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GA. MURDER CASE SHINES SPOTLIGHT ON NATIONS INDIGENT DEFENSE SYSTEMS

Murder suspect lost his lawyers after state ran out of money to pay themMarcia CoyleThe National Law JournalMay 24, 2010Jamie Weis, accused in 2006 of killing an elderly neighbor, had two state-appointed lawyers defending him from capital murder charges for more than a year.When the state of Georgia ran out of money to pay them, the trial judge removed them, appointing public defenders who spent nearly two years trying to withdraw.Weis, in county jail now for four years, is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to delve into what he claims is a breakdown of Georgia's public defender system.Weis wants the justices to make clear that "lawyers are not fungible," said lead counsel Stephen Bright of theSouthern Center for Human Rights in Atlanta.Indigent defendants, Bright said, have the same Sixth Amendment right to continuity of counsel once the attorney-client relationship is established as do those defendants with the means to hire lawyers...continue to full post

Full post as published by Lethal Injection on July 01, 2010 (boomark / email).