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22 Crim. Just. 28 (2007-2008)
Will Your Criminal Justice Systems Function in the Next Disaster

handle is hein.journals/cjust22 and id is 30 raw text is: WILL YOUR CRIMINAL JUSTICE YS T E FU N C TIO NIN TH- E -NE XT By Mary L. Boland On August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina set off a chain of events that swamped the criminal justice systems in its path. None felt it more than New Orleans. Nearly a year later, with victims and witnesses missing and much of the evidence lost, waterlogged, or destroyed, up to 500 defendants charged pre-Katrina walked out of jail free, including at least one first-degree murder defendant. But some prisoners in the system got lost and waited sometimes months until their day in court. With staff depleted, a rising crime rate, and a huge back- log of cases, law enforcement, prosecutors, and public defenders are under enormous pressure. Judges are so frustrated that some have threatened to release more defendants; others have ordered additional indigent defense counsel be appointed. It is clear that recovery is still months, maybe years, away. These were some of the stories that judges, prosecutors, corrections officials, and defense lawyers shared last November at the Criminal Justice Section's fall conference. on emergency preparedness. The presentations were pow- erful and provide a useful framework for examining whether our local criminal justice systems are ready to face the inevitability of another large-scale emergency in the future. Lessons learned Resuming criminal justice system operations as soon as practicable post-disaster is essential to the rule of law. In order to do so, the criminal justice system must have an all hazards approach that enables courts, prosecutors, defense, corrections, and related agencies to resume oper- ations quickly, even when faced with a loss of communi- Mary L. Boland is an assistant state 's attorney in Cook County, Illinois. She is a member of theABA ' Criminal Justice Section Council and of its newly formed Homeland Security and Emer- gency Response Committee. Russell Butler; executive director of the Maryland Crime Victim Resource Center and cochair of the Section ' Victim s Committee, and Sean Zehtab of the Student Hur- ricane Network also contributed to this article. Contact the author at mboland@cookcountygov.com. cations capabilities, computers, certain staff, and build- ings. The natural starting point to examine such disaster preparedness is with the lessons learned from the 9/11 ter- rorist attacks and those still emerging from Katrina. Until the terrorist attacks of 9/11, the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City was the largest peacetime attack on U.S. soil. After the Oklahoma bombing, President Bill Clinton ordered all federal agencies to prepare continuity plans. Although many jurisdictions began to plan for the possibility of a mass victimization, the scale of the 2001 terrorist attack was simply overwhelming. The effects of the catastrophe on the criminal justice system were without precedence. Immediately following the 9/11 attack, many New York City courts closed; courts outside the Manhattan area reopened September 13, and Manhattan courts reopened September 17. The Vera Institute's report by Oren Root, The Administration of Justice Under Emergency Conditions: Lessons Following the Attack on the World Trade Center (Jan. 2002), provides a comprehensive look at how the New York City criminal justice system coped in the days after the attack. It identified four critical issues: leader- ship, criminal justice operations, centralized emergency information, and legal oversight in the fair and effective administration of justice. In the wake of 9/11, the temptation for some state and local government agencies was to view its magnitude as unique. Outside the scope of major terror targets, many state and local government agencies concentrated their efforts on preparing to deal with natural disasters. Louisiana, for example, had a comprehensive emergency plan that government officials believed was sufficient to deal with the threat of hurricanes, flooding, and storm surges. Katrina proved them wrong. Along with most everything else, the New Orleans criminal justice system was devastated. With more than 80 percent of New Orleans flooded, police stations, pros- ecutors' and public defender offices, courtrooms, and jails were destroyed or inoperable. Evidence was lost or CRIMINAL JUSTICE m Spring 2007

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