A split Georgia Supreme Court is allowing a long-delayed capital trial to proceed. Defense attorneys had attempted to strip the death penalty from the case due to funding delays.
The Court's 4-3 ruling in Weis v. The State is in Adobe .pdf format.
Today's New York Times reports, "Murder Case May Proceed in Georgia," written by John Schwartz.
A divided Georgia Supreme Court will allow a capital murder case to go forward despite the defendant’s claims that a lack of state financing for death penalty lawyers deprived him of access to effective counsel and a speedy trial.
Jamie Ryan Weis, now 32, was arrested in February 2006 and charged with killing Catherine King, 73, in a robbery. Prosecutors sought the death penalty.
The trial court appointed two defense lawyers with death penalty experience, who began investigating the case. But the agency that pays for defense lawyers in death penalty cases could not pay them.
The original lawyers were replaced with salaried public defenders, who do not usually work on capital cases. Those lawyers asked to withdraw, saying they did not have the time, financing or qualifications to properly pursue a death penalty case. Mr. Weis argued that he should have had the first legal team, and refused to work with the second.
The fight continued for the next two years; in that time, Mr. Weis’s mother, who was expected to testify on his behalf, died.
Justice Harold D. Melton, writing for a four-justice majority, found that the trial delay was “brought about by Weis and his attorneys, and not the funding issues.” Countering arguments that there had been a “systemic breakdown in the public defender system,” he said, “There are still attorneys within that system who are available to represent the criminal defendant.”
In dissent, Justice Hugh P. Thompson wrote that the Constitution requires that Mr. Weis receive a “vigorous defense,” and that Georgia “cannot shirk this responsibility because it is experiencing budgetary constraints.”
Bill Rankin writes, "State high court rejects request to bar death penalty," for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
The Georgia Supreme Court on Thursday narrowly rejected a bid to bar prosecutors from seeking the death penalty against a defendant who has sat in jail for more than three years awaiting trial because there has been no money for his defense.
The 4-3 ruling said the state did not violate Jamie Ryan Weis' right to a speedy trial and placed some of the blame on the defendant and his attorneys. Weis is charged with killing Catherine King, a 73-year-old Pike County woman, during a burglary in 2006.
The case had been closely watched because the court might have determined that Georgia could not afford the death penalty in times of budgetary crisis. But the court made no such determination. The appeal had asked the court to dismiss the charges or bar the state from seeking death, because Weis had been without lawyers for more than two years.
Justice Harold Melton, writing for the majority, said a lack of state funds to pay for Weis' defense contributed to some of the delay, but it wasn't the sole factor. "Weis' own behavior, and the behavior of his attorneys, also contributed to the delay," Melton said.
Melton also wrote that Weis asserted his right to a speedy trial too late -- after his own refusal to work with replacement lawyers and after his initial lawyers helped contribute to the case's delay.
In a forceful dissent, Justice Hugh Thompson disagreed.
Because Weis could not prepare for trial until he had funds for his defense, it would have been reckless for him to ask for a speedy trial, Thompson wrote.
"If the state wants to seek the death penalty against an indigent defendant, it must provide adequate funds for a full and vigorous defense," he wrote. "The state cannot shirk this responsibility because it is experiencing budgetary constraints."
Thompson added, "The bottom line here is that the state should not be allowed to fully arm its prosecutors while it hamstrings the defense and blames defendant for any resultant delay."
The cost of defending courthouse killer Brian Nichols in Fulton County so drained the state's public defender agency that it had to stop paying for Weis' initial lawyers. Weis was initially appointed private attorneys Bob Citronberg and Tom West to represent him. For the first several months, the state paid the lawyers, but it stopped as expenses mounted in the Nichols case.
And:
Atlanta lawyer Stephen Bright, who argued the case in Weis' behalf, said the court's majority "is completely wrong on the facts and wrong on the law."
Caldwell was going to give Weis "only token representation at a perfunctory trial where the outcome would have been a foregone conclusion," Bright said. "In upholding that, the Georgia Supreme Court majority abdicated its constitutional and moral authority to protect the right to counsel."
The AP report by Greg Bluestein is, "Ga.'s top court lets death penalty case go forward," via the Macon Telegraph.
A divided Georgia Supreme Court on Thursday allowed state prosecutors to seek the death penalty against an inmate who claimed his right to a speedy trial has been violated because he has waited in jail for more than two years without an attorney.
The 4-3 ruling found that a lack of funding "was not the sole factor" that delayed the trial of Jamie Ryan Weis. The opinion, written by Justice Harold Melton, concluded that Weis played a key role in delaying the trial, too, when he refused to work with new public defenders appointed to represent him.
And:
The ruling was a victory for the cash-strapped public defender system, which has been targeted by a flurry of legal challenges from civil rights groups who claim it is failing its mission to provide adequate legal defense for Georgia's poor defendants. Among other complaints, they say the state failed to hire attorneys for 100 or so convicted inmates who are seeking to file an appeal.
Also:
Stephen Bright, who represented Weis in the appeals, said the court's ruling encourages a system where attorneys are "lawyers in name only" without funding or resources to investigate and defend capital punishment cases. He called the court's decision "'Alice in Wonderland' justice."
"The Georgia Supreme Court should have stood up and said to the Legislature, 'If you're going to pursue the death penalty, we need adequate defense funding,'" said Bright of the Atlanta-based Southern Center for Human Rights. "You can't provide all the money to the prosecution and not provide any to the defense and then say it's the defendant's fault."
Public Defender Standards Council director Mack Crawford could not immediately be reached for comment but he has long argued that the agency is doing the best it can to fulfill its constitutional duties while coping with stiff budget cuts.
The Weis ruling isn't the last that could determine how the state handles death penalty defenses. The court could soon issue a ruling in a capital case involving Khan Dinh Phan, who has been waiting in jail for almost five years for a lawyer to represent him on charges that he killed a man and his 2-year-old son in 2004.
Earlier coverage of the cost issue in Georgia begins with this post; related articles are in the indigent defense index.
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