Public defender system fails Georgians and their lawyers

I am a young attorney who reluctantly resigned last month from the Walton County public defender’s office because I drove home on a daily basis knowing that I was not providing effective representation to my clients. This was largely because of overwhelming caseloads, representing clients with conflicting interests, a woefully insufficient budget for experts, lack of adequate training and supervision and an insufficient investigative staff with little to no training.

In the 13 months I worked as a public defender, I closed approximately 900 cases, a number which included probation revocations, misdemeanors, as well as felonies. Throughout this time, I had approximately 270 open cases at one time, though not all of these were yet indicted or accused.

In order to close this many cases in 13 months, an attorney devoting 50 hours per week to case work, taking no vacation time or sick leave, would have only three hours to devote to an individual case, including court time and meeting with the client.

The caseload pushed attorneys to approach each case with a cursory review aimed at identifying the few cases to which our meager resources would be directed.

Time and again, attorneys allowed clients who indicated an inclination to plead guilty to do so without an examination of the client’s reasoning (which may well have been a fear of the criminal justice system rather than an indication of guilt) and without a thorough examination of the prosecution’s case, let alone a full investigation of the case or an exploration of all possible defenses.

Budgetary constraints resulted in an appalling approach to cases of co-defendants who had conflicting interests. Generally, a lawyer cannot represent a client if there is a significant risk that the lawyer’s duties to another client, a former client, or a third person will materially and adversely affect the representation.

With the exception of serious felony cases, we were regularly instructed not to withdraw from cases even where an obvious conflict existed. The reasoning was that certain cases were likely to plead out and that by delaying the decision to recognize the conflict, the office could reserve funds for those cases most likely to result in a trial.

As a result, our office represented co-defendants with conflicting interests at preliminary hearings on numerous occasions. In fact, it was quite common for supervising attorneys to instruct us to represent co-defendants past arraignment and to “re-evaluate” the conflict situation before proceeding to trial.

This often meant that we were not given approval to withdraw from cases because of conflicts until after discovery deadlines, when investigative leads had inevitably staled, and after the filing and hearing of evidentiary motions were closed.

For our clients who were in jail while awaiting trial, this increased the danger that their pre-trial incarceration would last longer than it otherwise should.

At the beginning of the fiscal year, we learned that the budget was so small that only in the exceptional case would expert funds be available for cases that did not involve rape, murder or aggravated child molestation. This initial warning, in addition to lack of training regarding the use of expert witnesses, resulted in a stifling of expert requests. Thus, it is difficult to tell how many of the cases that pled out, or were tried without experts, were denied that critical element of an effective defense.

What is certain is that out of the thousands of cases closed in the last year, many would have benefited from expert testimony.

In our office, of the four public defenders in non-supervisory positions, three had been practicing less than one year, and the fourth, just over two years. While we all worked hard to provide our clients with the representation that they were constitutionally entitled to, the lack of training and supervision was a great disservice to our clients.

Until recently, Georgia had an excellent training program, which included three weeks of intensive trial skills practice groups, extensive instruction in motions practice and a strong ethics component. This program was one of the first victims of the budget cuts. Attorneys now invariably return from training programs frustrated that they have learned very little.

I left the Georgia public defender system to work in one that imposes manageable caseloads, allows attorneys to fulfill their ethical obligations on conflicts of interest, funds expert requests and provides the training and supervision necessary to be an effective advocate.

Unless the system is changed in Georgia, it will not be able to attract and keep capable, conscientious lawyers and it will deteriorate even further.

> Marie-Pierre Py was a staff attorney in the Walton County Public Defender’s Office.