Lawsuit: Georgia court denying records' access, violates law

ATLANTA ( AP) — A west Georgia court is jailing people illegally and then making it impossible for them to challenge the violation of their rights by denying them access to their public court records, a lawsuit alleges.

The Southern Center for Human Rights filed the lawsuit last week on behalf of two poor women who were recently jailed after appearing in Recorder's Court in Columbus, about 105 miles southwest of Atlanta near the Alabama border. It says the women want to challenge their convictions and probation revocations, but are unable to access court files their attorneys need to properly investigate or decide on a course of action.

The lawsuit calls the Columbus Recorder's Court "a troubled and dysfunctional institution whose judges and clerks routinely disregard the rights of defendants, including indigent citizens."

It says the Columbus Recorder's Court regularly violates the rights of poor people by denying them effective assistance of counsel; by accepting guilty pleas without advising them of their right to a lawyer; and by issuing "pay or stay" sentences that require them to pay a specified sum or go to jail if they can't.

The suit was filed on behalf of Keiona Wright and Elizabeth Harris King against the Columbus city government, Recorder's Court Chief Judge Michael Cielinski, Recorder's Court Clerk Terri Ezell and Columbus Mayor Teresa Tomlinson.

City attorney Clifton Fay said in an email that his office is reviewing the suit and promised a vigorous defense.

Wright, 25, pleaded guilty in October 2015 to several traffic offenses. Cielinski sentenced her to pay a fine of more than $2,000, to serve 60 months on probation during which she was ordered to pay private probation company fees totaling $2,460 and to serve three weekends in jail, the lawsuit says.

At the time of sentencing, she had three small children and was four months pregnant with twins, was on bed rest and had been hospitalized for pregnancy complications and had to quit her factory job. She paid what she could afford in the following months, but Cielinski revoked her probation last month after her probation officer said she failed to report and failed to pay, the lawsuit states.

King, who's 58 and suffers from schizophrenia, pleaded no contest to a charge of shoplifting food from a grocery store. She was represented by a public defender she'd never met and who knew nothing about her or her case, the lawsuit says. She was ordered to pay a fine of nearly $350, to serve a week of community service and to serve 12 months of probation during which she was to pay $50 a month to a private probation company.

She made some payments, but Cielinski revoked her probation in September when she was arrested again on a charge of shoplifting food, the lawsuit says. He sentenced her to 120 days in jail.