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Five attorneys who run local public defender offices in Louisiana were replaced Tuesday even as the question of whether they have been rightfully dismissed remains unsettled. The episode is the latest sign of turmoil in public defense since Gov. Jeff Landry and legislators reworked state laws to give Landry more control over its attorneys and finances.
State Public Defender Rémy Starns, a Landry appointee, hired new local chief public defenders to take over from five he is seeking to oust this week. By doing so, he sidestepped Louisiana’s Public Defender Oversight Board that is expected to weigh in on whether to stop the terminations next week.
The public defender board has already attempted to convene twice in the last two weeks to vote on whether to block Starns from dismissing the attorneys. The board hasn’t been able to gather enough members to legally hold a meeting and vote, in large part because six of nine board members have resigned since the end of May. Two board spots still remain vacant.
“Obviously the four of us who are here would like to get this matter concluded. Unfortunately, we don’t have that authority without having a quorum,” said retired Judge Paul deMahy, one of the governor’s appointees to the board, after a failed attempt to meet and vote Monday.
Starns did not return phone calls and texts about this story sent to his cell phone Monday and Tuesday.
He and the board have been in an escalating battle over how much control Starns has over the local chiefs ever since Landry’s public defender overhaul laws went into effect last year.
Louisiana’s sprawling public defense network includes 850 attorneys who represent 146,000 people annually, accounting for approximately 88% of all criminal defendants in the state. They are supervised by 36 chief public defenders who are, in turn, overseen by Starns.
Starns has been the state public defender since 2020, when former Gov. John Bel Edwards recommended him for the job. He was the rare state appointee who was kept in his position when Landry came into office.
He helped the new Republican governor push through law changes that dissolved the former public defender board and created a new, weaker board over which Landry has more influence. The board also has less authority over Starns in its reworked form.
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Little notice
In March, a few months after the public defender law changes took effect, Starns announced he would not renew the contracts of five chiefs. They had all testified in opposition to Starns’ policies during hearings with the board and state lawmakers.
The chief public defenders who have been targeted are Michelle AndrePont in Caddo Parish, Brett Brunson in Natchitoches Parish, Deirdre Fuller in Rapides Parish, Trisha Ward in Evangeline Parish and John Hogue who works in Madison, Tensas and East Carroll parishes.
Their annual contracts expired Monday. Starns sent notice of their replacements to them Monday afternoon after 3 p.m., less than 24 hours before the new attorneys were expected to take over the ousted chiefs’ responsibilities.
Three of the five ousted lawyers said they did not have a chance to talk to the interim chiefs who were taking over the offices before they started work Tuesday.
“I think it’s unfortunate that we have this chaos, unnecessary chaos, created by the state public defender’s actions,” Hogue said in an interview Monday night.
Pamela Grady, who works as the attorney for the city of Tallulah, took over for Hogue as the interim public defender director in a large swath of rural northeast Louisiana. She could not be reached for comment Tuesday.
Brunson, another ousted chief, said the public defender office for Natchitoches Parish has been leased personally by him and doubled as a private law office for several years. He wasn’t clear where the local public defender’s office space would be starting Tuesday or where the office’s old files should be sent since he was being displaced.
“I’m going to go to my office tomorrow and wait for [the interim chief public defender] to show up,” Brunson said Monday night.
James Calhoun, who contracts as a private attorney with the Winn Parish public defender’s office, was tapped to take over for Brunson. He could not be reached for comment Tuesday.
Chad Guillot, who is the chief public defender in Avoyelles Parish, will be doubling up and also running the Rapides Parish office as the interim chief instead of Fuller. He isn’t interested in the permanent Rapides job because he intends to run for district attorney in Avoyelles Parish in 2026.
“I know it is only going to be until they find a permanent chief,” Guillot said Tuesday. “That can take some time. I’ll serve until they find someone permanent — in one month or six months.”
Guillot and Fuller planned to meet Tuesday afternoon to discuss the transition. He could not meet Tuesday morning because he had to be in court in Avoyelles, he said.
In Caddo, AndrePont’s longtime deputy, Mary Harried, is serving as the interim chief. Harried has nearly three decades of public defender experience and said the transition was going smoothly Tuesday afternoon but she does not intend to take the job permanently.
“I have a great deal of respect for Michelle [AndrePont]. We have been friends and colleagues for 27 years,” she said. “I love her. If she comes back, we’re good.”
Christopher Ludeau took over for Ward in Evangeline Parish, where he contracts as a private attorney with the public defender office. Ward declined to comment and Ludeau could not be reached at his private law office Tuesday.
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Controversial compensation
In addition to the five dismissals, Starns has issued controversial contracts to the rest of the chiefs who he is keeping. The agreements allow him to fire them at any time for any reason, and give him total control over their pay.
A state law passed as part of Landry’s public defender overhaul in 2024 dictates that the public defender board sets the compensation level of chief public defenders, but Starns has included a provision in the chiefs’ individual contracts requiring them to waive the right to the board’s payscale.
Starns has tried to get the board to approve his preferred pay plan for the chiefs three times in the last year, but the board has rejected his proposal, primarily because it would cut some chief public defenders’ pay by tens of thousands of dollars. Instead, they adopted a different compensation scale that has been used since 2023.