Georgia Public Defenders and Poor Folk Get Screwed

A letter from the President-Elect of the Georgia Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. We aren't doing well providing legal defense to poor people here in Georgia (it's one reason for the world infamous still-ongoing case of Troy Davis being stuck in a death sentence- he missed deadlines while he was on death row without legal counsel.)

Kenneth B. Hodges III is correct that our criminal justice system should be one of the top issues on the Legislature's agenda this session (“DA furloughs hurt state,” Jan. 13). However with our indigent defense system in complete crisis, I hope that the Legislature will start by funding and fixing our very broken statewide indigent defense system.

Public defenders throughout the state, underpaid and overburdened, now are carrying record high caseloads. This week I received e-mails from public defenders throughout the state reporting caseloads in the 300s, 500s and even 800s. These caseloads are absolutely unmanageable. It is important to note that these public defenders are working for 10 percent less than their counterparts in prosecutors' offices. And while most public defenders offices have avoided furloughs, they have done so by eliminating non-lawyer staff positions, which means more administrative duties fall on these public defenders in addition to their impossible caseloads.

To make matters worse, the Georgia Public Defender Standards Council executive director, Mack Crawford, and its Conflicts and Compliance director, Larry Schneider, are seeking to relax the definition of “conflicts” in criminal cases so they can make an impossible conflict budget work for everyone except public defenders and indigent defendants. They want public defenders in the same office to be allowed to represent co-defendants. This would never be permitted in the private sector.

The Georgia Supreme Court has held that “Adequate funding of [indigent defense] is constitutionally mandated.” Wilson v. Southerland, 258 Ga. 479, 480. There are no provisions in the state or federal Constitutions which allow for the effective assistance of counsel when it is affordable. The right to effective legal counsel may not be suspended in times of fiscal inconvenience. There are no provisions in the Georgia State Bar Rules that provide for the relaxation of ethical standards when representing poor people.

The Southern Center for Human Rights recently filed a lawsuit on behalf of Jamie Weis, a defendant facing capital charges who has been without a lawyer for eight months. Rather than immediately obtaining a lawyer for Weis, Crawford has gotten himself a lawyer to defend him against the lawsuit. I wonder if this will be a free lawyer? I wonder if Crawford will have to wait eight months to meet with him.

The State of Georgia cannot plead poverty in this case. Last year the state collected about $9 million from civil filing fees and criminal fines under the guise that it would go to indigent defense. The handling of our statewide indigent defense system is indefensible.

In 1963 Clarence Gideon wrote his own appeal on prison stationary from his cell in Panama City, Fla. He wanted a lawyer and the U.S. Supreme Court said he and everyone charged with a criminal offense should have a lawyer. How many Gideons are there in jail cells in Georgia in 2009? One is too many.

Christine A. Koehler,

President-Elect, Georgia Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers