Public defender system in crisis again

From the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

The state’s public defender system once again appears headed toward a budget crisis.

At its Nov. 30 board meeting, the Georgia Public Defender Standards Council will be given two options to deal with an anticipated funding shortfall. One option is to stop paying private attorneys who are defending more than 9,000 criminal cases across the state at the end of this year.

This option risks shutting down a large part of the defender system and sparking litigation over funding issues. Funds are also running out for about 30 death-penalty cases.

The second option is to transfer $2.7 million already budgeted to pay the public defender workforce in June to cover the costs of defending those cases in the coming months. But if the General Assembly does not give the council a midyear cash infusion, the defender system will have to furlough its 398 state-salaried workforce next June. The council’s staff is recommending the board take this route.

The defender council’s funding predicament is laid out in internal documents obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution through the Open Records Act.

“We’re taking it one day at a time,” the council’s director, Mack Crawford said Tuesday. “We do have problems and we’re doing all we can to work with the governor, the Legislature and the state’s judges to try and get through this.”

Henry County Superior Court Judge Arch McGarity said the state judiciary is aware of the problem.

“There are certain judges who are concerned about it,” said McGarity, who heads the Council of Superior Court Judges. “The primary concern is death-penalty cases.”

The statewide public defender system, now in its third year of operation, replaced a hodgepodge of uneven, underfunded and overwhelmed county-run programs providing legal representation for poor people accused of crimes. A state Supreme Court commission found that inadequate representation in the prior system heightened the chances of innocent people being convicted. But the new system has struggled due to budget cuts and a steady drain of legal fees and expenses — already more than $1.2 million — for the defense of accused courthouse killer Brian Nichols.

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