Indigent Defense Crisis Continues in Georgia

Bill Rankin writes, "In Georgia, lawyers abandoning the poor," in today's Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Across Georgia, poor people accused of crimes are being abandoned by their lawyers because there is no money to pay their legal fees.

There are also 10 death-penalty cases proceeding to trial with $1.1 million in expected billings. But there is no money to pay for those cases, either.

At its Tuesday meeting, the Georgia Public Defender Standards Council’s board grappled with a familiar problem — a mountainous stockpile of unpaid bills.

Just a few weeks ago, the council’s board was on the legislative endangered list.

Influential lawmakers, irritated by some board members’ complaints about inadequate funding, pushed legislation to strip the board of its authority. The bill would have replaced the board’s current, policy-making members with new members serving only in advisory roles.

The bill passed the Senate and a key House committee but was withdrawn from the House floor on the session’s final day.

Tuesday’s meeting, at the Brasstown Valley Resort & Spa, was the first time the board convened since the legislative session. Once again, members heard more sobering reports about the financial plight of the state indigent defense system.

The council’s main problem is its inability to pay the bills for “conflict” cases. These are multi-defendant cases in which a state-salaried public defender can represent only one person because of conflict-of-interest rules. Private attorneys are hired to represent the co-defendants.

Many bills from these cases, which number in the thousands statewide, have not been paid because of budget shortfalls.

In response, exasperated lawyers are asking to withdraw from cases, and judges are letting them do it. Making matters worse, no one is telling the council about these defendants who are now lawyerless, the council’s executive director, Mack Crawford, said.

The council has already been hit with one lawsuit, filed in Elbert County.

It says hundreds of indigent defendants unable to afford their own lawyers are not being provided representation as required by law.

And:

Help could be on the way. Lawmakers put in $1.6 million in the council’s fiscal year 2010 budget for the council to pay its outstanding legal bills for these conflict cases. This money should help pay many of the bills, Crawford told the board.

But the capital cases are another matter, he said.

“I don’t know how to address this because the money is not there,” Crawford said of the pending capital cases.

Crawford suggested that Gov. Sonny Perdue could ask the Fiscal Affairs Committee to help solve the problem. The panel has the power to shift money approved for one purpose at the defender council to another purpose within the agency.

"Ailing public defender system in tight spot," is Greg Bluestein's AP report, via the Fort Mill Times.

Faced with a small mountain of unpaid legal bills and sharp budget cuts, leaders of Georgia's beleaguered public defender system said Tuesday that a special meeting of top state politicians may be the best hope of breaking the funding logjam.

The public defender council members, whose efforts to get an additional $1 million for backlogged capital cases were rebuffed last month by legislators, said they could be forced to take legal action if its needs aren't met once Gov. Sonny Perdue signs the $18.6 billion spending plan into law.

"It may involve getting the courts involved if the Legislature doesn't provide enough funding for us to do our job properly," said Wilson DuBose, the council's chairman.

The state-funded indigent defense system, like others across the nation, is struggling amid the economic downturn. From the right, it faces lagging support from reluctant state legislators frustrated at what they see as the council's overzealous spending. From the left, it is grappling with legal challenges from civil rights groups who claim the system is failing its mission to defend Georgia's poor.

The result has left the council in disarray. Public defenders are saddled with growing caseloads, some defendants say they wait in jail for weeks before meeting with a lawyer and judges are forced to delay trials across the state as funding dries up.

And:

Critics say it has also prevented the system from fulfilling its basic duties. The Southern Center for Human Rights filed a lawsuit last month that seeks to halt the prosecution of hundreds of northeast Georgia cases until lawyers are provided for defendants. It claims some plaintiffs have been without lawyers for as many as six months.

Much of the funding problems center on so-called "conflict" cases involving multiple defendants. In such cases, state-funded public defenders can only represent one person, so private attorneys are hired to represent the co-defendants.

The Legislature refused the system's appeal for $1.18 million for capital conflict cases, leading to delays in several death penalty cases around the state. But it did approve funds to pay outstanding bills from private lawyers in cases that don't involve the death penalty. The budget is expected to be signed by the governor by May 13.

Still, council members say many private lawyers are beginning to turn their back on the contract cases for fear of not getting paid. And full-time public defenders are increasingly saddled with bigger caseloads. And the system's leaders are beginning to urge attorneys to turn down cases if they feel overwhelmed.

"We've got to do the best we can to represent our clients, but if you are overworked you need to stand up and tell your (boss)," said Jerry Word, a council member and interim head of the Georgia Capital Defender Office . "You can't compromise your clients."

Earlier coverage from Georgia begins here.  Related articles are in the indigent defense category index.