LA: the first appearance project

Thanks to Ray Ward, this cover story from BestofNewOrleans.com:

Defenseless - Saddled with huge caseloads and low budgets, public defenders often have to give their clients -- the city's poorest citizens -- legal representation on the fly. It's just one part of a broken system.

Seventy percent of the people arrested on state or local charges in Orleans Parish are initially represented by Meghan Garvey, one of two public defenders assigned to Magistrate Court, the first stop in the local criminal justice system...

Arriving in New Orleans four years ago to begin Tulane Law School, Garvey read articles about problems in Municipal Court and became intent on trying to prevent mentally ill and drug-addicted people from entering the cycle of arrests that often begins with a minor offense such as "obstruction of a public passage."

"It made me want to take them out of the criminal justice system and put them in the mental health system," says Garvey, who has been practicing law less than one year... "It's a matter of pride in my city," she says. "I don't want to live in a place where the Constitution doesn't apply."