A Fulton County judge decided Friday to give a stop-gap system for defending some accused felons a two-months try before deciding if it meets minimum standards demanded by the U.S. Constitution.

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Melvin Westmoreland put off ruling for at least 18 weeks on the constitutionality of a remedy the state put in place because of dwindling funds to provide attorneys for indigent defendants. Westmoreland wrote there was too much evidence, testimony and affidavits to review before the contract lawyers started, on Friday, and he wanted to give the new system time.

Westmoreland wrote, however, he is "concerned the four attorneys under contract may not be capable of providing effective representation given the limitations they will face." At the same time, the judge wrote, he is not prepared to rule the arrangement as violating the right to an "effective" attorney.

A spokesman for Georgia Attorney General Thurbert Baker, whose office defended the plan, said the state was happy with the judge's decision.

Stephen Bright with the Southern Center for Human Rights, which brought the lawsuit, was disturbed.

Bright said in an e-mail Mack Crawford, director of Georgia Public Defender Standards Council, made an "ill-advised decision to go to contracts without reliable information and without even understanding how the system works.

"This is a house of cards that is going to collapse and the clients will suffer the consequences," Bright said.

Georgia lawmakers enacted landmark legislation in 2003 establishing a statewide public defender system to replace county-run programs that mostly relied on contract private attorneys who were paid a flat fee to handle indigent case loads. The previous contract system was considered unconstitutional because the attorneys were either paid so little they only devoted minimal time to cases or they were so overloaded with clients they could not adequately represent them.

But as the council has been pressured to cut its spending in the past year, contracts have crept back into the system. The General Assembly reduced the council's 2009 budget by $9 million from what it had in the previous year for conflict cases and by another $5.4 million the agency had in fiscal year 2008 for expert witnesses.

Recently, the council fired four attorneys who work on cases in which there are multiple defendants and replaced them with contract lawyers. Westmoreland wants to see how effective those contract lawyers are.