SCHR: The Right to a Lawyer (Indigent
Defense)
People Accused of Crimes & Their
Lawyers v Mack Crawford & GPSDC
For Press Materials and Pleadings on this case, click here.
On Friday
morning, June 6, Mack Crawford, director of the Georgia Public Defender
Standards Council (GPDSC), fired the lawyers and staff of the Metro
Conflict Defender office who provide representation in conflict cases in
felony and juvenile cases in Fulton and DeKalb Counties. The
terminations were effective June 30, giving only three weeks notice to
those fired their clients and the judges who expect them to be in court
representing their clients this summer. Crawford this action without
approval by the Council. Only two of its 11 members even knew that it
was being contemplated. An article about the firing appears below.
The Conflict
Defender office was created in 1996 to provide representation in
conflict cases in Fulton County. It earned a good reputation for its
work. It was brought under the jurisdiction of the GPDSC after passage
of the act creating the state-wide public defender system and its
jurisdiction extended to DeKalb County.
The Council’s
action was widely criticized as irresponsible.
See,
e.g., New York Times article
below.
The Georgia
Public Defender Standards Council had a specially called meeting the
following Tuesday, June 10, to consider a motion to overrule the
firings. At the meeting Crawford said that the firings were necessary
because the legislature reduced the funding for conflict cases and in
order to distribute funding for conflict cases more evenly to other
counties. (Crawford has decreed that no more than 4.5 % of any
circuit’s indigent cases are to be conflict cases. The State will
provide $400 per case for conflict representation in that number of
cases.)
It was
revealed at the Council meeting that even then, there was no plan in
place for providing representation to the 1800 adults and children
represented by the Conflict Defenders. Crawford promised to meet with
Fulton Superior Court Chief Judge Doris Downs to begin work on “an
alternative delivery system” at the conclusion of the meeting.
Because
funding for conflict cases in Fulton and DeKalb will be reduced to less
than half of what it was last year, there are only two possibilities for
replacing the Conflict Defender – contracts with lawyers to handle many
cases for a certain amount (the Council has already contracted with
lawyers to handle 150 cases for $50,000 ($333 per case) or pay lawyers a
small amount per case ($200 per plea and $600 per trial has been
suggested). This is for multiple
defendant murder, armed robbery, kidnapping, etc. cases.
This means a return in conflict cases to meet ‘em, greet ‘em and plead
‘em.
Although the
Fulton County Manager, the Atlanta Circuit Court Administrator, the
Chief Administrative Officer of the Fulton Juvenile Court and others
knowledgeable about the impact of the firings were present at the
Council meeting, the Council refused to allow public comment.
The Council
voted, 6-4, to post-pone a decision until Friday, June 20, just a week
before the firings become effective. The Council will meet then at
Amicaloloa Falls State Park in Dawsonville. By then, of course, many of
the Conflict Defenders will have taken other jobs. In the meantime,
there is confusion about whether lawyers in the office are to continue
to pick up new cases and pressure to resolve existing cases.
The day after
the Council meeting, June 11, a lawsuit was filed on behalf of the
clients and lawyers of the Metro Conflict Defenders seeking a temporary
restraining order and preliminary injunction ordering reinstatement of
the staff in order to maintain ongoing attorney-client relationships,
protect the legal, professional and ethical responsibilities of the
attorneys with regard to their clients, and to insure the orderly
operation of the courts. The lawsuit was brought by the Southern Center
for Human Rights, Edward Garland and Donald Samuel of Garland, Samuel
and Loeb P.C., and Ralph Knowles of Doffermye, Shields, Canfield,
Knowles, and Devine LLC. The Complaint and the Motion for a TRO and
Preliminary Injunction can be found
here. The case was assigned to Superior Court Judge
Melvin Westmoreland.
An article
regarding the lawsuit is included below.
Supplemental
pleadings were fired regarding the impact of the firings on codefendants
of clients of the Metro Conflict Defenders and the impact on Fulton
Juvenile Superior Court. Those pleadings can be read online
here. On Friday, June 13, just two weeks before the
firings become effective, the Chief Administrative Officer of the Fulton
Juvenile Court has not heard from the GPDSC with regard to
representation for the 250 children who are now represented by a lawyer
from the Conflict Defender office.
In short, the
efforts to improve representation for poor people accused of crimes in
Georgia has been replaced – at least for the time being – with a rear
guard action to try to keep what is there, as inadequate as it is. This
is at least the second time that employees of the Metro Conflict
Defender has been fired. There was another unrelated firing of 41
employees of the Council last year. Georgia’s indigent defense program
will encounter immense difficulties in attracting and keeping lawyers
and other personnel since there is no job security. The case has
been set for a hearing before him at 2 p.m. on Monday, June 23, in
Courtroom 4-A of the Superior Court of Fulton County.
When the
public defender program was created, the legislature was to provide full
funding for indigent defense – that would be at least $120 million.
Instead, it has appropriated only a third of that amount, leaving most
of the funding to the counties. As a result, the resources available
for counsel for poor people accused of crimes still rests, as it always
has in Georgia, on county commissions in each judicial circuit.
Resources vary greatly from circuit to circuit depending upon the
financial condition of the counties and the willingness of each county
commission to fund indigent defense. The new public defender system was
supposed to eliminate this inconsistency.
The director
of the GPDSC is committed to staying within the inadequate amount of
funding the State legislature has provided, even reducing it, instead of
making the case for why the State should provide what is needed. At the
meeting on June 10, he stated that he had to reduce the budget by 4%
this year and by 6% or next year.
Under
legislation passed on the very last day of the last session of the
Georgia legislature, the director of GPDSC, serves at the pleasure of
the Governor.
The director
and GPDSC should acknowledge reality and make it clear that they have
only a third of what is needed to meet their responsibilities under
Gideon v. Wainwright and the
Georgia Indigent Defense Act, instead of pretending that what the
legislature has given it is enough and trying to scrape by with it.
This is really the only power the Council has since it cannot bring
about a consistent and comprehensive program of indigent defense because
funding varies from circuit to circuit because well over half of the
funding comes from the counties, not the State.
Both the
State and the counties are in a funding pinch and want to cut indigent
defense because it has no constituency. Many of Georgia’s counties,
which expected the State to take over paying for indigent defense when
it created a public defender system, take the position that funding for
indigent defense is the state’s responsibility. This is a reasonable
position. However, since both the State and the counties can say the
other is responsible, it becomes no one’s responsibility. The clients
suffer the consequences.
17
public defenders let go in Fulton and DeKalb counties
By Greg Land,
Fulton Daily Report, June
06, 2008
In what one local
defense attorney has termed the “Friday Morning Massacre,” 21 staff
members of the Atlanta and Stone Mountain Conflict Defender
Office—including 17 attorneys—were notified that, effective June 30,
they will no longer have jobs.
Georgia Public
Defender Standards Council Director Mack Crawford confirmed that the
attorneys, who represent “conflict” defendants in DeKalb and Fulton
County Superior Courts, as well as two juvenile court conflict
defenders, have been notified that they will be terminated. He said he
would release more details about the firings, and the plans to replace
the staffers, later Friday.
The affected lawyers
represent defendants when the local public defender's office is already
representing another defendant in the same case, to avoid a conflict of
interest.
According to Stephen
Bright of the Southern Center for Human Rights, the move is the latest
in a series of troubling cost-cutting moves Crawford has made since
being appointed to head the financially troubled council last year.
“This is going to mean
a lot of trouble for the courts, particularly the Fulton County Juvenile
Court,” said Bright. “I don't know how they plan to replace those
lawyers.”
“I would imagine a lot
of judges will be furious,” he added.
Bright, whose
description hearkens back to the wholesale firings of two Nixon
administration attorneys during the Watergate scandal, said he is
greatly concerned that Crawford's move, while saving costs in the short
term, may hurt the program in the end.
“It's sad to say, but
so much of what Crawford has done seems to be concerned with the bottom
line. … I think a lot of it is counterproductive,” said Bright.
Fulton
County's state court defenders are employees of the county and not under
council authority, noted Bright.
“They're safely out of
Crawford's reach,” he said.
Plan to Cut Back
Public Defenders Stirs Worry in Georgia
By BRENDA GOODMAN, New York Times,
June 10, 2008
ATLANTA — The chief judge of the Fulton County Superior Court on Monday
sharply criticized a state plan to lay off a large group of public
defenders, saying it could cause a legal crisis.
On
Friday, the
Georgia Public Defender
Standards Council, which administers Georgia’s defender system,
announced it would close the Metro Conflict Defender Office, one of four
such offices in Georgia that handle cases in which it would be a
conflict of interest for the local public defender’s office to represent
more than one client charged with the same crime. The issue arises when,
for example, two defendants in the same bank robbery turn on each other
after they are arrested.
Council officials say eliminating the office is necessary in a year when
the state Legislature did not allot enough money for the defense of the
indigent in Georgia. The office employed 21 people, including 17
lawyers.
The
cuts, which are to take effect June 30, will effectively eliminate all
conflict defenders for clients in superior and juvenile courts in
metropolitan Atlanta. They now represent 1,850 defendants.
On
Monday, the county’s chief judge, Doris L. Downs, called the layoffs
“irresponsible.”
The
decision has sent court officials and prosecutors scrambling to come up
with alternative plans.
“We’re trying a case that involves nine gang members,” said Paul L.
Howard Jr., the district attorney for Fulton County. “How could you
expect the Public Defender to handle more than one or two of these
defendants?”
In
conflict cases, a separate defense lawyer is required by codes of
professional conduct and by legal precedents upheld by the
Supreme Court said Bruce Green, professor of law at
Fordham University.
Asked how his office might cope in the absence of conflict defenders,
Mr. Howard, with a hint of weary sarcasm, said, “We’re hoping, in the
future, that if people are going to commit crimes in Fulton County,
they’ll do it singly.”
The
state Legislature appropriated $5.4 million for conflict defenders for
the coming fiscal year, a reduction from the $9 million appropriated for
this year.
The
state defenders council has not yet offered a plan for handling the
cases. Robert Crawford, the council’s director, did not return calls for
comment.
Vernon S. Pitts, the public defender for Fulton County, said council
officials had considered offering the county $800,000, or $400 a case,
to pay private lawyers to handle its conflict cases. It is not clear
whether that is enough money.
In
2003, the indigent defense system in Georgia, a piecemeal system of
county programs that had been ranked among the worst in the United
States, was overhauled to provide statewide oversight and financing. The
changes were intended to eliminate practices like contracting defense
cases to lawyers who often had little experience or interest in criminal
defense.
“Now
they’re proposing that we use a contract system, which is probably the
worst system,” Mr. Pitts said. “It’s disheartening to see them going
backwards at this point.”
Lawsuit: Keep Fulton public
defender office open
Shuttering office could leave 1,850 people without lawyers
By BILL RANKIN,
The Atlanta
Journal-Constitution,
June 11, 2008
Five Fulton
County defendants and four state-salaried attorneys filed suit
Wednesday, seeking a halt to the planned closure of the Metro Conflict
Defender Office.
The lawsuit was
filed against Mack Crawford, director of the Georgia Public Defender
Standards Council, and the council's board of directors. Crawford
announced last Friday his plans to close the office at the end of the
month, potentially leaving about 1,850 defendants without legal
representation.
The lawsuit, filed in Fulton County Superior
Court, seeks class-action status for all indigent defendants who are now
clients of the conflict office and all potential future clients of the
office.
Filing the
lawsuit on behalf of poor people accused of crimes and the conflict
defenders representing them were Atlanta lawyers Stephen Bright, Ed
Garland, Don Samuel and Ralph Knowles.
"Many of the
people accused have been in jail since their arrests and now will remain
there even longer," Bright said. "Removal of their counsel is unfair and
prejudicial to their cases. It is unconscionable."
Pleadings: