Criminal Defense Attorney in Opelousas and Across St. Landry Parish

If someone you love was booked into the parish jail last night, or you walked out of the Opelousas Police Department with a court date and very little explanation, the hardest part right now is not knowing what happens next. Chad M. Ikerd has spent fourteen years in Louisiana criminal courts, and he takes St. Landry Parish cases directly from the Ikerd Law Firm office in Lafayette. Call (337) 366-8994, or send a message through the contact form and describe what happened in your own words. Consultations on new criminal charges, bond reductions and probation matters are free.

The content on this page is provided for general informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Reading this page does not create an attorney-client relationship. Laws vary by jurisdiction and change frequently. Always consult a licensed attorney for advice specific to your situation.

• Landry Parish sits in the 27th Judicial District, a different district from Lafayette, and appeals from it are heard by the Third Circuit Court of Appeal. The courthouse is in Opelousas.
• Serious cases go to district court. Opelousas City Court handles a narrower set of offenses, and the line between the two is drawn by whether the offense can carry imprisonment at hard labor.
• Louisiana law requires an arrested person to be brought before a judge for the appointment of counsel within seventy-two hours, and Saturdays, Sundays and legal holidays are excluded from that count.
• Whether a charge is a felony or a misdemeanor turns on one question under Louisiana law: whether the offense can be punished by death or imprisonment at hard labor.
• Chad M. Ikerd handles St. Landry cases from the firm’s Lafayette office. There is no Opelousas location, and there is no charge for an initial conversation about a new criminal charge.

Which court will hear your Opelousas case?

The first thing worth knowing is that St. Landry Parish is not part of the Lafayette court system, and people are often surprised by that. St. Landry Parish elects its judges to the 27th Judicial District and the Third Circuit Court of Appeal, according to the Louisiana Judiciary. Lafayette Parish sits in the 15th Judicial District. Two neighboring parishes, two separate district courts, and two different sets of judges.

The district judges for the parish sit in Opelousas, across four divisions, A through D. The Clerk of Court’s office is at 118 South Court Street, Suite 207, Opelousas, LA 70570, reachable at (337) 942-5606. That is where the record of your case lives and where filings are made.

Not every case starts there. St. Landry Parish also has two city courts, Opelousas City Court and Eunice City Court. Opelousas City Court is presided over by Judge Shaunn Caillier-Harden and can be reached at (337) 948-2570. A statute draws the line between city court and district court. Under La. R.S. 13:1894, the criminal jurisdiction of city courts “is limited to the trial of offenses committed within their respective territorial jurisdictions which are not punishable by imprisonment at hard labor.”

In plain language: if the offense you are accused of cannot send you to hard labor, it may well be heard in city court. If it can, you are looking at district court. That changes the courtroom you walk into and what is at stake in it. Who prosecutes the case is a separate question, and it turns on whether the charge is brought under state law or under a municipal ordinance. Both are worth confirming early, and both are easy to get wrong when you are reading a bond paper at a kitchen table at two in the morning.

If your matter is a municipal or city court charge, the firm’s page on city court crimes covers that ground in more detail.

The first seventy-two hours after an arrest

Louisiana puts a clock on the beginning of a criminal case, and most people arrested in St. Landry Parish have never heard of it.

Under La. C.Cr.P. art. 230.1, the sheriff or law enforcement officer holding an arrested person “shall bring him promptly, and in any case within seventy-two hours from the time of the arrest, before a judge for the purpose of appointment of counsel.” The same article states that “Saturdays, Sundays, and legal holidays shall be excluded” in computing that period, which is why an arrest late on a Friday can feel far longer than three days to the family waiting.

At that appearance, the court assigns counsel to a defendant who has the right to appointed counsel, and the judge may also determine or review the amount of bail. Article 230.1 carries a consequence when the appearance does not happen: if the arrested person is not brought before a judge as the article requires, “he shall be released on his own recognizance.” That is a rule with real teeth, and it is also one that is easy to miss if nobody on your side is watching the calendar.

Two practical points follow. The first is that appointed counsel and retained counsel are both real options, and the choice is yours to make. The second is that things happen in this window that shape everything afterward: bail is set, conditions are imposed, and statements are sometimes given that cannot be unsaid. If a family member is being held, the sooner someone is reviewing the paperwork, the more of that window remains usable.

Nothing on this page can tell you what a judge will do in a particular case. Bail decisions and release conditions depend on the charge, the record, and the facts in front of the court.

Misdemeanor or felony, and why the difference decides so much

People often use these words loosely. Louisiana does not.

La. R.S. 14:2 defines a felony as “any crime for which an offender may be sentenced to death or imprisonment at hard labor” and defines a misdemeanor as “any crime other than a felony.” Everything turns on that one line about hard labor. It is the same line that decides city court jurisdiction under R.S. 13:1894, which is why the two questions are really one question asked twice.

Notice what the definition does not say. It does not say the offender will be sentenced to hard labor. It says the offender may be. A charge is a felony because of the sentence the law makes available, not because of the sentence anyone predicts. That is why the classification is settled at the front of a case and why it drives so much of what follows: which court hears it, what the exposure looks like, and what a conviction does to a record afterward.

If a record from an older case is the thing standing between you and a job in Opelousas, expungement of a criminal record is a separate process with its own requirements, and it is worth asking about directly.

If you are not sure which side of that line your charge falls on, call (337) 366-8994 and ask. Reading your charging paperwork and telling you which court you are headed for takes a few minutes, and the consultation on a new criminal charge is free.

How long a Louisiana criminal case can take

This is usually the second question people ask, right after what could happen to me.

La. C.Cr.P. art. 578 sets outer limits for when a trial must begin, measured from the institution of the prosecution rather than from the arrest. Under that article, trial must commence within three years in capital cases, two years in other felony cases, and one year in misdemeanor cases, and “the offense charged shall determine the applicable limitation.”

Those periods are not a schedule, and they are not a promise. La. C.Cr.P. art. 579 interrupts the running of the limitation in defined circumstances, including where a defendant flees the state or is absent from his usual place of abode with the purpose of avoiding prosecution, where the defendant cannot be tried for a cause beyond the control of the state, or where the defendant fails to appear at a proceeding after actual notice. When an interruption ends, the period begins to run again from the start.

The honest answer to how long this will take is that it depends on the charge, the court, the evidence, and the choices made along the way. What these articles give you is a framework, not a forecast. A court may already have set dates in your case, and if it has, those are real. What no attorney can responsibly do at a first meeting is tell you when the whole matter will be over.

Charges handled in St. Landry Parish

Ikerd Law Firm handles criminal matters under Louisiana law, federal law, and municipal code violations, including:

• Assault and battery
• Bond reductions
• City court crimes
• Computer crimes and sex offenses
• Domestic violence defense
• Drug charges
• Expungement of a criminal record
• OWI, DUI, DWI and alcohol defense
• Probation violation defense
• Property and theft crimes
• Public intoxication defense
• Violent offenses
• Weapons and gun crimes defense
• White collar crimes defense

The firm also handles criminal appeals, meaning the direct appeal that follows a conviction. Ikerd Law Firm does not handle post-conviction relief. If your direct appeal has already been decided, this is not the firm for that stage, and it is better that you know now than after a phone call.

Working with Chad M. Ikerd

Chad M. Ikerd is the managing partner, and he handles client work himself rather than passing it to an associate. When you call about a St. Landry case, the person reading the police report is the person who will stand next to you.

Where his criminal experience comes from. He spent nearly a decade as First Assistant Chief Defender in the 15th Judicial District, which covers Lafayette, Acadia and Vermilion Parishes. That is Lafayette’s district, not St. Landry’s, and this page will not imply a hometown advantage in Opelousas that does not exist. What the tenure does mean is that he has worked more than 1,000 felony cases from the defense side and has seen how the State assembles a case before it ever reaches a courtroom, which is knowledge that travels across district lines.

Appellate depth. He has handled more than 200 writs and appeals, and he is admitted to practice before the United States Supreme Court, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, and the Western, Middle and Eastern District Courts of Louisiana. He is admitted in Louisiana and in Texas at the state and federal level.

Where the office is. Ikerd Law Firm has one office, at 600 Jefferson Street, Suite 903, Lafayette, LA 70501. There is no Opelousas office and no second location. St. Landry clients are handled from Lafayette, a short drive from the Opelousas courthouse on I-49.

Paying for a defense. The firm accepts every major card as well as Apple Pay, PayPal and Venmo, which is unusual for a law office and exists because people facing a criminal charge are frequently dealing with a financial problem at the same time. There is no charge for an initial consultation on a new criminal charge, a bond reduction or a probation matter. Hourly fees may apply to some Department of Corrections matters, and you will be told which category your question falls into before anything begins.

How to find the office from Opelousas

Where we are. Chase Tower, at 600 Jefferson Street, Suite 903, in downtown Lafayette. Ninth floor. From Opelousas it is 23.4 miles, and the drive takes about 25 to 30 minutes on an ordinary day. Open the route in Google Maps.

The short version. Get on I-49 South and stay on it. That one stretch is twenty of the twenty-three miles, so once you are on the interstate you can stop thinking about directions for a good eighteen minutes. Coming into Lafayette the road becomes the NW Evangeline Thruway. Turn right onto Jefferson and the building is on your right.

The longer version, if you would rather have every turn:

• Leaving Opelousas, head toward East Landry Street, then turn left onto US-190 East, which is also signed East Vine Street. There is an Advance Auto Parts on your left as you go.
• After about a mile on US-190 East, take the right lane and follow the ramp signed for Lafayette. That puts you on I-49 South, also signed US-167 South.
• Stay on I-49 South for roughly twenty miles. This is the easy part of the trip.
• The interstate feeds straight into the NW Evangeline Thruway. You pass an AutoZone on the left about a mile and a half in.
• Turn right onto Jeffersonand watch the right-hand side of the street.

Landmarks that tell you that you are close. Downtown Lafayette is compact and easy to read once you are in it. If you can see the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist, the Acadiana Center for the Arts, or the Lafayette Science Museum, you are within a few blocks of the building.

If I-49 is backed up. Two alternates run a little longer. One goes down LA-182 South and North University Avenue before joining I-49 South, at 24.1 miles and about 28 minutes. The other stays on LA-182 South before joining I-49 South, at 24.7 miles and about 31 minutes.

Coming straight from court. If you are driving over after a court date at the parish courthouse on South Court Street, call (337) 366-8994 on your way so someone knows to expect you.

Communities we serve across St. Landry Parish. Opelousas · Eunice · Sunset · Grand Coteau · Port Barre · Washington · Arnaudville · Krotz Springs · Leonville · Melville · Cankton · Palmetto

Speak with a criminal defense attorney about your Opelousas case

You do not need to have your questions organized. Most people calling for the first time are not sure what they are allowed to ask, and that is a normal place to start from.

Call (337) 366-8994 or use the contact form to describe what happened. If someone is currently in custody in St. Landry Parish, say so at the start of the call, because the seventy-two hour window described above is already running.