The Nichol(s) effect

The capital case of Brian Nichols has had a terrible effect on the state of indigent defense in Georgia. A system that was already strained under the pressure of one capital case is on the verge of a deathblow. There are many, many other defendants not named Brian Nichols in Georgia who need representation and need it now. One of them is Jamie Ryan Weis and he’s suing the public defender’s office:

Since April, Weis has been sitting in jail awaiting trial without lawyers to represent him. The lawsuit was filed after trial judge Johnnie Caldwell scheduled a Jan. 5 hearing on the case.

“It’s frustrating,” Pike County District Attorney Scott Ballard said. “Everybody wants the defendant to be well represented. We’ll be ready to prosecute just as soon as they’re ready.”

The suit was filed in Fulton County Superior Court against Mack Crawford, director of the Georgia Public Defender Standards Council, and Gerry Word, acting head of the capital defender’s office.

As the Nichols case made its way through the system, Weis’ case took a beating:

Weis’s two appointed lawyers, Bob Citronberg and Tom West, were removed from the case in November 2007 when the cash-strapped defender system did not have the money to pay them. Two local public defenders were ordered to take over the case.

But the two defenders objected, saying they already had crushing case loads and had neither the time nor the resources to defend a capital case.

At a court hearing in April, an agreement was reached to return Citronberg and West to the case, provided that Crawford sign a contract allowing them to be paid. But that has yet to occur.

And how can it occur? GA has no money to pay these lawyers.

The ramifications of lack of lawyers in a criminal case are tremendous and in capital cases, more so, because there’s more at stake. Defendants need immediate representation for several reasons, the primary of which is to start conducting an investigation immediately. Witnesses are notorious for developing better memories as time passes, usually unfavorable to the defense. The closer to the incident they are interviewed by the defense, the better prepared the defense is. Not to mention the fact that a defendant, sitting in jail for months and years without any movement on his case may present speedy trial issues.

I’ll say it again: lack of funding only leads to more litigation. There is a way to solve this funding problem – one that GA needs to seriously consider. End this failed experiment of the death penalty.

[Ed. note: The title is intended to be a poor pun on the phrase "the ripple effect". My apologies for it being so lame.]