§174. Special reporting requirements; penalties

A. In addition to the general oversight requirements provided by law, each district or service region, where applicable, shall submit an annual report to the Louisiana Public Defender Board no later than February first of each year, commencing in 2009. The report, using the uniform definition of a "case" as defined in Subsection C of this Section, shall include detailed information of the workload, resources, employees, and expenditures for each district or service region, where applicable, for the previous fiscal year. The report shall also include the number of Families in Need of Services (FINS) petitions, Child in Need of Care (CINC) petitions, and child support petitions handled by each service region.

B.(1) The district public defender, and director of each service region, where applicable, shall be responsible for preparing, completing, and submitting the annual report to the Louisiana Public Defender Board as provided for in Subsection A of this Section.

(2) The district public defender shall be subject to the penalties provided for in Paragraph (3) of this Subsection, payable out of the judicial district indigent defender fund, if any of the following occur:

(a) The failure to file a report.

(b) The failure to timely file a report.

(c) The failure to disclose or accurately disclose any required information.

(d) The filing of a false report.

(3) The amount of the penalty shall be one hundred dollars for each day until the report or the required accurate information is filed.

C. For purposes of this Section, a "case" is defined as a charge or set of charges contained in a charging instrument or petition against a single accused arising out of one or more events, transactions, or occurrences, which are joined, or which may be joined pursuant to Code of Criminal Procedure Articles 490 through 495.1. Cases that involve multiple persons accused are counted as a separate case for each person accused. Cases that involve multiple charges or counts are recorded with the highest charge, based on the severity of sentence for the crime charged, as the case type. Multiple charges against a single person for the issuing of worthless checks shall be counted as a single case. Each appeal, after conviction, shall be counted as a separate case. In the event that a charging instrument contains a charge or set of charges arising out of multiple events, transactions, or occurrences, indigent defender boards shall track, record, and report the number of such instances per charging instrument.

Acts 2007, No. 307, §1.