Prosecution Wants Hearing On Capital Defense Pay

From AccessNorthGa.com:

The state asked Monday for a hearing to air problems with paying for the defense of the man accused of a deadly shooting spree at the Fulton County Courthouse, and also asked the judge to impose restrictions on what attorneys involved in the case can say publicly.

Prosecutors filed a motion saying that because of a dispute over paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in indigent defense costs for Brian Nichols, “it is unclear how the case can continue to move forward.” They asked the court for a hearing “to discuss the alternatives” before next week, when the next phase of jury selection is to begin.

As of Dec. 31, the Georgia Public Defender Council had already approved more than $1.2 million for attorneys’ fees and expenses for Nichols, who is accused of killing four people in the shootings that started inside the courthouse on March 11, 2005.

That amount is three times what is spent on an average Georgia death penalty case from the beginning through an initial appeal, according to Mike Mears, the director of the defenders council. Mears said that although his office would continue to pay bills for other death penalty cases, it would have to shuffle budget priorities pending receipt of millions of dollars in supplemental funding by the Legislature.

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Meanwhile, an article in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (may require registration) notes that a judge in another capital case ordered that the state pay more money to at least one attorney:

A Gwinnett County judge has ordered the state to pay more money to at least one attorney involved in a pending death penalty case.

But the additional money may not be enough to head off a dispute that has the potential to affect death penalty cases all across the state.

Attorneys have said the trial of two suspects in the 2004 stabbing death of a Snellville widow could be delayed because of a fight over state funding for indigent legal defense cases.

In an order disclosed on Monday, Gwinnett Superior Court Judge William Ray II ruled that the attorneys representing Kayla Sanders, one of the defendants in the case, should be paid $125 an hour instead of $95 an hour.

Ray’s order, filed last week, did not change the fee of Buford attorney Walt Britt, who represents Donald Steven Sanders, the other defendant accused in the stabbing death of Doris Joyner, 68.

The Georgia Public Defenders Standards Council, which oversees the system, recently reduced the hourly fees for death-penalty attorneys to $95 an hour from $125. The council has cited budget shortages and the cost of defending Brian Nichols in the Fulton Courthouse shootings case. Nichols’ defense already has cost $1.2 million.

The indigent council was hoping to get another $9.5 million from the Legislature this year, but that funding has not been allocated. Mike Mears, the director of the council, did not return calls seeking comment for this article.

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