In an emergency meeting via conference call yesterday, the Georgia Public Defender Standards Council unanimously approved a settlement with plaintiffs in a class action against the indigent defense system.

“In its current form, we believe that the proposed settlement is a reasonable resolution to this issue for the clients GPDSC represents and the state of Georgia. The issues claimed in the suit have been addressed by processes already in place. The term of the Consent Decree mirrored much of what GPDSC has already implemented and aligns with our future plans, making a settlement possible,” said council director W. Travis Sakrison in a written statement.

Representatives with the Georgia attorney general’s office, which represented the Public Defender Standards Council and other defendants including the governor, declined to comment on the settlement.

A copy of the settlement in Flournoy v. State was not made immediately available, and the Fulton County Superior Court still has to approve it. But one of the co-counsels for the plaintiffs released a general description of some of the settlement’s terms.

“One of the remedies included in today’s settlement is the requirement that the GPDSC hire seven additional staff attorneys to staff the Appellate Division and implement a system that monitors the caseloads carried by individual lawyers,” the Southern Center for Human Rights said in a press release. “The agreement also creates a specific process by which contract attorneys and staff attorneys will be hired—including a thorough review of their qualifications, which must meet certain minimum requirements. And it changes the contracts under which private attorneys are hired by providing them the resources and incentives to effectively represent their clients.

“Additionally, GPDSC must implement a mechanism for oversight and accountability of the qualified private attorneys with whom they contract for services,” according to the Southern Center for Human Rights.

The class action was filed in December 2009 in Fulton County Superior Court by the Southern Center for Human Rights, Bondurant, Mixon & Elmore and several other Atlanta-area firms on behalf of roughly 200 indigent, convicted offenders who were awaiting appointment of new appellate counsel. The plaintiffs’ attorneys claimed that the statewide indigent defense system’s method of appointing new appellate lawyers to offenders claiming ineffective assistance of counsel at the trial level was constitutionally deficient and that those offenders were waiting too long while in custody and unrepresented.

However, state officials claimed the system was doing the best it could with limited financial resources and staffing.

In February 2010, Fulton Superior Court Judge Jerry W. Baxter certified the class and issued a 40-page order granting mandamus to the plaintiffs. The case was set to go to trial on Dec. 15 before Baxter but was pulled from the calendar the day before because of the pending settlement, which both sides had been negotiating for weeks.

“We believe this is an important and significant step toward making Georgia’s indigent defense system capable of providing our clients with the representation to which they are entitled,” said SCHR attorney Lauren Sudeall Lucas in a written statement.

“If approved by the court, the improvements guaranteed by the consent decree will lead to a fairer and more accurate criminal justice system,” said Bondurant Mixson Associate Michael A. Caplan.

SCHR contends that since the filing of the class action, the class size has grown from nearly 200 to more than 800 indigent defendants. Meanwhile, the GPDSC, like many other government agencies, has seen its budget revenue decline.

However, state officials argued in an motion filed earlier this year that all the offenders represented in the class had been appointed new appellate lawyers, many of whom are private attorneys contracted by the GPDSC.

A bench trial set for Thursday in the indigent defense class action Flournoy v. State (Daily Report’s 12/8/11 article) has been canceled pending a potential settlement.

The Southern Center for Human Rights, which is co-counsel for a class of several hundred convicted offenders awaiting appeal, made the announcement this afternoon without further comment.

The state attorney general’s office, which is representing the defendants that include the Georgia Public Defender Standards Council and governor, confirmed the potential settlement but would not comment on any details.

The class action was filed two years ago in Fulton County Superior Court on behalf of indigent defendants who were claiming ineffective assistance of counsel at the trial court level and were awaiting appointment of new appellate counsel. Plaintiffs’ attorneys claimed the defendants were still waiting too long in custody while unrepresented and said the statewide indigent defense system’s method of selecting and appointing counsel was inadequate and constitutionally deficient.

However, state officials claimed the system was doing the best it could with limited financial resources and staffing.

The trial was set to begin Thursday morning before Judge Jerry W. Baxter.

Before the settlement becomes official, it must be approved by the court and notice must be provided to the class.

The State Bar of Georgia’s Board of Governors approved an amendment to conflict-of-interest rules pertaining to public defenders that will allow intracircuit representation of multiple defendants as long as there are no determined conflicts.

“After a lively debate, the proposal to adopt an amendment adding Rule 1.10 (d) passed 58-26,” Bar President Kenneth L. Shigley said today. The Board of Governors met Saturday in Jekyll Island.

The amendment states that public defenders are not automatically barred from representing co-defendants in a criminal case unless there is a conflict as determined by existing Rules 1.7, 1.8 or 1.9.

The amendment passed the bar’s Disciplinary Rules and Procedures Committee in September and the Executive Committee earlier this month. It now will go to the state Supreme Court for final approval.

 The Southern Center for Human Rights will present its Frederick Douglass Equal Justice Award to C. Wilson DuBose of Madison’s DuBose Massey Bair & Evans tonight at the organization’s annual Frederick Douglas Awards Dinner tonight in Washington, D.C.

DuBose was a charter member of the Public Defender Standards Council, serving first as vice chair until being appointed chairman, a position he filled until his term expired in 2009. Prior to his service on the council, DuBose spent 10 years as chairman of the State Bar of Georgia’s Indigent Defense Committee.

The Southern Center said it is recognizing DuBose for “his tireless efforts to transform Georgia’s indigent defense system and ensure that poor people accused of crimes are well-represented and the function of defense is adequately funded.”

On Tuesday, DuBose joined the Standards Council’s first chairman, Bondurant, Mixson & Elmore partner Emmet J. Bondurant, and former Executive Director, B. Michael Mears, now an associate dean at John Marshall Law School, as honorees at a dinner celebrating their service on behalf of the state’s indigent defendants.

The dinner, held at the Atlanta’s French American Brasserie, was organized by former Council member E. Wycliff “Wyc” Orr Sr. of Gainesville’s Orr Brown Johnson.

“Despite inadequate funding of the system, shrill political attacks, and other obstacles encountered along the way, the grit, work, and perseverance of the system’s leaders, and of public defenders and their staffs, and support in many forms from others within and without the system, have allowed the system to endure,” said Orr.

– Greg Land

Here’s a piece of legal news out of Congress—with a Georgia twist—that was lost amid the debt-ceiling negotiations: U.S. Rep. Austin Scott (R-Tifton), has submitted a bill that would eliminate the Legal Services Corp. The congressionally-created nonprofit is a key funder of Atlanta Legal Aid and Georgia Legal Services.

Dana Milbank of The Washington Post, said Scott’s one-sentence bill, H.R. 2774. “betrayed his Tea Party roots.” Read more »

Gov. Nathan Deal is expected to sign three bills Tuesday afternoon at State Bar of Georgia headquarters, approving the new rules of evidence, changing the leadership of the statewide indigent defense system and creating a new method of compiling eligible juror lists.

The new laws—House bills 24, 238 and 415—made up the bar’s top legislative agenda during the last regular session that ended on April 14.

The new rules of evidence included in HB24, which adopts many federal rules, will go into effect on Jan. 1, 2013.

HB238, which pares the Public Defender Standards Council down from 15 to nine, allows the governor, lieutenant governor and Speaker of the House to choose all new members and shifts more authority to the director, will go into effect on July 1.

The third bill, HB415, will become effective in parts. Part I, which charges the Council of Superior Court Clerks with creating a statewide database of eligible jurors based on voter registration, driver’s license, property and other records and replaces the old “balanced box” method, will go into effect on July 1. Also at that time, Part II banning digital devices known as zappers that allow for credit or debit card transaction theft at registers will go into effect.

Part III, which exempts names among other  information about law enforcement officers participating in terrorism training from the state’s Open Records Act, will go into effect Tuesday upon the governor’s signature.

The bar also plans to honor Deal, a lawyer and former state senator who first introduced changes to the state’s nearly 150-year-old evidence rules two decades ago,  by unveiling an updated version of a plaque in its lobby that lists the names of governors, now including Deal’s, who also have been attorneys.

The bill signing ceremony is scheduled from 1 to 1:30 p.m. Tuesday at 104 Marietta St. NW in downtown Atlanta.

The Southern Center for Human Rights filed a class action on Tuesday demanding that the state of Georgia provide attorneys to indigent parents who have been jailed or risk being jailed for failure to make child-support payments.

The suit, filed Tuesday morning in Fulton County Superior Court on behalf of six men who have been jailed in four Georgia counties, says that hundreds of non-custodial parents are jailed every year without benefit of legal counsel. Unlike criminal actions, in which defendants are constitutionally required to be given lawyers, these individuals are imprisoned on civil contempt charges and thus not eligible for state-funded attorneys, according to the suit. Read more »

Gov.-elect Nathan Deal on Friday said that W. Travis Sakrison, a DeKalb County prosecutor, would be the next executive director of the Georgia Public Defender Standards Council. Read more »

The Georgia Public Defender Standards Council has retained the former president of the State Bar of Georgia to investigate whether an affair between former Griffin Superior Court Chief Judge Paschal English and Kim Cornwell, a Griffin Circuit public defender, compromised any of Cornwell’s cases that were adjudicated by English.

Mack Crawford, the council’s executive director, said that after consultation with Gov. Sonny Perdue’s executive counsel, Nels Peterson, and the Georgia Attorney General’s office, he asked Bryan M. Cavan to conduct an independent investigation.    Read more »

Gov. Sonny Perdue has tapped Robert M. “Mack” Crawford, director of the Georgia Public Defender Standards Council, and Fayette County State Court Judge W. Fletcher Sams for the two open judgeships on the Griffin Judicial Circuit Superior Court. Additionally, Sutherland partner Carla Wong McMillian was named to Sams’ seat on the Fayette State Court.

The appointments were announced Wednesday morning by Gov. Sonny Perdue, who will have to choose a successor to Crawford on the Standards Council.  Read more »