The Orleans Public Defenders asked the New Orleans Municipal Court this week to toss out over 3,000 open cases stemming from a city ordinance that outlaws begging, along with any pending fines and fees.
The local law was declared unconstitutional in a 2013 ruling from Orleans Parish Criminal District Court Judge Arthur Hunter. The ruling was later upheld by the state’s Fourth Circuit Court of Appeal and the Louisiana Supreme Court after the District Attorney’s office appealed.
It appears that the city has mostly stopped enforcing the begging prohibition since 2013, but there are still outstanding cases from charges filed prior to Hunter’s ruling. According to the public defenders’ motions, nearly 1,000 of them have attachments — meaning a person could be arrested for the outstanding charge.
“We need to get rid of them, because there are 1,000 people who could get picked up at any given time by NOPD,” said Lauren Anderson, the Supervising Attorney at Municipal and Magistrate Court for the public defenders, who filed the motions.
Read the full article at The Lens.
