Miscellaneous

For the Defense?

By Anne Skove, Esq.

How wrapped-up in indigent defense funding should a judge be?

There's yet another new twist in the Nichols case: the judge has repeatedly delayed the case due to inadequate funding of the defense team.

Georgia has a history when it comes to indigent defense. It took a lawsuit to get funding to move from away from county funding, which was particularly problematic when one considers that Atlanta is made up of several counties -- this meant that funding and services varied depending on which part of town a defendant was in.

Now indigent defense funding and organization is (somewhat) statewide, but still in flux. The Georgia Indigent Defense Act of 2003 gave power over public defense to the judicial circuits. In 2005, the system was tweaked further, and a public defender office was created in each circuit. These can be funded by the state or local government, or both.

The organizational mosaic grows ever more intricate when capital cases or insanity defenses are at issue. Capital cases, once heard by the "Multi-County Public Defender's Office," are now heard by the Office of the Georgia Capital Defender, although its director just resigned over chronic under-funding.

Where there is NGRI, there is the Office of the Mental Health Advocate, which somehow avoids conflict as it "provide(s) services state-wide as a way of assisting attorneys, the hospitals, and the courts in criminal cases involving mentally ill defendants."

How much does it all cost? Nichols is charged with 54 felony counts and faces the death penalty. These things add up.

So, what's a judge to do? Let the case proceed, even though he believes the lack of funding is preventing a fair trial? The Public Defender Standards Council won't allow the lawyers to ask for more money. The case has already been delayed. Are judges using the budget to circumvent the death penalty, as Republican critics claim? Does it matter that it's his case? Other judges have complained about under-funding, but have done so outside the context of a pending case. We don't know who writes the MPRE, but this is a fertile fact pattern.

See Nichols Trial May Face New Delay, Beth Warren, Atlanta Journal-Constitution (January 23, 2008). NACDL has a neat wrap-up of all things Georgian Indigent Defense, inlcuding articles, orders, studies, etc.

Full post as published by court-o-rama.org on January 25, 2008 (boomark / email).