BATON ROUGE — District Attorney Hillar Moore III said that even if voters approve a property tax increase for his office this year, it could still take a considerable amount of time to address a backlog in criminal cases pending before the local courts.

At the Baton Rouge Press Club on Monday, the 19th Judicial District prosecutor said 230 homicide cases are in the pipeline, and that the number of lesser crimes in the backlog still numbers in the thousands. Hiring more assistant district attorneys with funds from a proposed tax increase would make a dent, he said.

"How many years it would take? That would really be a guess. My guess would be three to five years to see a significant reduction," Moore said. "But, it’d also have to be with an asterisk: If you tell me what the murder rate would be I could judge a little bit better. If we keep skyrocketing, that really hurts us, but if we are able to curb that murder rate, I think you’ll see it come down a lot quicker."

Moore said his office has 56-58 assistant district attorneys, while Jefferson Parish has 70-75 and Orleans Parish has about 80. East Baton Rouge Parish has a greater number of residents than Jefferson and Orleans.

Moore had said last week that East Baton Rouge Parish had 113 homicides during 2024, up 11 from the year before. The parish had 151 in 2021. Moore said Baton Rouge would be expected to have less than half of what it's had lately.

"If you hearken back a little bit to 2014, ... we’re at 63," he said. "I think a city our size should be around 45 or 50 historically, given other cities our size."

The prosecutor also noted that it's been six months since Louisiana adopted a law that lets people age 18 and older carry concealed weapons without a permit or training, provided they're not barred from possessing a weapon.

"You can walk down the street now and conceal carry; in the past you could not and officers were able to stop and frisk," Moore said. "Now the burden is obviously a lot higher when you just can’t stop someone and frisk them if you notice a bulge in their shirt. It is a concern to me, that officers are not allowed in certain circumstances to stop and frisk. It’s up to the officer to articulate that.

"What scares me the most is machine guns – guns that have been converted to be automatic where with the pull of the trigger 60 rounds could be fired. We’ve seen them. They’ve doubled every year for the last three years," he said.