Wednesday, July 23, 2008
News Indigent defense on trial tomorrow
Posted by Scott Freeman on Wed, Jul 23, 2008 at 8:59 PM
Lawyers from the Southern Center for Human Rights will be in court Thursday morning arguing that cuts made by the state have gutted the system to provide public defenders to the indigent.
The Georgia Public Defender Standards Council, which was formed in 2003 to handle indigent defense all over the state, hasn't been fully funded since Republicans took over the General Assembly in 2005. As CL pointed out in a cover story on the issue, the Republican leadership got a lot of hay out of criticizing the indigent defense system for budget over-runs that the legislature actually created by underfunding the agency in the first place.
Stephen Bright, president of the Southern Center, says the decision to fire 21 public defenders in Fulton County on July 31 will throw the system into chaos.
"We are in perpetual crisis because the funding is so inadequate – the state funding for indigent defense overall is only about 1/3 of what’s needed; for capital cases it’s less than half," Bright says via email.
The issue was first raised because of the expense of the Brian Nichols murder case. Now it has shifted to the Metro Conflict Defender Office, which represents co-defendants when conflict-of-interest rules mandate that a public defender can represent only one person in a case.
The Public Defender Standards Council plans to shut down the conflict office on July 31.
Doris Downs, chief judge of Fulton County Superior Court, has criticized the decision, saying it will leave 1,850 people without representation.
The council says it spent $9 million on conflict cases last year, yet received just $5.4 million from the legislature for this year.
The state wants to contract out the conflict cases to four lawyers. But Bright says it's hardly a good deal, that it will attract the "bottom feeders" of the profession:
"Instead of being paid in the $50,000s and having the support of an investigator, clerical staff, offices, etc., the four lawyers would get a flat rate of $50,000, no benefits, would be required to get their own health insurance, pay for their own malpractice insurance, etc. so they would be making hardly anything."
Bright will be joined in court tomorrow by two of the city's most prominent defense lawyers: Ed Garland and Don Samuel.
(Photo courtesy Stephen Bright)
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