The announcement [reported in JURIST] that New Orleans criminal trials should resume next week might qualify as good news, except that

"According to a report [LA Times report] from the US Justice Department, the Orleans County Public Defender’s Office [official backgrounder] needs 70 lawyers and more than $8 million in addition to the $2.8 million it is scheduled to receive from the federal government on May 31. Thirty-one of the office’s 39 public defenders have been laid off since Hurricane Katrina…."