Morris stands firm in New Orleans court overhaul

(The Center Square) – Sen. Jay Morris said he is standing by his push to overhaul Orleans Parish’s courts as lawmakers prepared to vote Monday on bills that would eliminate nine judgeships.“I just don’t see any reason to delay this further,” the West Monroe Republican told The Center Square. “This issue has been studied to death.”The Bureau of Governmental Research, however, said the chance to streamline New Orleans’ court system deserves serious consideration. It warned the Legislature is moving faster than the evidence supports.In a report released Sunday, the group said Orleans Parish may indeed have more judges than it needs and noted that each excess District Court judgeship costs the city and state about $2 million over a six-year term. The group said lawmakers should not make permanent cuts without a fuller Louisiana Supreme Court study, including court visits and additional research into how the courts actually function.The research group said it has not been in dialogue with any legislators about the report.Senate Bill 217 would cut four criminal judges, two civil judges, two Municipal and Traffic Court judges and one juvenile judge. Another bill, also by Morris, would merge the civil and criminal clerks’ offices. Both of Morris’ bills passed the Senate in partisan fashion.A third bill, authored by Rep. Dixon McMakin, R-Baton Rouge, would cut four judges from Civil District Court, three from Criminal District Court and two from Juvenile Court, while also consolidating the civil and criminal District Courts into a single 41st Judicial District Court.“Getting it wrong,” the group warned, could mean more than missed savings. The group said cutting too deeply, especially at Criminal District Court, could slow trials, grow backlogs and push more pretrial detainees into an already crowded jail system, potentially wiping out any financial benefits.Still, as the Bureau of Governmental Research notes, there is reason to believe that New Orleans could get along with fewer judges.In a Times-Picayune letter to the editor, Laura Cannizzaro Rodrigue said Orleans Parish has 31 judges handling about 15,759 total cases, while East Baton Rouge handles more than 23,000 cases with 15 judges and Jefferson Parish manages nearly 18,000 with 16 judges. She also pointed to case-closing times, writing that Orleans averages 369 days to close a case, compared with 334 in Jefferson and 273 in St. Tammany.Cannizzaro Rodrigue is a former Orleans Parish prosecutor and the daughter of former Orleans Parish District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro.Past efforts stretch back years and have largely focused on determining whether Orleans has more judges than it needs, but without a final answer from the Louisiana Supreme Court. After Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, the Legislature asked the Supreme Court three times to determine the proper number of trial court judges statewide.In November, the Supreme Court developed a formula to measure the number of judgeships needed, but the court has not yet completed the broader analysis tied to that formula.“It’s one thing to plug in numbers and extrapolate basic calculations but the formula calls for the judiciary to go further,” Becky Mowbray, president and CEO of the research group, told The Center Square in an interview.“The formula is supposed to be a starting point, and then you’re supposed to go visit courts and interview people and find out any complicating factors,” Mowbray continued.The report says Criminal District Court, in particular, may look overstaffed on paper while still carrying unusually difficult workloads. Orleans handled roughly 4,000 criminal cases last year, but BGR noted that a single case can involve multiple defendants or charges, keeping matters open longer.The report also said Orleans has an outsized share of violent felony prosecutions and recorded 137 criminal jury trials in 2025, the most in Louisiana and about a quarter of the statewide total. The Bureau of Governmental Research said those realities may not be fully captured by the caseload formula alone.In a 2025 panel hosted by the research group, retired Judge Calvin Johnson regretted the Legislature’s failure in 2015 to merge the civil and criminal courts, calling it a “fundamental error.”“Of course, that would have reflected things a lot of people didn’t want to see, which was the loss of some judgeship’s,” Johnson said.The group also tied the issue to the city’s fiscal stress. New Orleans budgeted about $20.9 million for its court system in 2026, with all of the city’s court funding going to the criminal side because civil courts are largely self-funded through filing fees and records fees.Legislative fiscal notes estimate House Bill 911 would save about $3.6 million annually for the state and $3.4 million for the city, while Senate Bill 217 would save about $2.6 million for the state and $2.5 million for the city.