Public defender panel balks on budget

Defying a directive from Gov. Sonny Perdue, the state public defender council’s board on Thursday voted not to submit a budget that would cut the struggling agency’s funding by at least 6 percent.

Members of the Georgia Public Defender Standards Council board said further cuts would cripple the cash-strapped agency. The board also voted to ask the governor to fully fund its budget.

Perdue’s Office of Planning and Budget has directed most state agencies to submit proposed budgets with at least 6 percent cuts by Sept. 2. Perdue is looking to save about $1.6 billion because tax collections have plunged. Some agencies are submitting proposals that include layoffs, furloughs and cutbacks of services.

But members of the council’s board, comprising judges, public defenders and private attorneys, said the cuts to the defender agency could create a judicial crisis.

“The quality of indigent defense in this state has already been harmed and degraded,” council member Wyc Orr, a Gainesville lawyer, said. “Our responsibility is to fight for this program.”

Orr contended the council is different from other state agencies because it does not rely on tax revenue. Instead, he said, it is funded through collections of surcharges on criminal fines and bonds, applications fees from defendants and filing fees tacked onto civil lawsuits.

Last fiscal year, indigent-defense fee collections totaled $45.5 million, yet the General Assembly gave the state defender system only $40.4 million for fiscal 2009.

At a lengthy board meeting, council members heard a proposal its staff prepared to comply with Perdue’s directive. It included layoffs and cuts that would hit the agency’s capital defender, mental health and appellate divisions the hardest.

Capital defender Gerry Word said the office now represents 60 death-penalty defendants —- nine more than a year ago. At the same time, he said, the office has four fewer attorneys and four fewer mitigation investigators than it had a year ago.

Budget cuts, Word said, would lead to “constitutionally deficient” representation. This could lead to cases being overturned on appeal.

“We have to take a stand,” Dougherty County Superior Court Judge Willie Lockett, a board member, said. “We’re different because we have to provide a constitutionally adequate defense.”

DeKalb County Superior Court Judge Mark Scott agreed. “We can’t, in good conscience, do this,” he said.

The state defender council oversees public defender offices in 43 of the state’s 49 judicial circuits. Six single-county circuits —- Cobb, Gwinnett, Houston, Douglas, Cherokee and Forsyth —- opted out of the state system and run their own programs. By law, the council gives these six counties state funds to help run their programs.

At Thursday’s board meeting, the council considered a motion to withhold state funds it pays to these “opt-out” programs. But the board postponed the vote to allow the state attorney general’s office to determine whether the council has the authority to withhold such funds. If the council ultimately makes such a decision, it will infuriate the six counties and ignite a political maelstrom.

“I don’t make this motion lightly and I don’t make it without considering the political ramifications,” said public defender David Dunn, a board member. “But when you get backed into a corner, you have to fight with every weapon available.”

THE STORY SO FAR

> Lawmakers this year appropriated $40.4 million for the statewide public defender system.

> In early August, the state told agencies to submit proposed budgets by Sept. 2 that included cuts of 6 percent, 8 percent and 10 percent.

> On Thursday, the Georgia Public Defender Standards Council board declined to submit reduced budget plans. It asked the governor to leave the system’s budget untouched.