When she arrived at the justice of the peace court on a rain-soaked morning, Marchana Watts hoped she could fight off her landlord’s push to evict her and her five children from their trailer home on the outskirts of Baton Rouge.
Watts, a careful record keeper who earned $20 an hour as an insurance analyst, came to Justice Tracy Batieste’s small courtroom with receipts. They showed she had paid her $950 monthly rent for the past year and a half, she said.
