He's at New Orleans criminal court daily, but doesn't earn a paycheck. Here's why he does it.

Oliver Fletcher bellows into the bullhorn pressed against his lips. “What you see going up and down those steps?” he yells toward New Orleans’ criminal courthouse on Tulane Avenue and North Broad Street. “Black people. Brown people. We got to wake up and stop killing each other.”

A passerby gives a thumbs-up from the sidewalk. A man pumps his fist into the air. Defense attorneys shuffle by. “Good morning Mr. Fuller,” Fletcher calls to one of them, then to another: “Good morning Mr. Wainwright.”

In his purple three-piece suit, Fletcher stands out on the neutral ground in front of the court. He started this recent weekday morning with a bit of street-corner advocacy and friendly greetings. Next up: parking management. He turns to see a trio of women stopping their vehicle in a permit-only zone.

“Look at these beautiful Black queens,” he says. “If you don’t have a permit, don’t park there. If you don’t have a problem going in, you’re going to have a problem when you come out.”

Finally, he retires the bullhorn to his black sedan, adorned by American and African flags. Fletcher's days often begin with his bullhorn, but most of his work unfolds later, inside the courthouse.

His job, as he sees it: to watch over?the Orleans Parish Criminal District Court. Without an official title or paycheck, he greets families and jurors. He takes out judges' trash. He gives hugs and handshakes freely. He brews coffee and offers directions. He always knows who said what and where, because he was there, watching.?

“You would not miss Mr. Fletcher, ever,” said Orleans Parish District Attorney Jason Williams. “He doesn’t just come and watch an opening statement or closing argument. He watches trials from beginning to end. He sometimes beats judges to the building, and he is typically waiting — just waiting, respectfully — a little ways away from grieving families. He never puts himself in the way of the action, but he does want to bear witness to, I believe, the court system working.”

A constance presence?

On a recent morning, Fletcher walks through Criminal District Court Judge Leon Roché’s courtroom, where a murder trial is set to begin. He stops next to the victim’s family. “Do you need any more tissues?” he asks. “Anything I can get you?”

He picks up a pile of numbered paddles set aside for prospective jurors and heads for the door.

“Welcome to Section I, welcome to Section I,” Fletcher says, handing each juror a paddle as they walk by.

They smile and thank him, perhaps thinking he works at the court. No one asks who he is.

No one knows exactly when Fletcher arrived at the courthouse. Not even Fletcher, not for sure. It was probably 2007, he thinks. Maybe 2008. What the lawyers, clerks, guards, judges and other denizens of the courthouse know is that he is always there, dressed in a snazzy suit, as fixed to the courthouse as its towering columns.

An advocate and friend

Fletcher, 68, stands 6-feet-1-inch tall; his smile is nearly as big. He lives in a three-room apartment on the 15th floor of a seniors’ apartment building with sweeping views of the city and a radio with a wire hanger for an antenna. His suits — made from brightly colored brocades in paisley and other bold prints — are hung side by side in a closet, dry cleaned,?covered in plastic.

On display: campaign posters for Williams, the district attorney, and two Criminal District Court judges, Nandi Campbell and Roché. Fletcher volunteered on all three campaigns.

“Mr. Fletcher didn’t ask anyone if he could watch trials, and he didn’t ask me if he could help with my campaign,” said Williams. “He didn’t say, ‘What can I do?’ He found something to do.”

Campbell met Fletcher in 2008 when she began working as a defense attorney in the building. He became a good-luck charm when she was in trial, she said, and later, he became a friend.

“I call him the mayor of Tulane and Broad because he doesn’t belong to either side,” she said. “He’s friendly with everyone.”

Campbell recently helped Fletcher get his first-ever passport. The furthest from Louisiana he’s ever been, he said, was West Virginia, where he took refuge after Hurricane Katrina. He wants to go to Jamaica.

“I think what people don’t understand is that he is overly connected to people’s pain,” Campbell said. “It’s one of the reasons why I hope he spends some time outside of court, because I think that he might feel too much.”

The most important job

Fletcher grew up in a threadbare home on Abby Plantation in Thibodaux. His mother worked as a nanny. He and six siblings slept on the floor. There were no light switches. No running water.

He said he’s worked as a garbage collector, a construction worker and a medical device dispatcher for the city’s veterans’ hospital. When he received his first check from the hospital, he said, “I cried like a baby. I’d never had so much money.” It was about $1,000, enough to help him pay for his son to attend St. Augustine High School. Fletcher retired in 2022.

But no matter his job, Fletcher always found time for his most-prized role as court watcher.

And when his most recent job,?a messenger Roché's courtroom,?interfered, he quit.

After meeting Fletcher during his campaign, Roché, the judge, offered him the position. Fletcher quit after several months. While grateful for the work, “All the rules they had, I couldn’t follow them,” Fletcher said. He couldn’t give up his bullhorn. He couldn’t resist going to other courtrooms.

Fletcher still visits Roché’s courtroom every day.

“He’s a great guy,” Roché said. “He’ll come make me some coffee. He’ll help me put on my robe. I call him my right hand man.”

The No. 1 Question

For every person who knows Fletcher well, such as Roché, there is another person who doesn’t.

“I know of him,” said one man, expressing a familiar sentiment around the court. “I don’t know him.”

Even those who do know him, however, don’t know Fletcher’s story. “We all would like to know why he started hanging out at the court. I think that’s the number one question,” Campbell said.

The answer, according to Fletcher: “I go to that courthouse to watch and see how they do things,” he said. “To make sure they do it right.”