Justice Department weighs in on public defender lawsuit
The U.S. Justice Department on Friday stepped into ongoing litigation to express concern about legal representation for juveniles in a South Georgia judicial circuit.
The agency’s civil rights division, in a 22-page court filing, told a Fulton County judge he should find the constitutional rights of juvenile defendants are being violated if necessary legal safeguards are not in place.
Last year, lawyers for the Southern Center for Human Rights in Atlanta and the Washington law firm Arnold & Porter filed suit against the four-county Cordele Judicial Circuit. Among the complaints: juveniles were being denied effective representation or were, at best, provided “assembly line justice.”
When the suit was filed, Cordele’s public defender office did not have a juvenile division as required by law. Children showing up in court often found there were no public defenders to represent them, yet their cases proceeded to resolution, the suit said.
The circuit has since hired a contract lawyer to represent juveniles, state attorneys said at a recent court hearing.
But that may not be sufficient, the Justice Department said.
“When faced with severe structural limitations, even good, well-intentioned lawyers can be forced into a position where they are, in effect, counsel in name only,” the filing said.
If lawyers do not have the time or resources to serve as effective advocates or do not receive adequate training or supervision, then they inevitably fail to meet the minimum requirements of legal representation, the agency said. “These conditions lead to de facto non-representation.”
Stephen Bright, the Southern Center’s senior counsel, said Cordele’s contract defender resolves many cases when children report to court for the first time. After a roughly 15-minute consultation with the lawyer, juveniles then stand before a judge and admit to the charges, he said.
“This is not even token representation,” Bright said. “The children are simply are not represented.”
About the Author
Bill Rankin has been an AJC reporter for more than 30 years. His father, Jim Rankin, worked as an editor for the newspaper for 26 years, retiring in 1986. Bill has primarily covered the state’s court system, doing all he can do to keep the scales of justice on an even keel. Since 2015, he has been the host of the newspaper’s Breakdown podcast.
