ATLANTA - Hours after Georgia lawmakers voted to replace most of the leaders of the state's problem-plagued public defender system, the group - which included Gainesville attorney Wyc Orr - met on Friday to vent during a bittersweet final meeting.
One member of the Georgia Public Defender Standards Council resigned rather than face an ouster. Another railed against changes that sap much of the council's authority. And still others urged their colleagues to refocus attention on other pressing legal problems.
The meeting came the day after Georgia lawmakers voted to replace the current 15-member board with nine new appointees tapped by the governor, the lieutenant governor and the House speaker. The measure, which must be signed by Gov. Nathan Deal, also gives the director more power over whom the system hires.
The shake-up comes after years of lagging support from conservative lawmakers, who have slashed funding ever since the council picked up the $3 million taxpayer-funded defense tab for the 2008 trial of courthouse gunman Brian Nichols.
The state's ruling Republicans were often at odds with the council's sometimes cantankerous board, which had threatened to sue the state over funding woes and urged a special legislative session for more money.
"At no time has any sponsor or voter for this bill ever attempted to give a reason for replacing this council," said Orr, one of the most outspoken of the council's members. "If it's to rid the council of people like me, it's not necessary because my term is ending."
He said the measure only marginalizes the council, turning it into a mere advisory board while putting more power in the hands of the director, ex-prosecutor Travis Sakrison, who is the third leader of the group in the past six months.
"This bill is a pig in a poke," said Orr. "It says we're going to have better governance - which is total control by one person."
Other members echoed his anger. Don Oliver resigned from the board at the end of the meeting, saying he was tired of watching a system built by some of Georgia's best and brightest minds get dismantled by lawmakers.
"This is more than a cause. It's a fundamental building block of our Constitution. It's what makes us strong and what we are," said Oliver, a Walker County attorney. "That's what we've been fighting for and I hope this is what the new group is fighting for."
Several of the board's members urged dejected colleagues to focus their time on other judicial causes and to keep urging lawmakers to devote more funding to the public defender system.
But Ron Cross, a Columbia County commissioner, said he was worried it would take a judge's order to force the state to boost the system's funding.
"Everybody in this room is kidding yourself if you think the General Assembly is going to do anything about it," he said.
Monday
October 14th, 2024
2:28PM
