Jillian Kramer

Judges clocking out before noon. Lost evidence. A request for a delay in a murder case so a lawyer could attend a Mardi Gras ball. Inside Orleans Parish Criminal District Court, hearings and trial dates routinely collapse for preventable reasons.

The chronic delays inflict years of anguish on families of murder victims.

The 13-year-old and 16-year-old cases were both scheduled for trial on Monday. But only the case of Kendall Harrison, who is accused of killing a good Samaritan in 2012 in Algiers, went forward.

“This is clearly about something else,” Williams said. “I have to wonder if today’s hearing have more to do with my race, my party affiliation or my parish."

The case shows how much can change when a prosecution stretches across years: legal rules evolve, forensic science advances and evidence that once seemed decisive loses weight.

The restriction, if adopted, would represent a significant change to a decades-old rule that now requires only a written motion signed by the defendant and his attorney to forgo a jury.

A French Quarter clothing store that authorities say masked a bustling drug and gun trade has been shuttered, the culmination of a months-long investigation that netted more than $150,000 in illegal proceeds.

Lombard led in early voting, but on Saturday, they were neck-and-neck with Duncan at 47% and Lombard at 46% of the vote.

At the end of last year, 30 defendants from New Orleans were awaiting transfer to the hospital. By mid-October, 33 remained caught in the backlog, confined in a jail that a federal judge has ruled unequipped to handle defendants’ serious mental-health needs.

“Everyone is adversely impacted by the system’s failure to move its feet,” said retired Orleans Parish Criminal District Court Judge Calvin Johnson.