At 10 a.m. on a Wednesday, Ricardo steps into the elevator at Baton Rouge City Hall and rides up to the seventh floor where he weaves through a maze of brown-paneled hallways, offices and cubicles. The entire floor is dedicated to the East Baton Rouge Office of the Public Defender where Ricardo works.
He adjusts the orange lanyard holding his city ID badge, offers a wave to a passing colleague, and makes his way into the office shared by two assistant public defenders.
Jeanna Wheat and Joseph Scott, the latter chief for Section eight of the Public Defender’s office (there are nine sections), pause their conversation and greet Ricardo with big smiles. When asked what it’s like to work with him, Wheat points to the whiteboard behind her desk with two quotes scrawled on it and begins complimenting Ricardo.
“He’s amazing,” Wheat said. “I can’t say that enthusiastically enough. I even have a quote here from him.”
In green dry erase marker, it reads: “Position yourself to take advantage of your opportunities when they come,” with Ricardo’s name next to it.
“He has a perspective on this work that I don’t have, and he has really helped us reach a lot of people,” she said. “He’s so enthusiastic and so passionate and willing to help.”
After spending nearly 26 years in prison, Ricardo, a Parole Project client, is an investigator for the Public Defender’s office and an asset for the team of public defenders navigating their clients through Louisiana’s justice system. He understands the system well based on his lived experience. Ricardo was released on parole in February 2024 and, after completing Phase 1 of Parole Project’s reentry program, started working for the public defender’s office in April 2024. While he spends every day in jail, he’s now an advocate, supporting attorneys and guiding clients throughout the legal process.
“I’m skillful in a lot of areas and I have a shared experience with our clients. I’m familiar on how to communicate with them,” Ricardo said. “And at times, I will tell them my background and how I made the decision a long time ago, that if I want different results, I need to do different now for a different tomorrow.”
He assists about 100 clients per week, helping them navigate the different hearings and proceedings and calling their family members after those proceedings to communicate the process. His co-workers said that his lived experience is an invaluable tool to the office.
“I particularly appreciate Ricardo’s perspective because when I have to explain to someone that they are going to prison for a long time, it doesn’t have to be the end of life,” Scott said. “People may have to do a long stretch and don’t have to be broken by the process. Ricardo is one of my reality checks. His expertise is invaluable for me on how to direct a client.”
Ricardo spent the first 10 years of his life in Chicago with a single mom who worked a lot to support him and his younger brother. He was a curious kid, drawn to science, and when he was eight years old one of his uncles introduced him to the Chicago Science and Industry Museum.
“He was like a father figure to me and when he took me to that museum I wanted to go back,” he said. “He exposed me to a bigger world, and I took my brother there and it just made us stretch our imaginations in ways that we never had before.”
When Ricardo was 10 years old, his mom moved their family back to Louisiana for a better job and he said the adjustment was tough. He began skipping school, stopped listening to his mom and fell behind in school. “I didn’t want to take any advice, I didn’t want to hear any advice,” he said. “I was angry and confused.”
His life changed a few months before he was arrested for armed robbery in the late 90s when his then fiancé printed out a prayer for him.
“I took it upstairs and felt this huge burden come off of me,” said Ricardo, who was 26 years old at the time. “I said Jesus I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I laid my heart out. I got arrested four months later, and I knew I would never do anything again. And that continued for my whole prison sentence.”
While incarcerated, Ricardo took a lot of classes. The one that had the biggest impact was the victim awareness class.
“I got a clear picture of how the victims were affected by my crime,” he said. “And when I began to see what happens when a crime takes place, and the ripple effect, it broke my heart. I never wanted to hurt anyone again.”
These days, he uses the knowledge he has cultivated from his past to help others through his work. When he’s not working, he loves reading and visiting his grown daughter in Boston, who is a teacher with two daughters of her own.
Ricardo loves his job and has aspirations of starting a nonprofit that helps emerging reentry populations with programming access, similar to what the Department of Justice is doing with the Evidence-based Recidivism Reduction (EBRR) Programs. When asked how he defines success, he smiles and answers, “Living life with purpose,” “If you feel that you are flowing and walking in your purpose and what you were created in and doing something that flows, you’re successful.”
