Mayor Ray Nagin announced an overhaul of the criminal justice system in New Orleans, which was severely affected by Hurricane Katrina last year. Prosecutors from a neighboring parish in Louisiana have volunteered to help the New Orleans district attorney's office. The city has created a new system to call witnesses to testify in upcoming criminal cases, many of whom were displaced since the storm. The Louisiana State Bar Association will pay for a system to track and organize cases and will also provide pro bono representation for indigent defendants. Since Hurricane Katrina ravaged the city on August 29 of 2005, there have been 83 murders in New Orleans but only one murder trial has been held.

One judge said that due to lack of resources to proceed with trials, he would begin releasing defendants on the one-year anniversary of Katrina if they were not given access to attorneys before then. An emergency request for funding has been sent to the US Department of Justice by a group of judges to cover the costs of representation for indigents,calling the current system unconstitutional. US Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) has also requested that the Justice Department send additional resources to combat the increasing crime in the city of New Orleans.

WASHINGTON—The Justice Department announced today that it has filed suit against the state of Alabama, alleging violations of the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA). With this lawsuit, Alabama becomes the second state in the nation to be sued by the Department of Justice for not complying with the database requirements of HAVA, after New York.

The government's complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama (Northern Division) in Montgomery, alleges that the state has failed to create and implement a statewide computerized voter registration database, which is required by HAVA. The government contends that Alabama missed the Jan. 1, 2006 federal deadline for completing the statewide database, and that, as of the date of this lawsuit, the state has not selected the database vendor who would start this process. This lawsuit was undertaken only after several contacts and extensive efforts by the Civil Rights Division to convince Alabama to meet its Federal obligations in a timely fashion.

"HAVA's database requirements are designed to ensure the accuracy of the voter rolls and the integrity of the electoral process in elections for Federal office," said Wan J. Kim, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division. "This lawsuit is intended to vindicate the rights of the voters of Alabama, who do not, at present, enjoy all of the protections that HAVA affords."

HAVA was enacted with bipartisan support after the 2000 presidential election and was signed into law by President Bush on Oct. 29, 2002. HAVA was the first federal statute to provide federal funds to states to support reform of federal elections. Alabama received over $41 million to assist it in meeting the federal mandates contained in HAVA. Under HAVA, if Alabama fails to comply with HAVA's various requirements, it runs the risk of losing some of these funds when it is audited by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, a federal agency that is responsible for assuring state compliance in the expenditure of HAVA funds.

Today's lawsuit seeks a determination that the state has not fulfilled HAVA's database requirements, and an order requiring the state to submit a plan describing how it will come into compliance.