Indigent defendants file
lawsuitBy Don
Schanche Jr.
Telegraph Staff Writer
March 27, 2003
CORDELE
- Poor people charged with a crime in four middle Georgia
counties are routinely denied adequate legal representation under a
system of "assembly line justice," according to a class-action lawsuit
filed Wednesday in Cordele.
The complaint was filed by three Atlanta lawyers on behalf of three
men and a woman who live in the Cordele Judicial Circuit, which
comprises Ben Hill, Crisp, Dooly and Wilcox counties.
"We initially found out about what was going on (there) in a study of
indigent defense of the courts of Georgia," said Marion Chartoff, a
staff attorney with the Southern Center for Human Rights. "We were
pretty disturbed by what we saw, because a lot of people there are not
getting lawyers at all. We just think that shouldn't be happening in
2003."
The 50-page complaint outlines a series of alleged problems:
• Two lawyers work part-time under a
contract to represent all indigent defendants in the four-county
circuit. They labor under "oppressive caseloads," handling more than
twice the number of felony cases that a full-time indigent defense
attorney is supposed to take, under state guidelines. The defense
lawyers are left with a conflict of interest: If they spend more time on
indigent clients without receiving any extra pay, they do so at the
expense of their private practices.
• Indigent defendants often wait for
weeks or months in jail without any contact with a lawyer.
• Defendants often meet their lawyer
for the first time on the day of arraignment. Arraignment days result in
large crowds of people waiting for long periods, waiting to speak with
their newly appointed lawyer. The lawyer often does little more than the
"clerical function" of describing a plea bargain proposal to the client,
and then standing by as the guilty plea is taken.
• Consequently, the suit charges,
"Almost half of all indigent people charged with crimes in the courts of
the Cordele Judicial Circuit enter guilty pleas without consulting with
a lawyer who represents their interests."
The plaintiffs described the system as "the systematic violation of
the right to counsel for indigent people accused of crimes in the courts
of the Cordele Judicial Circuit ... This suit is brought to replace
proceedings which are now a hollow formality with fair proceedings at
which the accused are capably represented."
Officials with the Cordele Circuit courts declined comment Wednesday.
"The judges have not been served with anything, and Judge Forrester
isn't going to make a comment until he reads it," said Betty Greene, a
secretary for Whitfield R. Forrester, chief judge of the circuit.
District Attorney Denise D. Fachini's office also declined comment.
Both Fachini and Forrester are defendants in the suit, as are the
assistant district attorneys, the circuit's indigent defense committee,
and the county commissioners in the circuit's four counties. The suit
also names Gov. Sonny Perdue as a defendant.
The plaintiffs are Kelvin Hampton and Eddie P. Montford of Dooly
County, Eric Sailor, a Florida resident who is in the Ben Hill County
Jail and Rodney Paul of Crisp County. Montford is the lone woman among
the plaintiffs
All four have been charged with crimes, and have been unable to hire
their own lawyer.
Chartoff said the indigent defense system in the Cordele Circuit is
"worse than a number of places that I know of in Georgia, but I don't
think they're particularly unusual in terms of the overburdened
attorneys they have there."
The Southern Center for Human Rights has sued other counties over
similar problems. Its 2001 suit against Coweta County resulted in the
creation of a public defender's office.
Georgia's courts and lawmakers have acknowledged in recent years that
the state's indigent defense system is in need of improvement. Lawmakers
this year are debating whether to create appointed or elected public
defender offices for all of Georgia's counties.
The debate and the latest lawsuit come 40 years after the U.S.
Supreme Court handed down a landmark decision in Gideon v. Wainright,
which established a poor defendant's right to an appointed lawyer.
