The Shocking Lack of Lawyers in Rural America
LaSalle Parish, Louisiana, a rural agricultural region, is in almost the exact center of the state. In Louisiana, a parish is the equivalent of a county. LaSalle is marked with creeks and rivers that have been rerouted to make space for fast-food restaurants and trailer parks. The biggest town is Jena, with a population of just over 3,000, where one-story clapboard buildings have been constructed around a small downtown.
Scott Franklin was first elected as the LaSalle Parish sheriff in 2007 on a promise to reduce the presence of drug dealers. One of his best-known campaigns, dubbed Operation Fielder’s Choice, was a large-scale drug operation based on three options that Franklin gave to drug dealers when he became sheriff: quit, leave the parish, or go to jail.
In , a 31-year-old woman named Charty Berry, who had been arrested for driving with a suspended license and had an extensive history of arrests, entered into a deal to “make cases,” or purchase drugs for the purpose of arrests, for detectives working on Operation Fielder’s Choice in order to receive favorable treatment on her pending criminal charges. The detectives also agreed to pay Berry $100 a case. Three months
