Ga. public defender system refuses to cut budget

The statewide public defender system, though, is in a more dire fiscal crunch.

Since it began in 2005, it has seen its budget sapped from $42 million to $35 million over the least three years by state legislators. Some 41 staffers were fired amid the first round of cuts in May 2007, and system director Mack Crawford warned he would have to furlough hundreds of staffers until a fresh infusion of cash came in March.

Crawford's decision this summer to fire four full-time attorneys and replace them with contract staff led to a lawsuit by civil rights groups that claimed it could set an "unconscionable precedent."

The system's board members unleashed their frustration over the repeated cuts during the daylong meeting Thursday.

They contended the system should be exempt from the cuts because it draws funding from court fees, not taxes. And they argued cutting staff further would prevent it from meeting its duty to "provide a constitutionally adequate defense."

"I don't have much more patience to be pushed," said DeKalb County Superior Court Judge Mark Anthony Scott, who said he was "embarrassed" to watch the public defender office in his county slowly be dismantled.

Defense lawyers told stories of staffs stretched thin and widespread morale problems.

"Morale at this agency is at absolute zero," said Drew Powell, a circuit public defender in Clarkesville. "All they hear is bad news. They don't know if they'll have a job tomorrow."

David Dunn, a council member and a public defender in LaFayette, said the council was left with little other option but to decline the budget cuts.

"When you get backed into a corner, you have to fight with every weapon available," he said. "And they have backed us far into a corner."