Indigent defense funding agreement renewed
The Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution establishes the right to counsel in federal criminal prosecution. Through a series of landmark decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court, the right to counsel has been extended to all criminal prosecutions, state or federal, felony or misdemeanor, that carry a sentence of imprisonment.
Rather than rely on assigning pro bono (free) services to attorneys in private practice or contracting them on a case by case basis, the fourcounty Lookout Mountain Judicial Circuit has a public defender program. Public defenders operate much like district attorneys except they provide legal defense rather than prosecution.
David Dunn, who heads the local public defender program, noted “this circuit was the first to have a Public Defender’s Office in the state of Georgia” during his annual appeal for the counties’ (Catoosa, Chattooga, Dade and Walker) financial support.
The overall annual budget of about $1.5 million has a state contribution of $737,467. Catoosa provides $327,637 and Walker $297,124 that, along with Chattooga and Dade, totals $843,045 of local funding,
Dunn said that the past year has been one marked by turnover, chief being the loss of attorney Doug Woodruff who became solicitor for the newly formed Catoosa County State Court, and two other attorneys. But qualified replacements have been hired, from private practice and from other public defender offices, and the circuit now has a full staff.
In addition to hiring three attorneys, the office has added an intake coordinator to the staff. That person’s job is to visit the inmates held in the county jail to evaluate whether a public defender’s services will be required. Having such a staffer means the attorneys are able to devote their full attention to case preparation, hearings and trials.
Also, Dunn said the steady move toward compensation parity has progressed.
Until recently assistant district attorneys received greater compensation than their public defender counterparts, but the gap is being narrowed, Dunn said.
But even as the salary gap has narrowed, the counties’ contributions to the department’s budget was not increased for the coming year, he said.
His department has relied on collections of fees and fines to offset this year’s pay raises, but Dunn said “there will probably be a budget increase” when he makes his request for funding public defender funding for 2018.