Settlement expected in public defender suit

A trial scheduled to begin Thursday involving a lawsuit against the state public defender system has been taken off the court's calendar because a potential settlement has been reached, said plaintiffs' lawyer Gerry Weber of the Southern Center for Human Rights.

The suit was filed in 2009 on behalf of inmates who said they could not challenge their convictions on appeal because the state had not spent enough money to provide lawyers to represent them. A Fulton County judge had previously ordered the state to provide counsel to the indigent inmates.