek to get medical records if an assault is involved.

• The team may send the case back to the detectives – many times, if necessary – for any necessary additional investigation.

There are 4 evidence categories they assess:

1. Real (physical items, like a weapon, clothes, or fingerprints)

2. Demonstrative (an idea of what occurred at a particular time and place)

3. Documentary (like a letter, document, or social media post)

4. Testimonial (from a witness).

FORMAL CHARGES ARE DECIDED

The Case Management Team – with recommendations from the detectives – decide what formal charges will be made against the suspect. They determine if the original charges, first made at the Probable Cause Hearing, should be amended (or changed): to upgrade or downgrade them.

• While the NOPD has to establish probable cause to make an arrest, the DA’s office has to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, which is a higher standard. So even though the NOPD may be correct in arresting someone, the DA may still lack the necessary proof to be able to convict them. Thus, certain felony arrests may instead be charged as misdemeanors when accepted for prosecution.

The DA will list each individual criminal charge where the law was broken. Each particular charge corresponds with certain already-established State sentencing guidelines, for example from 5-10 years for a certain charge, and 10-40 years for another charge.

• Each charge violation is numbered in counts (Count 1, Count 2, etc), based on what part of the law was broken. For example, a case may include: Count 1 for aggravated burglary; Count 2 for stalking; and Count 3 for illegal possession of a firearm.

The only crime that is punishable by death is 1st-degree murder. The DA decides if the office will seek a death penalty, and can withdraw seeking it if they decide the evidence is not strong enough to justify such a severe punishment.

The DA’s office may refuse to prosecute a case – this is known as “Nolle Prosequi” or "we will no longer prosecute." If they do this, they send what is called a “buck slip” to the NOPD, explaining the reasons for not choosing to prosecute.

The DA’s office may decide to send the case to another agency, such as the United States Attorney (the equivalent of the District Attorney, but who handles federal cases), for cases such as federal narcotics violations, firearms, or conspiracy to commit a crime. When another agency is taking over, the case is referred to as being “adopted” by that agency. Note that this rarely happens.

JOB OF THE DISTRICT ATTORNEY’S (DA) OFFICE

It is important to understand how the legal system views a violent crime that it intends to prosecute (or take to trial). It is defined as a crime against the State, or society at large (“the people”), and so legally the State takes the place of the individual victim. This is why a case is titled “State of Louisiana vs. the Defendant” – for example: State of Louisiana vs. John Doe.

To handle the case, the DA hires Assistant District Attorneys (ADA) who are lawyers – thus you do not have to hire a private lawyer. The DA also hires investigators.

In all violent offense cases, it is the DA’s office that decides if a case will go to trial. They have to prove a criminal event occurred and that the defendant committed the crime. It is not required to prove the motive, even though motive will seem significant to victim’s families or to a crime survivor. You may feel the DA is ignoring your wishes or feelings, but from the DA’s perspective, survivors must remember that justice is a process, not an outcome, and the DA must follow established rules – even when your focus may understandably get caught up in the outcome of whether the suspect will be found guilty or not.

In a typical trial case, the process of action has usually included:

• An investigation

• An arrest

• A review of your case by the DA and NOPD

• A trial – and even if the jury found the defendant not guilty, you had a group of people who listened to your case.

THE DECISION TO PROSECUTE OR NOT

The DA’s decision to prosecute or not is no way a reflection on you or the trauma you have suffered. It is the DA’s legal obligation to prosecute only when they reasonably believe that a conviction can be obtained against the person the police accuse of committing the offense.

If the DA decides to go forward with a prosecution of the defendant, it only means that the DA reasonably believes that s/he can obtain a conviction of the person in a court of law, given the facts and circumstances of the case. Once the DA accepts a felony case, it then proceeds through the criminal courts.

If the DA decides not to prosecute the case, it does not mean that a crime did not occur, nor does it mean that the person accused by the police is innocent. It merely means that the DA does not reasonably believe there is sufficient evidence to obtain a conviction of the accused in a court of law under the circumstances.

• An arrest can be made using what is considered to be a lower bar of acceptable evidence, such as circumstantial evidence or hearsay; however, in a trial, such hearsay is not admissible. The DA’s office generally encourages the detectives to continue with the investigation in an effort to obtain additional witnesses or evidence to strengthen the prosecution case.

Remember also that many cases result in a plea bargain or are dismissed before trial. Of the roughly 5,000 cases accepted by the DA every year, only about 5% of cases (or roughly 250) of them will go to trial. With the cases that have gone to trial, the felony conviction rate (where the defendant is found guilty) has increased to over 70%.

To summarize: the DA’s office may (a) accept specific charges, (b) decline certain charges, (c) dismiss other charges, or (d) in rare matters, divert the accused (to be tried by another agency, who adopt the case).

ADA = PROSECUTOR = PROSECUTION ATTORNEY

When the case is accepted for prosecution (either by the Grand Jury’s Bill of Indictment, or by the DA’s Bill of Information) and sent to Criminal Court for trial, a particular trial ADA and an investigator are assigned, specific to your section of court; they will be in touch with you.

Your participation with your trial ADA is critically important to ensure that s/he has all of the facts necessary to successfully prosecute the case. Your continued cooperation is vital even when it appears tedious or repetitive. The repeated contact you’ll have with your trial ADA will also allow you to address any concerns you may have with the process or with the quality of services being provided to you.

It is in your interest to insist hearings and the trial are handled fairly by the trial ADA- including proper sharing of documents and other discovery - because if the defense finds out something was withheld, the case can be dismissed and/or retried.

You may not want or need to attend all pre-trial hearings. Ask your ADA and/or Victim Witness Coordinator to advise you on which hearings may be important and significant to attend.

• Also be sure to call your ADA in order to confirm if the hearing is actually happening on the designated date.

Should you experience a lack of helpfulness, ask to speak to the trial ADA’s supervisor, and also try approaching your DA Victim Witness Coordinator.

• The chain of command is: ADA → Division Chief → First Assistant District Attorney → District Attorney.

DA VICTIM WITNESS ASSISTANCE PROGRAM

Once a case is formally transferred to the DA after an arrest, survivors and witnesses in all major felony cases are referred to the DA’s Victim Witness program. You will be assigned a DA Victim Witness Assistance Coordinator based on your specific section of court, to provide emotional and practical support; this assistance is available 24/7. Each Coordinator is highly trained, with a masters’ level degree in counseling or social work.

Types of assistance the Coordinator provides include:

• Referrals for individual and family counseling, and mental illness

• Crisis intervention

• Case management (while the Victim Witness Assistance Coordinators are not lawyers, they can assist with communication between you and your ADA)

• Preparing survivors and witnesses for court proceedings

• Accompanying survivors and witnesses to court

• Providing correct and timely information of court hearings, case status, and case outcome (since delays happen often, they will let you know as soon as they know themselves)

• Keeping your cell phone while you are in court

• Assisting with victim impact statements, and reading them for you in court if you prefer

This is an extremely valuable support system. For example, going to court can seem overwhelming and intimidating, as can trying to understand various legal processes. The Coordinators are also there to ensure you are treated with respect.

COOPERATION BETWEEN THE NOPD AND DA

Weekly Case Management Conferences mean the NOPD and DA are constantly communicating – and this means each case receives serious investigative and legal consideration with input from all involved.

A local watchdog group, Metropolitan Crime Commission (MCC), has concluded “the NOPD and DA’s Office show improvements in efficiency and effectiveness working together over the past several years," and they have also commented that the courts are giving stiffer sentences.

Here are some points from the MCC May 2017 and September 2018 reports:

• Felony arrests as a percentage of all arrests increased from 19% in 2013 to 28% in 2016.

• There was an 81% rate of felony arrests accepted for felony prosecutions in 2015 compared to a 73% rate in 2013.

• The median felony case processing time improved from 182 days in 2016 to 129 days in 2017.

• The median time for the DA to reach a decision whether to prosecute a suspect decreased by more than two weeks from 51 days in 2013 to 37 days in 2015. This reduced time indicates greater efficiency in combined police and prosecutor efforts to progress arrest cases through the criminal legal system.

• Less downgrading of felony charges [to misdemeanors] by prosecutors indicates more accurate charging of suspects by the NOPD at the time of arrest. High acceptance rates indicate that, commendably, NOPD investigations routinely meet the proof beyond a reasonable doubt that standard prosecutors require to accept a case.

• Violent and weapons cases are the most time-consuming to adjudicate and made up 57% of open cases in 2016 and 59% of open cases in 2017 as a result of police and prosecutor focus upon these offenses.

• The number of new felony cases increased by 17%, almost 700 cases, from 4,045 new cases in 2016 to 4,743 new cases in 2017. Violent and weapons cases made up 51% of new cases in 2016 and 50% of new cases in 2017, which demonstrates the focus that police and prosecutors place upon these most serious offenses.