"Attys urge top court to decide on Ga. capital case," is the title of an AP report filed earlier this morning, via the Macon Telegraph.
Several leading Georgia attorneys are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to block prosecutors from seeking the death penalty against a Georgia man who has waited in jail for more than two years without an attorney.
Former Georgia Supreme Court Chief Justice Norman Fletcher and two former chairmen of the state public defender system filed an amicus brief this month on behalf of Jamie Ryan Weis.
The Georgia Supreme Court ruled 4-3 in March to allow prosecutors to seek the death penalty against Weis despite objections from advocates who claim his right to a speedy trial was violated. His attorney appealed to the high court in May.
The brief claims "it was the Legislature's deliberate choice to not adequately fund indigent defense" and not any actions by Weis or his attorneys that led to the delays.
The Amicus Curiae brief and the Petition for Writ of Certiorari, filed last month, are available in Adobe .pdf format.
The questions before the Court are whether a court, on motion of the prosecutor, can remove appointed counsel who had developed an attorney-client relationship with the defendant, and whether there had been such a breakdown of the public defender system that had resulted in such delay that it violated his rights to counsel and a speedy trial. The petition for a writ of certiorari, Weis v. State of Georgia, is also attached.
The prominent amici, including Norman S. Fletcher who served as Chief Justice of the Georgia Supreme Court; Charles R. Morgan, the former chair of the Chief Justice's Commission on Indigent Defense; Emmet J. Bondurant, a former chair of the Georgia Public Defender Standards Council; Wilson DuBose, also a former chair of the Public Defender Standards Council; and other current and former members of the Council and former legislators assert in the brief that they "have elected to file this brief in support of Petitioner because we know from our collective work...that it was the Legislature's deliberate choice to not adequately fund indigent defense, and not the actions of either Weis or his counsel, that led directly to the delays in this case." The amici also express grave concern that the systemic crisis in Georgia that "has left scores of persons completely without counsel for months or years while facing serious felony and even capital charges."
As described in the brief, some capital cases have been pending for five years because of lack of funding (with no likelihood of funding in sight), many defendants have not been provided lawyers at all in felony cases, some are represented by public defenders working under enormous caseloads, others are represented by lawyers who have contracted to handle 175 cases for $50,000, and many defendants wait for very long periods of time for lawyers to represent them on appeals.
Earlier coverage of the case begins with this post.
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