NAME: Arthur Anthony Morrell
YOUR CAMPAIGN WEB ADDRESS: Under construction
CONTACT INFORMATION FOR PUBLICATION:
Address: 6305 Elysian Fields Ave., Ste. 405, New Orleans, LA 70122
Phone: (504) 286-2334
FAX: (504) 286-2335
Email: arthurmorrell@yahoo.com
PARTY AFFILIATION: Democrat
PROFESSION: Lawyer
PRESENT EMPLOYER/POSITION (if self-employed, what type of business):
Clerk Criminal District Court
HIGHEST LEVEL OF EDUCATION (include graduation date):
J.D., 1978 years
APPLICABLE TRAINING:
22 years of working in government.
CIVIC EXPERIENCE:
Serves on boards of Total Community Action and Very Special Arts Louisiana.
POLITICAL EXPERIENCE AND POLITICAL ORGANIZATION MEMBERSHIPS:
Member of LA Legislature, 1984-2006.
1. What changes would you make in the structure and administration of this Office?
When I first took office I created an organization chart, a chain of command and responsibility, that has worked well and I don't see and reason to modify the structure and administration of the office at this time.
However, we are in the midst of planning to construct a new building to house evidence, property and records adjacent to the Criminal Court Build and, upon completion, some modification of the office structure will be neccessary.
2. Could some or all of the responsibilities of this Office be achieved more effectively by being combined with those for the Clerk of Civil District Court? Should funds be commingled, and if so, how?
The functions of the Criminal Clerk's Office and the Civil Clerk's Office are quite differant. In every other jurisdiction with a single clerk, there is a seperation of Criminal and Civil division for this very reason. The biggest hurdle that we are working to overcome is the disparity in funding. The Civil Clerk of Court is able to generate its own funds through the variety of fees they charge for filing various petitions and pleadings. The Criminal Clerk of Court's office is completely funded through the City of New Orleans and, constitutionally, if unable to charge fees from Criminal pleadings. The only revenue stream for the Criminal Clerk's office is a portion of expungement fees, which is nominal. The Civil Clerk's Office doesn't generate enough fees to pay for the operation of both.
Essentially, commingling funds is a moot issue because the Criminal Clerks office generates no funds and, upon consilidation, would no longer recieve funds from the City of New Orleans under our city charter. In the legislation that currently merges the two offices, there is no mechanism through which the Criminal Clerk's Office will be funded as once the two offices are merged the responsibilty of the City to foot the bill for the office would cease as there would no longer be an "Orleans Parish Clerk of Criminal Court".
The 2009 legislation that postponed the merger of the two Clerks offices has given us more time to consider and work on resolving this issue as well as the overall funding issues for the 41st District Clerk of Courts office. In order for there to be true efficency and costs savings in cnslidation, we need to create a single Civil and Criminal Court Judicial Complex to prevent the duplication of services in two seperate buildings across the city from each other. The responsibilty for constructing the single complex falls with the city and state as the funding for this new building is beyond what the courts can affford at this time.
I am in favor of consilidating the two Clerk's Offices, these are just some of the issues that we are facing trying to complete the process.
3. What information or services of this office are now available on the internet, and what others do you propose to to put online in order to better serve the Courts and their clients?
There is only basic information online about the Clerk of Criminal Court's office. We are presently renovating our infrastructure to upgrade our IT systems to allow all parties involved in the Criminal Justice System, including the Orleans Parish Sheriffand District Attorney's Office, to more effectively communicate electronically. Before my tenure, there had been no infrastructure modification in over 20 years. Additionally, we are working to install Kias Cubicals throughout the courthouse for attorney's and citizens to get information regarding ongoing criminal matters in which they might have an interest.
We are working with the Orleans Parish Criminal Sheriffs office to consolidate resources in regards our online presence to expand the existing Dockett Master services currently available on the internet.
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