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Hall officials seek to improve indigent defense

By Gideon

From The Gainsville Times: Faced with a growing indigent defense bill where costs were once much lower, Hall County State Court officials want to improve how they provide lawyers for the poor in 2009. But while ?improvement of delivery of indigent defense services? is a stated goal for state court this year, it?s likely to be more of a fine tuning than a wholesale revision of the system. Hall County?s Public Defender Office was created in 2005 to represent poor defendants in felony cases prosecuted in superior court, but state court judges still appoint lawyers from a panel of about 30 area criminal defense attorneys who are paid by the hour. In recent years, their workload and billing both have gone up dramatically. Six years ago, 848 cases in state court had court-appointed attorneys paid by taxpayer money...continue to full post

Full post as published by Public Defender Stuff on February 15, 2009 (boomark / email).