Georgia Indigent Defense - Scott Key & Associates

The AJC reports that The Southern Center for Human Rights has filed suit against GPDSC, its director, the Circuit Public Defender, the District Attorney and others for the state of indigent defense in that circuit. The suit is brought on behalf of 8 indigent defendants, juvenile and adults individually and as representatives of a class of indigent criminal defendants. The suit alleges that adult defendants are forced to wait for months with no contact or minimal contact with a lawyer. In some instances, a non-lawyer investigator has relayed plea offers just before trial. Juveniles have found themselves at some hearings with a lawyers and at others without. The Circuit has no juvenile public defender, and (according to the complaint) when the lawyers are off in court someplace else in the circuit, juvenile court continues, with or without counsel.

In 2003, the Southern Center sued officials in the Cordele Circuit for what was then a contract public defender system. According to the press release that was issued when the recent suit was filed:

The public defenders are unable to spend more than a few minutes per case. Many poor people accused of crimes meet a public defender who knows nothing about them or their charges for the first time in court. After a hurried conversation, many enter guilty pleas and are sentenced. All but a few convictions are obtained through guilty pleas by people who do not receive the most basic elements of legal representation such as substantive attorney-client interviews, investigations, motions practice, and informed, professional advice about whether to plead guilty.

The well-written Complaint may be found here (pdf). The press release is also worth reading.

Donovan X. Ramsey at The Public Square, a Blog on Atlanta Politics and News, reports that the City of Atlanta’s Public Defender’s Office receives less money for indigent defense than the Atlanta Mayor’s Office receives for office supplies.

The Atlanta PD’s office is allocated about $1.1 million dollars for use in defending a projected 16,500 cases to be divided among 13 full-time employees, only 9 of whom are attorneys. I went to law school, but even I can see that this math is troubling, particularly when compared to what the ABA guidelines are for a public defender’s caseload. Mr. Ramsey quotes the recommendations from National Advisory Commission on Criminal Justice Standards and Goals on its advised caseload for public defenders as: 150 felonies, 400 misdemeanors, 200 juvenile court cases, 200 mental health cases, or 25 appeals annually.

Mr. Ramsey makes one “flaw” in his reporting. He aggregates the number to 975 cases. Actually, the guidelines suggest a total cases load per category not an aggregate caseload of all types of cases. Still, even if one were to allow for an aggregate caseload, the numbers for Atlanta are pretty messed up.

There is pathetically little budgeted beyond salary to the office either. The margin between what is allocated for salary — $1,183,058 — and what is allocated for other expenses — $1,137,317 — is razor thin. So, lawyers can’t really do much with the cases they have such as order criminal histories, hire expert witnesses, investigate cases, or issue subpoenas.

Adam Liptak in the New York Times, wrote an article criticizing the abyssal state of indigent defense for death penalty cases in Georgia. It turns out that Georgia’s 3rd World indigent system exists for the garden variety misdemeanor / felony lite case as well. Yet, the Constitution applies in Atlanta since Georgia was on the losing team in the Civil War.

It is a good thing that client autonomy is valued in the 6th Amendment because it appears that Georgia’s indigent defendants are on their own.

But the Atlanta Mayor will not go without staplers.

Tag Archive for: Georgia Indigent Defense

Southern Center Files Suit in Cordele Circuit, Again, for State of Indigent Defense There

Atlanta Mayor’s Office Supplies Budgeted More Money than Public Defender

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