Opinion ID: 1766927
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: random allotment system

Text: When, as here, concurrent jurisdiction exists and multiple judicial officers of a single court possess the power to act on any given case, rules of court are necessary to allocate the cases among those judicial officers and to provide an orderly procedure for the handling of cases. Rules of court allocating cases within the jurisdiction of the criminal district court among the ten regular sections (A through J) and the magistrate section are contained in two local rules of the Orleans Parish Criminal District Court. First, Local Rule IV provides generally for the allotment of the initial setting of bail to the magistrate section, although it does not expressly preclude an initial setting of bail by a regular judge. Second, Local Rule V(A) provides for the allotment among the various regular sections of the court of all felony indictments, felony informations and appeals from Municipal Court. This allotment shall be conducted by the Clerk and shall be open to the public. The District Attorney or an Assistant shall be notified of the allotment as to the date and the time. See also LSA-R.S. 13:1343. In practice, Local Rule V(A), as the parties concede, has been applied so as to delay the allotment of felony cases until after formal charges are filed. The local rules provide for allotment only at two fixed points in time: (i) the initial setting of bail to the magistrate section, and (2) in felony cases, after the filing of formal charges to the ten regular sections on a random basis. As a result, a window of timeranging up to 60-days [16] exists during which the rules are silent as to which judicial officer is responsible for bail matters, such as motions to increase, reduce or modify bail. [17] This gap in the local rules permits defendants, or the state for that matter, to select a judge from whom to seek bail modification, and, before a 1991 amendment to LSA-C.Cr.P. Art. 342 (former Art. 321), such bail modification could be obtained from any judicial officer on an ex parte basis. This gap in the local rules creates two perceived problems: (1) judge shopping, and (2) ex parte bail modification proceedings. In separate attempts to cure these perceived problems, both the Fourth Circuit and the legislature acted in 1991. The legislature amended former LSA-C.Cr.P. Art. 321 (current Art. 342) to mandate that in Orleans Parish a contradictory hearing be held before bail is modified; we address that amendment in detail below in considering the second issue before us. The Fourth Circuit handed down its Hall decision, which we hold herein to be legally incorrect and overrule. Regardless of the legal correctness of the Hall decision, that decision unquestionably represents an attempt by the Fourth Circuit to remedy the perceived problem of judge shopping. Yet, as Amicus (Louisiana Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers) aptly points out, the effect of the Fourth Circuit's Hall decision is to impose a local rule on the Orleans Parish Criminal District Court. While we find such a local rule is needed, we decline at this point to interfere with this matter of judicial administration committed to the sound discretion of the Orleans Parish Criminal District Court. Instead, we find this gap in the rules one that the criminal district court itself must resolve. For guidance purposes, we note that the criminal district court should, as a matter of internal procedure, adopt rules for the orderly handling of such preliminary bail matters. Stated otherwise, the criminal district court should implement some sort of random allocation system designed to prevent judge-shopping and the appearance of favoritism.