A federal appeals court this week upheld a lower court’s decision that Orleans Parish Magistrate Judge Harry Cantrell has an inherent conflict of interest in setting bail amounts and then using the resulting revenue to pay his staff and office expenses.

The ruling came six days after another 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel left in place a decision that the members of the Orleans Parish Criminal District Court trial bench have “an institutional conflict of interest” in determining on their own whether they can jail convicts who fail to pay fines and fees.

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Taken together, the two cases represent a rebuke of long-established funding mechanisms for the courthouse at Tulane Avenue and Broad Street.

They have already prompted changes. The judges have voluntarily refrained from placing bond fees into the court’s judicial expense fund, leaving them in an escrow account, and some judges have stopped assessing fines and fees on those convicted of crimes.

The decisions also call into question to what extent the judges can continue to fund the operations of the courthouse from fines, fees and bond revenues that in many cases are mandated by state law.

Echoing a statement from the trial judges earlier in the week that they might seek a review of the ruling in the fines and fees case, Cantrell’s attorney said Friday that he may challenge the ruling in the dispute involving him as well.

His lawyer, Mindy Nunez Duffourc, also said Cantrell, who sets bail for arrested people, would recuse himself from his state-mandated administrative duties involving the judges’ expense fund, an apparent bid to cure the conflict of interest issues in the case.

“Judge Cantrell has always performed his judicial duties as an impartial decision-maker committed first and foremost to the rule of law,” Duffourc added.

Alec Karakatsanis of the Civil Rights Corps law firm, an advocate for changes in the court's procedures, said the latest decision marked "a huge victory," adding that he interpreted the ruling to mean that Louisiana judges cannot set monetary bail when the revenue from them would fund a significant portion of judicial expenses.

The dozen trial judges in the Orleans Parish courthouse also set, raise or lower bonds for defendants who have been formally charged. Just how the 5th Circuit ruling may affect their ability to do so remains unclear.

"We are looking forward to working with all people affected by this to replace ... this horrible bail system that has caused so much pain and extracted so much wealth for so long," said Karakatsanis.

Advocates first sued Cantrell in 2017, contending that he had a conflict in setting bail amounts that help finance court operations through a 1.8% fee on all bonds. They alleged that Cantrell also regularly failed to determine whether individual defendants could actually make bail and whether they would be a public danger if released, which they said he was obligated to do.

U.S. District Judge Eldon Fallon ruled in favor of the plaintiffs.

At an appellate hearing in May, Duffourc countered that Cantrell did not have a direct personal interest in the bail fees because they didn’t pay his salary, which is paid by the state.

But the fees did help pay for everything from staff salaries to coffee, water and other office supplies. And that could tempt Cantrell, who set the bail and also disbursed the revenue from it, to err on the side of high bail amounts in a violation of defendants’ due process, Thursday’s 14-page appellate court decision said.

“The bond fees impact the bottom line of the court,” said the three judges on the panel: Patrick Higginbotham, Edith Jones and Gregg Costa. “It makes a meaningful difference in the staffing and supplies judges receive.”

The lawsuits against the Criminal District Court judges are part of a larger campaign by civil rights lawyers and activists against the city’s “user pays” criminal justice system, which depends heavily on fines and fees — mostly levied on poor criminal defendants — to fund criminal justice agencies.

According to the advocates, that creates a revolving door effect where defendants are unable to pay their way out of past trouble, causing them to re-offend.