1 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 1 1 2 SUPREME COURT COMMISSION ON INDIGENT DEFENSE 3 4 5 6 October 10, 2001 7 9:30 a.m. 8 9 10 11 Supreme Court of Georgia 12 Judicial Conference Room 244 Washington Street 13 Atlanta, Georgia 30334 14 15 16 17 18 19 REPORTED BY: DIANE KING, CSR, B-1957 20 21 22 KING COURT REPORTING SERVICE 23 125 COLONADE AVENUE, SUITE 1-B ATLANTA, GEORGIA 30331 24 (404) 344-7855 25 2 1 MEMBERS PRESENT: 2 MR. CHARLES R. MORGAN, Chairperson 3 PROFESSOR PAUL KURTZ MS. PHYLLIS HOLMEN 4 JUDGE A. HARRIS ADAMS MR. C. WILSON DUBOSE 5 MR. HOWARD O. HUNTER MS. AASIA MUSTAKEEM 6 MR. JERRY GRIFFIN JUDGE LAWTON STEPHENS 7 MR. WILLIAM IDE MR. CHUCK CLAY 8 9 GUESTS PRESENT: 10 MR. MICHAEL B. SHAPIRO, MS. PHYLLIS BLANTON, AOC 11 MS. EMILY W. WARD, BELLSOUTH MS. KENDALL BUTTERWORTH, BELLSOUTH 12 MS. SARA TOTONCHI, GEORGIANS FOR EQUAL JUSTICE MR. ROBERT HOLT, ANTIOCH COLLEGE 13 MS. SARAH SMITH, GIDC MS. SANDRA WILTU, HOUSE RESEARCH 14 MS. LISA KUNG, STATE OF GEORGIA MR. TOM BOLLER 15 MS. MARTHA EZZARD MS. GINNY LOONEY 16 17 PRESENTERS: 18 VIEWS FROM PUBLIC DEFENDERS 19 MR. JOHN R. MOBLEY, II, PUBLIC DEFENDER, 20 TROUP COUNTY 21 MS. TERRY EVERETT, PUBLIC DEFENDER, HOUSTON COUNTY 22 PROPOSAL TO CONDUCT A STATE-WIDE STUDY OF GEORGIA INDIGENT DEFENSE SERVICES 23 MS. MAREA BEEMAN, THE SPANGENBERG GROUP 24 25 KING COURT REPORTING SERVICE 3 1 P R O C E E D I N G S 2 CHAIRMAN MORGAN: Good morning, everybody. 3 I want to welcome you to this meeting of the 4 Commission. We're very pleased to have you here. 5 I would like to start off with just a very brief 6 moment of contemplation, if we could, for our 7 servicemen who are abroad and engaged in their 8 various activities. 9 And so if you could join me in just a moment 10 of contemplation, I would appreciate it. 11 (Whereupon, there was a moment of silence.) 12 CHAIRMAN MORGAN: Thank you very much. I 13 think the only thing further that I'll say along 14 those lines is I think when we see all the things 15 that are happening and are going to be happening 16 in this country I'm sure that you all feel the 17 same way, that it really makes all of us think 18 about the principles of our country and the 19 reasons that we're here today doing this work in 20 this very important project that we're engaged in, 21 and so I really appreciate everybody's help. This 22 has been a hard-working Commission and we're going 23 to continue to work hard to do our job. 24 I would also like to welcome our newest 25 Commission member, Bill Ide, and thank you for KING COURT REPORTING SERVICE 4 1 joining the Commission and being here. 2 As I think a lot of you know, Bill is a 3 former president of the American Bar Association 4 and has a wide range of experience in the 5 corporate world, and Boston world, and other 6 circumstances, and so we're very happy to have 7 you, Bill. 8 MR. IDE: And the indigent world, too. 9 CHAIRMAN MORGAN: We are going to start off, 10 as you've seen in the agenda, with the views from 11 public defenders, but before we do that I'd like 12 to continue with our tradition of going around the 13 table and introducing ourselves, and then after 14 the Commission introduces itself we'll start with 15 Michael and then go around and the visitors, I'll 16 ask them to introduce themselves, although I think 17 over time we're starting to know each other a 18 little better. 19 Judge, maybe you could start for us. 20 JUDGE STEPHENS: All right. I'm Judge 21 Lawton Stephens, Superior Court, Athens, Georgia. 22 MR. KURTZ: I'm Paul Kurtz. I'm on the law 23 faculty of the University of Georgia. 24 MR. HUNTER: I'm Woody Hunter from Emory 25 University. KING COURT REPORTING SERVICE 5 1 MR. IDE: I'm Bill Ide and Charles 2 introduced me. 3 MR. MOBLEY: I'm John Mobley. I'm the 4 public defender of Troup County. 5 MS. EVERETT: I'm Terry Everett. I'm the 6 Houston public defender. 7 MR. DuBOSE: I'm Wilson DuBose and I'm with 8 a law firm in Madison, Georgia. 9 MS. HOLMEN: I'm Phyllis Holmen of Georgia 10 Legal Services. 11 MS. MUSTAKEEM: And I'm Aasia Mustakeem at 12 Paul, Goldstein, Frazer and Murphy. 13 CHAIRMAN MORGAN: Introduce yourselves. 14 MS. BOLTON: I'm Billie Bolton with the 15 Administrative Office of the Courts. 16 MR. MORGAN: And our reporter, you can 17 report your own name. 18 MS. KING: I'm Diane King with King Court 19 Reporting Service. 20 CHAIRMAN MORGAN: And Michael? 21 MR. SHAPIRO: I'm Mike Shapiro. I'm the 22 director of the Georgia Indigent Defense Council. 23 MS. BUTTERWORTH: I'm Kendall Butterworth 24 with BellSouth. 25 MS. DRAKE: I'm Michelle Drake. I'm with KING COURT REPORTING SERVICE 6 1 the Southern Center for Human Rights. 2 MS. SUN: I'm Tammie Sun with the Southern 3 Center for Human Rights. 4 MS. SERWER: I'm Tamara Serwer with the 5 Southern Center for Human Rights. 6 MR. HOLT: Bobby Holt from Antioch College. 7 MS. TOTONCHI: I'm sorry, Sara Totonchi with 8 Georgians for Equal Justice. 9 MR. MARIN: Ali Marin from Paris. 10 MR. BRIGHT: Hi. Steve Bright, also with 11 the Southern Center. 12 MR. MIDDLETON: I'm Mark Middleton with the 13 State Bar. 14 MS. WILTU: I'm Sandra Wiltu with the 15 Georgia House of Representatives research office. 16 MS. KUNG: I'm Lisa Kung with the State. 17 CHAIRMAN MORGAN: All right. Well, thank 18 you everyone, and thank you again for being here. 19 Are there any preliminary points of order 20 before we begin the program from the committee 21 members or the Commission? 22 Okay. Well, at this point I'm go to turn it 23 over to Wilson and ask him to introduce the first 24 portion of our program. 25 MR. DUBOSE: Thank you. I'm very pleased to KING COURT REPORTING SERVICE 7 1 introduce John Mobley from Troup County and Terry 2 Everett of Houston County. They are two public 3 defenders for their respective counties. 4 We invited them here today to provide this 5 Commission with the view of the prospective public 6 defenders in our current system, and we really 7 appreciate each of them for traveling away from 8 home today to share their views with us, and we 9 recognize them. 10 MR. MOBLEY: I guess I'll start out with a 11 brief description of my office. We have a hybrid 12 system now. We have a full-time office that 13 includes a full-time investigator, a full-time 14 assistant, and a full-time secretary/paralegal. 15 The office has been running for about a year 16 now, but the year before in '99 I was a contract 17 attorney at Troup County. The county had a solely 18 contract system consisting of six attorneys. Four 19 were from there in Troup County and two were from 20 Columbus. 21 Cheryl Hicks is the court administrator 22 there and she has been working since, I think, 23 about 1991 to instigate a full-time office and, 24 apparently, last year they released the funds to 25 help the Indigent Defense Council. They finally KING COURT REPORTING SERVICE 8 1 convinced the County Commission and showed the 2 need for a full-time office. 3 Now we have three contract attorneys and one 4 contract that remains open. We've also received 5 grant money from the Indigent Defense Council to 6 fill that spot as an internship with the hopes 7 that it will turn into a full-time slot for next 8 year. 9 Each of our attorneys in the full-time in 10 the office and our maximum goal is 200 felony 11 cases. Contract attorneys handle about 100 cases. 12 The first year that I have been there I've 13 been real pleased with the way things have been 14 going. We've got a lot of support all the way 15 from the jail in the DA's office and the judges as 16 well as a lot of support from the court services. 17 I'll let Terry give you a brief description 18 of her office. 19 MS. EVERETT: I don't know how to do it. 20 Would you prefer to do that? 21 I'm from Houston County. For those of you 22 who don't even know where Houston County is, 23 that's Warner Robins and Perry. Basically, I have 24 in effect two offices because Warner Robins is the 25 larger city, but Perry is the county seat, and so KING COURT REPORTING SERVICE 9 1 I have one secretary and two attorneys who are in 2 the Warner Robins office. 3 They handle state court cases. We handled 4 juvenile cases up until two years ago and a 5 decision was made then, because we had so many 6 conflicts with a lot of felonies that were getting 7 picked up, aggravated child molestations and 8 things of that nature, that they would go to a 9 contract system in the juvenile court. 10 The rest of the attorneys, although some of 11 them actually do state court cases, are down in 12 Perry just because of the situation of office 13 space. We're always at the bottom of the totem 14 pole, and so a lot of my people work in a 15 different court, but they have to be in Perry 16 because we have a larger office space there. 17 We're a little bit larger office than the 18 Troup County. That's LaGrange for people who 19 don't know where Troup County is. 20 MR. MOBLEY: I'm sorry. I thought everybody 21 knew where Troup County is. 22 MS. EVERETT: We handle a little over 1,600 23 misdemeanors every year, and we handle usually a 24 little over 1,300, and those are files, 1,300 25 files for felony cases. KING COURT REPORTING SERVICE 10 1 We pretty much put in a file everything that 2 we think is going to be indicted. Sometimes we're 3 wrong. Sometimes we have to combine files. 4 Sometimes we have to split files, depending on the 5 whims of the DA's office. 6 My office is, basically, very organized. We 7 go to the jail everyday. As far as the Superior 8 Court, we have an indigent defense coordinator. 9 She, basically, does the qualification and 10 indicates to us who we are to see. 11 Mostly to make the jail happy, we go with 12 her when she goes. We go first thing in the 13 morning unless it's a court day. That has worked 14 out really nicely because if there are conflicts 15 we can figure out who the conflict is. If there 16 are several co-defendants there. If there are 17 people that are having some problem with the jail 18 we go on and try to clear that matter up at the 19 same time. 20 We are a county that is in the process of 21 building a new courthouse and a new jail. That 22 has caused us a little bit of grief in regard to 23 jail visits because some of their people are now 24 housed down at the Florida line. We have some 25 people housed in North Georgia. We have people KING COURT REPORTING SERVICE 11 1 housed pretty much throughout the State of 2 Georgia. 3 We do have a computer system to track them 4 and this is where the public defender's office has 5 an edge over the private bar because we have to 6 try to help the private bar find their clients 7 sometimes, and I don't think you have that 8 problem. 9 MR. MOBLEY: I don't. I know exactly where 10 they are. 11 MS. EVERETT: You can find your clients. I 12 have a total of 10 attorney slots, including 13 myself. Thanks to the Georgia Indigent Council I 14 got a full-time slot last year, which the county 15 agreed to make a permanent slot. I got a 16 half-time slot whereby we got a half grant from 17 the Georgia Indigent Defense Council and a half 18 grant from the county for a slot that we're in the 19 process of filling. 20 I talked with John a little bit. He has the 21 same problem that I do in trying to attract new 22 people because we're outside Metro Atlanta and 23 most people do not want to go to LaGrange, or do 24 not want to go to Perry, Georgia, and so that has 25 been a real problem, I think, that we share in KING COURT REPORTING SERVICE 12 1 common, although we have different size offices. 2 Houston County has had a public defender's 3 office since the early seventies. They got one of 4 the old LEAA grants. The prior public defender 5 had been there, I think, about six and a half 6 years. 7 The public defenders up to that point in 8 time were pretty much a one-year or a two-year 9 public defender. They would be somebody that got 10 out of law school, they would meet people, they 11 would make contacts, and then they would go on. 12 I have been there since 1989 and thought 13 that we were having a good office, but we go back 14 to the City Hall and you must be a poster child 15 for the public defender. 16 Do you have any questions about how the 17 Houston County operates? 18 MR. KURTZ: Who -- 19 MS. EVERETT: I choke the judge up 20 sometimes, too. 21 MR. KURTZ: Who handles the conflicts? Who 22 decides -- I mean, I'm sure you can figure out 23 what the conflict is, but who appoints the 24 attorneys, and how is that done? 25 MS. EVERETT: For the State Court we, KING COURT REPORTING SERVICE 13 1 basically, go to the judge and say we have a 2 conflict and we kept this person and you need to 3 appoint. And the judge, or the judge's secretary, 4 I'm not sure who in the office actually does that. 5 For Superior Court, basically the judges 6 have a standing order whereby they have, I guess 7 for lack of a better word, indicated that the 8 indigent defense coordinator is their agent for 9 appointments, and so the judges don't actually 10 sign off on their appointments, the indigent 11 defense coordinator does. 12 And she, basically, has sort of a rotating 13 list. We try to have those divided as much as 14 possible by lawyers' abilities, but that's a 15 little difficult sometimes. 16 We try just saying you need to be out of law 17 school so long, but that doesn't necessarily pay. 18 We tried saying you have to have so many of this 19 type of case, and that has not particularly worked 20 out. 21 We have a select group of people in the 22 private bar. While they are unwilling to take 23 general cases, if we get in a bind on a murder 24 case, or an armed robbery, two strikes you're out, 25 something of that nature, they have agreed that KING COURT REPORTING SERVICE 14 1 they will come in and take appointments on a very 2 limited basis. 3 Otherwise in Houston County it's a very 4 voluntary system. Nobody has to be on the list. 5 They, basically, contact her if they want to be on 6 the list. 7 MR. MOBLEY: That's very similar to the way 8 it works in Troup County. We have the court 9 services/indigent defense administrator. Once a 10 person fills out the application for an attorney, 11 they go through and assign it either to my office 12 or to one of the contract attorneys, and if there 13 is a conflict we let them know and they go back 14 and reassign the case. 15 MR. KURTZ: Is this type of system stable, 16 do you think, or is this on the way to a full-time 17 public defender? 18 MR. MOBLEY: Yes, I think it's on the way to 19 a full-time. Of course, you're always going to 20 have a conflict. You have to have a system that 21 can handle that, but I'm hoping from what I can 22 gather in support, I feel like soon we will have a 23 full-time public defender. 24 MR. DUBOSE: Who provided the resources? 25 MR. MOBLEY: I really have to give credit to KING COURT REPORTING SERVICE 15 1 Cheryl Hicks. Like I said, she was started -- I 2 think her -- back in '91 she was the first one 3 there in Troup County that really saw the need for 4 a full-time office and she has been taking steps 5 every year and this, of course, is a slow process 6 in trying to convince the County Commission that 7 they have to spend more money to improve the 8 system, but I think she's done that, and this is 9 just the next step in going to a full-time office. 10 We went away from a total contract system to 11 now my office with three contracts once the spot 12 opens, but I think it's just another step in the 13 process. 14 MS. EVERETT: And I know John, but I have 15 actually had the most contact with Cheryl because 16 Cheryl has been after me for about ten years. 17 Send me your budget. Send me this. 18 And I don't know exactly how she did it, but 19 I think she has contacted other offices, but she 20 has really been a moving force in gathering the 21 materials for the Houston County public defender's 22 office. 23 MR. DUBOSE: John, do you actively oppose 24 moving to the public defender system? 25 MR. MOBLEY: No, sir. Like I said, I've got KING COURT REPORTING SERVICE 16 1 a lot of support. A good response. I think the 2 court calendar is moving well. We're representing 3 the clients well. Meeting the clients' needs. 4 The judges seem very, very happy with it. The 5 DA's office seems happy with it. It makes their 6 job easier. And so I'm very, very hopeful that 7 this will continue to grow and be a lot better 8 office. 9 I've talked to other public defenders around 10 the state and I feel very fortunate to be where I 11 am, and also to have the support and the 12 interaction that I have with the DAs and the 13 judges. 14 And I think Terry may address some problems 15 that she recently had, but I have been lucky 16 enough not to have any major problems. 17 JUDGE STEPHENS: What percentage of your 18 clients do you meet for the first time at 19 arraignment? 20 MR. MOBLEY: Almost zero, unless they're 21 appointed right then. The jail, as soon as 22 someone is booked or arrested they give them a 23 form to fill out to apply for an attorney. Once 24 they're filled out, the court services goes down 25 and picks up those forms on a daily basis, or KING COURT REPORTING SERVICE 17 1 every other day. 2 They're assigned to our office within a day. 3 Our investigator picks up the files. Our 4 secretary actually creates the file and puts the 5 appropriate forms in the file, and he is usually 6 down there the following day. 7 He sees them, the investigator sees them, 8 interviews them, gets basic information, comes 9 back to me and gives me a brief synopsis of the 10 case and I see them within a day or two. 11 And so probably 95 percent of our clients 12 are seen within a week of them being down there at 13 the jail, and so I'm happy with the way things are 14 run. 15 JUDGE STEPHENS: Have you ever had problems 16 with clients not making office appointments or not 17 coming to meet you and tell them -- 18 MS. EVERETT: That is a problem. If they 19 get out on bond we send them a letter saying they 20 have to go back and requalify. Once they 21 requalify we reassign the case and contact them 22 and tell them to schedule an appointment to come 23 in. 24 That is the problem. Sometimes they won't 25 make their appointment and I won't be able to see KING COURT REPORTING SERVICE 18 1 them until they show up at the arraignment, and 2 that is a problem, but the Judges, they understand 3 that. They consider it a problem in getting the 4 case ready and the judges, they certainly 5 understand. 6 MS. EVERETT: My situation would be pretty 7 much the same thing. I would say less than half 8 of a percent probably, if that many. It sort of 9 varies from arraignment to arraignment. Again, 10 it's a situation usually of people who have bonded 11 out before we have seen them. 12 We have had a public defender's office so 13 long, though, that clients will bond out and then 14 they'll call us the next day and say, you know, 15 you didn't get out to see me yesterday. And I'm 16 saying well, you came in like about 10:00 o'clock 17 at night and I did go home and sleep, but you need 18 to go and see Ms. Howard and then, you know, we 19 can take care of you. 20 If we had represented a client in the past 21 and we have an open file on that client and there 22 is special presentments and things that we were 23 not aware of, we send a letter to that client 24 saying -- because we get all of the indictments if 25 they're indicted by agreement with the clerk's KING COURT REPORTING SERVICE 19 1 office so we don't go there and harass her, we 2 just get a whole copy as they come to her. She 3 runs a copy for the public defender's office. 4 And so as we go through and pick out the 5 indictments on the files that we have open, if 6 there is someone -- if I had represented you in 7 the past, or I have an open file I would send you 8 a letter and say, you know, dear judge, it's come 9 to our attention that you've been indicted by the 10 grand jury. You need to contact Ms. Howard and 11 here is her number and you need to do this, or if 12 you want to hire an attorney we've got a little 13 form letter you need to have that attorney file an 14 entry of appearance for you. 15 We probably have maybe a few more than John 16 because I-75 goes through our county and so a lot 17 of times people will make bond and do not come 18 back to court until arraignment because the bonds 19 will make sure they show up then. 20 The clerk's office and the calendar clerk, 21 basically those send out -- when we get our 22 arraignment calendar a letter goes out that says, 23 in effect, if you don't have a lawyer you need to 24 contact Judy Howard now as far as the felonies go. 25 For misdemeanors, Judge Richardson handles KING COURT REPORTING SERVICE 20 1 things a little differently. He handles 2 arraignments sort of like what I would call more 3 of a calendar call. Two Fridays a month everybody 4 that's been arrested on everything, whether it is 5 a misdemeanor or whether it's a traffic offense, 6 basically have to show up. 7 They're given a day on their bond, and at 8 that time a determination is made whether they 9 need an attorney. The judge, basically, doesn't 10 do a lot of picking and choosing. He doesn't want 11 to worry like, you know, can I get jail time for 12 this or whatever? He says, if you want to see if 13 you qualify for the public defender's office get 14 in this line and we, basically, have somebody 15 there that qualifies. For State Court we run 16 qualifications. 17 MR. MOBLEY: Our office doesn't handle State 18 Court cases, just Superior Court. They have two 19 attorneys that handles State Court. 20 MR. DUBOSE: Contract attorneys? 21 MR. MOBLEY: Yes. 22 CHAIRMAN MORGAN: We have heard -- and by 23 the way, I hope you understand the charge of this 24 Commission, which is to review the status of the 25 indigent defense system in our state and to make KING COURT REPORTING SERVICE 21 1 any recommendations. 2 And so one of the things that we're going to 3 ask you at the end is if you have any suggestions 4 for this Commission for the work that we should be 5 doing or that sort of thing. I'll let you sort of 6 think about that while we continue. 7 This Commission has heard that there are 8 situations in our state where people have been in 9 jail for a long period of time and have never seen 10 a lawyer until at the last minute at the 11 arraignment, and that person shows up. 12 From what you've said it sounds like that's 13 not your experience and I just wanted to ask you, 14 are you aware of that kind of a situation in other 15 parts of the state from talking to other lawyers 16 who are involved in defense work? 17 MS. EVERETT: I will stay almost everywhere 18 there is not a public defender's office because 19 the judge basically has me charged with the jail 20 population, sort of. 21 You know, he wants to know why so many 22 people are in jail. He doesn't care if they get 23 out or if they get convicted, but he wants them 24 moving. He doesn't want us to be paying for them. 25 I think the problem is, and this happens KING COURT REPORTING SERVICE 22 1 sometimes, we go to the jail and someone indicates 2 to Ms. Howard my daddy is hiring me an attorney, 3 and so we mark down at that point in time refused, 4 but if we don't see an attorney's name showing up, 5 we have bond hearings once a week, and if that 6 person shows up without an attorney, she goes out 7 to see them again before the bond hearing and 8 says, basically, you know, it doesn't look like 9 you got an attorney, do you want to see if you 10 qualify for the public defender's office? 11 Again, that's the judge's preference because 12 the judge will let him do pro se bond hearings, 13 but in our county basically you get a one time 14 face-to-face show-up unless there is some real 15 extenuating circumstances. 16 After that we have a little form that you 17 write, you know, it's been 30 days, are you 18 feeling a little better than you were last month, 19 judge? Or something to that effect. 20 But, generally, if you don't get bond the 21 first time you're probably not going to get bond 22 on down the road. And so the judge will tell them 23 if they're pro se you may need to think long and 24 hard about this because I'm not going to let you 25 come back next week with an attorney. KING COURT REPORTING SERVICE 23 1 Sometimes people indicate they do not want 2 an attorney. Sometimes they indicate that they 3 do. We get letters -- I'm sure John does, too. I 4 get letters from other counties, basically, that 5 say someone is housed over here from Houston and 6 they said you won't let me do this, that, or the 7 other, you know, come see me, and they're on 8 another county's case. 9 But I think that's not unusual at all 10 because the problem is when you get into the jail 11 system sometimes the right hand doesn't know what 12 the left hand is doing. 13 And I think a good case in point, because we 14 were opening up so many probation cases, the judge 15 developed something where if it's technical 16 violations the people can simply sign a waiver and 17 they don't come to court and the judge signs off 18 on that. They don't have an attorney. 19 There was one person who basically sent me a 20 letter and said I know you're not my lawyer this 21 time, but you need to get me out because I was 22 supposed to get out two weeks ago. And although 23 he was no longer my client, I started looking and 24 he was, in fact, supposed to have gotten out two 25 weeks ago. KING COURT REPORTING SERVICE 24 1 But this is what people are always saying: 2 I'm not supposed to be here, I'm innocent, I'm not 3 supposed to be in jail, and he was housed in 4 another county. 5 The jail situation, and I'm not sure how 6 John's jail is, but in our jail we have two shifts 7 of jailers per day, and two shifts of jailers per 8 week, and so we're seeing different personnel all 9 the time and there is not a lot of continuity 10 sometimes. Somebody comes in on shift change and 11 they don't get put in the computer and you may not 12 see them. 13 We get a newly incarcerated printout 14 everyday, which is supposed to be everybody that 15 was arrested from 4:00 o'clock one morning until 16 4:00 o'clock the following morning. We also have 17 little forms, though, that says if you want an 18 attorney send this, you know, form up, and it's 19 not unusual at all that we have a format that 20 says, you know, my name is John. Come see me. I 21 got arrested. And they don't show up because of a 22 computer glitch or something. 23 Even for us we would not catch that person 24 ordinarily until the following Monday when we run 25 an entire jail list to see who is where and where KING COURT REPORTING SERVICE 25 1 they've moved everybody to. 2 MR. MOBLEY: I think that the jail in Troup 3 County does a really good job. The sheriff 4 really, if somebody has been in jail a long time, 5 which is three or four months, or five months, and 6 whether they've seen us or another attorney or 7 not, they don't know. They'll just call me and 8 say, hey, we've got Joe Blow down here. He's been 9 down here for five months. Why is he still down 10 here? 11 They do a real good job of keeping track and 12 making sure folks don't get lost. I've been in 13 both, a panel system and a contract system, and 14 those are situations where you will have people in 15 jail for six, seven months before they're even 16 seen. 17 Some of the smaller counties, they have a 18 system where at arraignment if you show up if you 19 don't have an attorney, and they only have court 20 maybe two or three times a year, and you could 21 have been in jail for six months and if you show 22 up at arraignment and you don't have an attorney 23 and you get assigned an attorney that day and then 24 trial is a week or two later. 25 That's not a very good system to have, and KING COURT REPORTING SERVICE 26 1 some of these counties that I have been in I heard 2 that they're trying to change the system, but that 3 is the way that you just get lost, or forgot 4 about, or isn't there. 5 MR. KURTZ: It sounds like both of you are 6 pretty comfortable that you're seeing the people 7 relatively quickly and you're seeing the vast 8 majority of them. I'm curious to know -- I get 9 the sense that both of your counties are 10 relatively small counties and, therefore, the jail 11 population is obviously consequently likewise 12 small. 13 About how big is the jail population at any 14 moment in Troup County and Houston? 15 MS. EVERETT: Well, in Houston it's about 16 400 people, but like I said, they're scattered 17 throughout Georgia. 18 MR. KURTZ: Oh, I see. Four hundred under 19 custody, but who knows where they are; they are 20 lots of different places. 21 MS. EVERETT: Uh-huh. 22 MR. KURTZ: What about you? 23 MR. MOBLEY: Our office handles about 800 24 indigent defense cases a year, and I think that 25 the jail probably has maybe 200 at any one time, KING COURT REPORTING SERVICE 27 1 maybe less. That's a ballpark figure. I'm not 2 exactly sure how many they have. I don't believe 3 that it's a huge number. 4 MR. KURTZ: In other words, the bigger the 5 operation the more likely there is to be things 6 going through the cracks? 7 MS. EVERETT: Well, I think, too, in a 8 situation like we have because we have people 9 housed out here, and there is not a big incentive 10 for someone in another jail to call long distance 11 and say hey, this person says that he's not 12 supposed to be in my jail. 13 For one thing, we're paying those people $50 14 a day to keep those people in their jail, and for 15 some places it's a cottage industry for some 16 reason. They're housing Houston County's 17 overflows. 18 MR. KURTZ: I assume that these prisoners 19 are not sent to other places until they have had a 20 chance to work with you? 21 MS. EVERETT: Even though you're very wrong 22 in that. 23 MR. KURTZ: I'm wrong. It won't be the 24 first time. 25 MS. EVERETT: Today I'm not on the sheriff's KING COURT REPORTING SERVICE 28 1 good list because yesterday we had preliminary 2 hearings and I was missing three people. Of 3 course, you know, you begin a preliminary hearing. 4 I'm me, and what we do in prelims, my public 5 defender's office is a little different than some 6 offices. We are sort of more like a private law 7 firm, I guess, because that was my background. 8 You get a case assigned to you initially and 9 you keep it all the way through. Some of the 10 bigger public defenders' offices, there is a trial 11 attorney, or there is a bond attorney, you know, 12 this, that or the other. 13 So, basically, I'm there saying I'm here for 14 everybody and we're going to call role and see who 15 is here, and this is a preliminary hearing, and 16 this is what's going to happen. 17 And so I'm missing three people and I'm 18 saying, excuse me, I believe I'm missing three 19 people. Well, we're looking for them. And so I 20 go to the computer. One is in Dublin. And I'm 21 sort of between Warner Robins and Perry in 22 Magistrate Court. 23 One of them is down in Turner County, and I 24 don't know if you're familiar with that. It's 25 about halfway to Valdosta from Perry. KING COURT REPORTING SERVICE 29 1 And the other one, I'm not sure where they 2 finally found him. I think they finally found him 3 in Dooly County, which is Vienna. 4 And so the Magistrate is sitting there 5 twiddling her thumbs. Everybody is sitting there 6 twiddling their thumbs, and I only had 10 people 7 on the calendar and three of them were not there. 8 Now, that's a little unusual because we know 9 that Monday was a holiday and so usually on Monday 10 if we saw people weren't there for a hearing we 11 would just start court. 12 We have a little form that says bring 13 somebody back. They pay no real attention to 14 this, again, because there is no continuity. I 15 would say judge, please write on there don't move 16 this person because you have a trial demand and 17 he's on next week's calendar. 18 And I look and he's gone and, you know, I 19 talked to the judge and what do you do? And the 20 judge calls and says go get him, bring him back 21 now and don't move him. But sometimes it takes 22 three or four bad dogs before somebody stays 23 there. 24 The idea is that if they're going to move 25 the people out who have already been convicted the KING COURT REPORTING SERVICE 30 1 problem is, though, sometimes those people aren't 2 too happy because they have, in fact, been 3 convicted, they're causing trouble, and these 4 people know it's not worth $50 a day when they're 5 kicking down the commodes and things of that 6 nature. 7 And so we end up just sometimes because of 8 the luck of the draw who the clients are at that 9 point in time and everybody is pretty much already 10 convicted and has no court appearances while we're 11 saying, you know, please, I need somebody back. 12 MR. KURTZ: And in those situations they'll 13 send a policeman someplace to go and get them? 14 MS. EVERETT: When I call they do. 15 MR. IDE: Charles, has anybody explained 16 this computer system? Is there a state-wide 17 computer system for all Superior Courts, or does 18 each Superior Court has its own computer? 19 MS. EVERETT: Houston County has had their 20 own computer system since about '92 that links 21 into everybody. '89 they had a partial system. 22 Basically, I can pull up jail inventory to see 23 where my clients are. On the one for the Warner 24 Robins office I can see unserved warrants. 25 The DA insisted that I not see unserved KING COURT REPORTING SERVICE 31 1 warrants because I was going to tell these people 2 run for the hills. These people want me to see 3 unserved warrants so I go hey, we've got this 4 person in court and we need take care of this 5 other matter. 6 And so with a little negotiation I can see 7 warrants served and unserved; I can see probations 8 data base; I can -- I used to be able to see the 9 DA's office but they've gone to their own program 10 now; I can see what's been filed on the criminal 11 side; I can see who the convicts are that have 12 been appointed for co-defendants. 13 MR. IDE: Now, that system that you're on is 14 not the same system that's in Troup County? 15 MS. EVERETT: No. 16 MR. IDE: Not a state-wide system? 17 MS. EVERETT: No. Each county has their own 18 system and I'm not sure what all John can see. 19 MR. MOBLEY: I can pretty much see the same 20 information. Who their attorney is, when their 21 arraignment is, if they have been sent to some 22 other county. Pretty much the same information. 23 MR. IDE: Somebody down in Dooly County that 24 belongs to you, have they got a computer system 25 down there who says that they've got somebody that KING COURT REPORTING SERVICE 32 1 really belongs to you? 2 MS. EVERETT: No, and this is further 3 complicated in Laurens County because the city of 4 Warner Robins has a contract with Laurens County 5 for their people for city court, and so sometimes 6 we will call and say we need somebody and they are 7 like he's already come to your court and wait, 8 wait, and wait, and we find out that Warner Robins 9 has picked them up on littering or something that 10 they happen to go in because they didn't come back 11 and do their community service or whatever. 12 It's getting more and more complicated. I 13 know the legislature and I know some here are 14 trying to help, but we now have private probations 15 for the misdemeanors, and we now have a different 16 private probation for Magistrate Court, and yet a 17 different private probation for the Superior Court 18 people I have that we talked to the DA's office 19 into letting them plead to a misdemeanor. 20 And so when you see a hold on probation 21 sometimes it takes us a half day to figure out who 22 really has a hold on it if they haven't been taken 23 to the jail because private probations are out 24 there in each court and they determine which 25 private probation they want to use. KING COURT REPORTING SERVICE 33 1 And so it is not unusual at all that I have 2 a client that may be on private probation supposed 3 to be paying large amounts of money. I don't know 4 if that answers your question. I mean, we can see 5 some limited things. 6 MR. DUBOSE: Let me ask you a question. 7 Does funding come from county versus GIDC grant 8 money? And secondly, from a practical standpoint, 9 political standpoint, how do you go about funding 10 this program? 11 MS. EVERETT: We've redone the budget again 12 but, you know, the legislature says you have to 13 show where money is really going. And so what 14 used to be in the county's general fund is now in 15 my budget, and so my budget jumped. It makes me 16 look good, I guess, from a half a million dollars 17 to $800,000 because I'm helping to pay for 18 everybody else's computer system and things of 19 that nature. 20 Indigent Defense gives me about what my -- a 21 little over $100,000, I think, something like 22 that. That money doesn't come to me per se. That 23 goes to the county to supposedly reimburse what 24 money I've already spent. 25 What I have learned to do, though, is tell KING COURT REPORTING SERVICE 34 1 Ms. Howard please give me the check and I'll take 2 it to the County Commissioner. And so I hold on 3 to it with one hand and say I need a new computer, 4 or I need, you know, whatever, and then they'll go 5 like no, and, you know, and so I go look, I need a 6 new computer. 7 And so they will finally give me a small 8 amount, and that's basically -- well, you've been 9 there. Mike's the judge. I mean, that's the way 10 we do things. 11 MR. SHAPIRO: That's why we send you the 12 check. 13 MS. EVERETT: That's why you send me the 14 check. 15 The first year we got the grant they didn't 16 want to get it because they said it would be too 17 much trouble. And I said well, you know, if they 18 gave us $1,000 that's $1,000. 19 They being County Commissioners and the 20 judges at that point in time because they were 21 saying we're going to have the state in here and 22 they're going to be nosing around, and I'm saying 23 you can blame it on me. Just say she came from 24 Alabama. We can't teach her anything. You know, 25 this is what you need to do. KING COURT REPORTING SERVICE 35 1 They thought it was going to be minuscule. 2 I think the first year we got about $16,000, I 3 think, which at that time almost paid for an 4 attorney because when I first came there beginning 5 attorneys made like $22,000 a year. 6 What I do is I decide what the market will 7 bear to some degree, but they can come in and they 8 whack it out. I don't generally get a budget 9 here, per se. I make requests and I say I need 10 this. They call me and say that seems like an 11 awful lot for court reporting, and I say well talk 12 to the court reporter, you know, I'm not the one 13 that gets this money. 14 And we go back and forth, and sometimes they 15 slash me and say we'll give it back to you when 16 the grant money comes. 17 Houston County is, I guess, still the only 18 tax cut county in Georgia, and so unless the judge 19 really orders them to do something they have to 20 work within constraints and, generally, my people 21 are the last people to get the money except when 22 they want a check. 23 MR. DUBOSE: Is the Superior Court judge 24 ever involved in lobbying or funding for indigent 25 defense? KING COURT REPORTING SERVICE 36 1 MS. EVERETT: I think they are not permitted 2 to lobby per se, am I correct, judge? I guess. 3 They have come to my defense on many 4 occasions in regard to when we were trying to get 5 salary increases and things of that nature. They, 6 basically, saved my office in June, the judges 7 did, because the County Commission just decided 8 after talking to the DA's office for some unknown 9 reason, without even bothering to talk to me, that 10 they could do this cheaper and if they were just 11 going to switch over to this system. 12 I think it was supposed to be a contract 13 system with 10 attorneys getting $50,000 a year to 14 do what we were doing and the judges very much got 15 involved in that particular situation and, in 16 effect, told the County Commission you fund it, 17 but we say what kind of delivery system we hire. 18 And there is a real issue there because I 19 talked to Mike and I think it depends on how 20 strong the judges are because I think the counties 21 sometimes say we're paying for it. We get to say, 22 you know, how it goes. 23 And this was very much a surprise to me. 24 Most of you know my child has been very sick and 25 actually died in August and I was home with him KING COURT REPORTING SERVICE 37 1 because he was very sick and so the county 2 administrator called and said, "I really hate to 3 bother you at home but you might want to know that 4 the County Commissioner is talking about closing 5 your office." 6 And I won't tell you exactly what I said, 7 but I expressed some surprise in that manner. And 8 so I basically called the judge and said, you 9 know, I'm walking. If they're closing it down 10 there is not going to be any transition. You can 11 have my 300 cases and I'm going to Bibb County and 12 make $65 an hour, you know, in their courts or 13 whatever. 14 And the judges knew nothing about it because 15 they're going like what? You know, what are you 16 talking about now? And they had not consulted the 17 judges. They had not consulted anybody. The DA 18 went over there and told him it would be a good 19 idea because they can save money because we 20 supposedly were spending all of this large amount 21 of money and he, basically, just lied about how 22 much money he was getting, you know. 23 I mean, he's saying I'm running my whole 24 office on $200,000 a year or something, and look 25 at her. She's got over $1 million. And I did KING COURT REPORTING SERVICE 38 1 have over $1 million and he certainly was not 2 running his on $200,000, but it was that situation 3 and suddenly, for whatever reason, the County 4 Commission could have had total control. 5 Mike knows, and some of you may know, I had 6 a reverse situation a few years before this. We 7 had a retired judge and he was giving me good 8 marks and everything, but I basically just said 9 judge, I don't think you need to be my supervisor, 10 you know, because I'm going to do what I'm going 11 to do and if you say talks too much or whatever 12 then I'm going to still be doing my job, but 13 somebody else, you know, I'm not going to be 14 public defender forever and I just think that this 15 is not a proper thing. 16 And he said, well, it may be or whatever 17 but, you know, I'm going to give you a good mark 18 or whatever, and so the next thing I know I get 19 this letter that says you're terminated. And so I 20 wrote back and said why? And he goes you know. 21 And I wrote back and said no, I don't. 22 And so we did this for a while and that is 23 the occasion, though, where, basically, the County 24 Commission backed me against the judge because I 25 said I'm an old white woman and this isn't going KING COURT REPORTING SERVICE 39 1 to be pretty. 2 I'm your only female department head and I'm 3 working with a lot of stress here and, you know, I 4 know where all the problems are in your jail and 5 some other situations. And, basically, they told 6 the judge no. And the other judge took up for me, 7 too. 8 Now, that judge is a senior judge and he and 9 I are friends and I still haven't figured out what 10 I supposedly did to him, but I think that's 11 something that this committee needs to understand 12 that where we have an office and it looks like 13 it's going well because I had just gone there in 14 May holding a check saying I need -- I forgot what 15 I needed then, but I need something, and they're 16 there singing my praises. 17 I mean, Mike's been there before and I'm 18 going, who are they talking about? And, you know, 19 you got the model office and you've got this and 20 then I was this close to being gone and if the 21 county administrator had not thought enough of me 22 to call and say, you know -- and he sort of put 23 his job on the line but, you know, you might want 24 to know this. 25 And if the judges had not basically, you KING COURT REPORTING SERVICE 40 1 know, come to my defense then I wouldn't be here 2 today telling you that I'm a Houston County public 3 defender. I would say I used to be the Houston 4 County public defender from 1989 until, you know, 5 June of this year. 6 JUDGE ADAMS: Terry, Harris Adams from Cobb 7 County. How are you doing? 8 MS. EVERETT: How are you? 9 JUDGE ADAMS: I came in a little late and so 10 I may be asking you something that you've already 11 explained. Your circuit is a multi-county? 12 MS. EVERETT: One county. 13 JUDGE ADAMS: How is it that all of these 14 people seem to be housed all over central and 15 south Georgia in a different jail? 16 MS. EVERETT: Because we have a jail that 17 the maximum capacity of our jail is about 180 18 people, and that's assuming that everybody came in 19 is the right male, female, maximum, minimum, that 20 situation. And we have a jail population usually 21 somewhere around 400, and so in the process -- 22 we're in the process of building a new jail. 23 JUDGE ADAMS: When is it to be completed? 24 MS. EVERETT: Supposedly next year, but this 25 has been a situation that we have been dealing KING COURT REPORTING SERVICE 41 1 with since I was, of course, a public defender. 2 We have been housing out of county. I think 3 they've been doing it since the early seventies or 4 something because, basically, they had a very 5 small jail. 6 The jail that was in Warner Robins where 7 they were housing the women in was really more of 8 a holding facility than a jail. They got some 9 complaints from the fire marshal and they had no 10 windows and a whole lot of things, and so that 11 turned into the work release program, but there is 12 just no space to put people. 13 They're backing up partially, too, from the 14 state system. Probably as much as a fourth of 15 their people are really state people for various 16 reasons. 17 MR. KURTZ: Terry, how many lawyers do you 18 have? 19 MS. EVERETT: I have 10 slots. Nine of them 20 are filled now, that includes me. 21 MR. KURTZ: And are you the longest serving? 22 MS. EVERETT: Well, actually my chief 23 assistant was there before me because the other 24 person had taken a leave of absence to run for DA. 25 At that time there were two other public KING COURT REPORTING SERVICE 42 1 defenders, but when the public defender quit they 2 hired, who is now my chief assistant, as a law 3 clerk. She was still in law school. And so she 4 was actually there before me, but she didn't pass 5 the bar until October and then she came on as an 6 attorney. 7 MR. KURTZ: And what about your most junior 8 attorney, when did he or she arrive? 9 MS. EVERETT: My most junior attorney is 10 supposed to be reporting next week as soon as he 11 passes his drug test. 12 MR. KURTZ: How much would you pay an entry 13 level person out of law school? 14 MS. EVERETT: Entry level pay now is 15 $39,000. The county does pay their insurance. 16 There is no employee contribution on that. The 17 problem that we keep running into, I think maybe 18 we ought to address this, is we get good resumes, 19 we call to talk to them, and they basically say 20 how much would my take home be a month? And we 21 tell them approximately, based on somebody else's, 22 and they tell us that their school loans are more 23 than that. 24 MR. KURTZ: My question is, does that 25 compare generally with what an entry level DA KING COURT REPORTING SERVICE 43 1 would make about the same? 2 MS. EVERETT: No, and I'm glad that you 3 brought this up because they have just hired a 4 senior drug attorney in the DA's office who had 5 never tried a drug case in his life, but because 6 he had been a police officer in the past they 7 thought this was some comparable experience, like 8 recognizing a search warrant or something. 9 And so they, basically, hired him at a level 10 that is one step below me. I'm a Level 33, he's a 11 Level 32. My chief assistant is a Level 29, and 12 everybody else is a 28. 13 I said, you know, we've all worked in 14 convenience stores or whatever and that's where my 15 clients shopped there and so give us some 16 experience. 17 Well, I mean, it's basically the same type 18 of thing. I mean, I've gone out on the street, 19 I've been a police officer, but, basically, we 20 have a real problem and I understand this from the 21 public conception because the DA goes -- they 22 never think twice, although he's lied to them 23 repeatedly and they admit well he tells the truth 24 and that's probably the problem, but he goes and 25 says, you know, we can really move cases through KING COURT REPORTING SERVICE 44 1 if you give me this person and actually you want 2 him to be a step over me, and they go like oh, no. 3 That's going to make her real unhappy. 4 MR. KURTZ: So how much does that translate 5 into? 6 MS. EVERETT: I think the beginning pay for 7 that is something like 39 -- I mean, $49,500 or 8 something like that, but they gave him, although 9 everyone else can only get two steps of experience 10 if they actually have experience, they moved him 11 up because of experience, and then they gave him 12 two more years, and so he is actually a C level 13 instead of an A level where everybody else comes 14 on as an A level. 15 MR. KURTZ: Okay. 16 MS. EVERETT: But they have difficulty 17 understanding, you know. They can have 50 million 18 prosecutors out there and if there is not a 19 defender there the judge can't go forward and they 20 have a hard time seeing this. 21 He says give me more people. We're going to 22 put the bite out of crime. We're going to get you 23 some convictions here and it just doesn't happen. 24 And the problem is I have two attorneys on the 25 County Commission but most of the people are from KING COURT REPORTING SERVICE 45 1 some other walk in life. 2 You know, the banker is upset with me 3 because we handle bad check cases and I'm saying 4 the judge tells me take it out of his budget. 5 He's the one that says that I have to handle bad 6 check cases. 7 But we have this problem of the DA says get 8 me this thing and they don't blink twice. And 9 I've said like excuse me, but you've got to buy me 10 another computer because we made computers out of 11 computers as long as we can, and they say no. 12 And the solicitor's office bought me a 13 computer because they get all of this drug money 14 and all of this other sort of stuff, and because 15 we actually move cases through and the solicitor 16 general says I will buy you a computer and I will 17 buy you a desk and a chair, and I said thank you 18 very much, but we're still going to kick your 19 butt. And he says you do that. 20 But this is the problem that we have and 21 they've got people over there with Palm Pilots, 22 and cell phones, and they've got their little 23 uniforms saying Houston County DA's office and 24 that sort of thing, and I'm there saying okay, we 25 don't need to make any long distance calls unless KING COURT REPORTING SERVICE 46 1 we have to. And I think John will tell you the 2 same thing. 3 A large portion of my day is sitting here 4 struggling with, you know, if the judge says no on 5 some sort of test then I move it out of some 6 budget to pay for it if somebody really needs it. 7 Or if we need a transcript on a case that wasn't 8 ours that we don't have any right to have free, 9 you know, can I afford to buy this transcript? 10 And the DA's office says I need. I'm out of 11 money. Give me some more money. 12 MR. KURTZ: John, how many lawyers do you 13 have? 14 MR. MOBLEY: I just have one other than me. 15 We have funds from Mike of about $27,000 to fill 16 an internship that I had mentioned earlier. 17 Hopefully, it will be a full-time spot, but it's 18 just so difficult we haven't got any responses. 19 MR. KURTZ: How long has this other attorney 20 been there? 21 MR. MOBLEY: The whole time. I was hired 22 July of last year and he started about the same 23 time that I did contract. 24 MR. KURTZ: And were you a contract attorney 25 before that? KING COURT REPORTING SERVICE 47 1 MR. MOBLEY: Yes. I was a contract attorney 2 for about a year, and I believe Troup County got a 3 $30,000 grant to start their office, and that's 4 when I was hired. 5 And then I also hired the assistant at the 6 same time along with the other members of the 7 staff. We've got about a $225,000 budget, and 8 that's just our office. I believe that you had 9 asked about our budget earlier and, of course, I 10 do have the problems that Terry has going to ask 11 for more money. 12 Indigent defense is not the most popular 13 thing you go and ask for more money for. You've 14 got to go and win favors. It certainly is not 15 going to help anybody's political career, but so 16 far things have been running real well in my 17 office. I really haven't been there quite long 18 enough to run into some of the problems that Terry 19 has, but I'm sure I will. 20 MR. KURTZ: Is Troup a one county circuit, 21 also? 22 MR. MOBLEY: No, it's five other counties. 23 MR. KURTZ: And how is indigent defense 24 handled in those other counties? 25 MR. MOBLEY: A lot differently. A lot KING COURT REPORTING SERVICE 48 1 differently. The other counties, Heard County is 2 next to us and they have a very small caseload and 3 they just have to -- the court administrator begs, 4 borrows, and steals anyone to go up there and 5 handle the small number of cases. 6 Coweta County has its own set of problems. 7 I'm sure Steven can address that further. And 8 it's so surprising the way the two different 9 systems are run. Although we're in the same 10 judicial circuit, Troup County is run so 11 differently. 12 MR. KURTZ: Coweta is a contract system or a 13 panel? 14 MR. MOBLEY: It's a contract system. 15 MR. BRIGHT: There are two lawyers. And one 16 question that you might want to address in Coweta 17 County, over half of the indigent defendants in 18 felony cases proceed without lawyers. 19 What would be the percentage in your county, 20 in Troup County? Do they proceed without lawyers 21 at all, they negotiate pro se with District 22 Attorneys uncounseled, they enter guilty pleas, 23 and they're sentenced to substantial time without 24 lawyers. 25 MS. EVERETT: In my county the judge at KING COURT REPORTING SERVICE 49 1 least says Ms. Everett is going to sit with you if 2 you need her and you need to listen to her. You 3 can represent yourself if you want to, but I tell 4 you not to, and she's going to be there and she's 5 going to pick your jury, and she's going to do 6 some other things. 7 And except for a couple of people that were 8 just buried in the system, I can't remember this 9 happening. 10 Occassionally I'm in probation pleas or 11 something and the judge will say this to them and 12 they will indicate I have money, but I just don't 13 want to spend it on a lawyer, or something like 14 that, and he will let them go forward. But as far 15 as a trial, there is not going to be one without a 16 lawyer sitting there. 17 You probably seen one of those one time when 18 you were sitting there. Crystal Gaines came to 19 learn. To sit there and see us. 20 MS. HOLMEN: Is there any way to compare the 21 cost of your offices with the other -- the system 22 before your office, or the system, you know, a 23 non-attorney system in a comparable county? Is 24 that possible at all? 25 MS. EVERETT: Well, I have an interesting KING COURT REPORTING SERVICE 50 1 situation because at the beginning of this year, 2 of last year, and the very tail end of '99 we lost 3 someone who went to the DA's office, and I said 4 well what does this tell you because it's more pay 5 and easier work, you know? 6 I went to the judge and said, you know, 7 we're doing the best we can do here, but there is 8 a limit to what we can do. We come early, we stay 9 late, and I'm getting concerned that we don't know 10 what we're doing anymore. 11 And he asked how many cases that attorney 12 had. And that attorney at that point in time had 13 about 300 cases, and so he basically told the 14 indigent defense administrator well, appoint out 15 the next 300 cases. 16 Now the conflicts counted in there as well. 17 That counted as a part of it, but he appointed 18 those out for about two and a half months. So far 19 it's 300 and something thousand dollars. I think 20 they got into that. 21 They spent about 300 and something thousand 22 dollars for about 200 cases because actually after 23 awhile we were getting sort of bored because we 24 were sitting there and it was difficult because 25 people had always been represented by us because KING COURT REPORTING SERVICE 51 1 we keep the same people and, in fact, a private 2 attorney said please come out here and tell your 3 old client that he is not your client. This is my 4 client. 5 And I go out and say, "This is your lawyer." 6 And he goes, "Huh-uh, you've always been my 7 lawyer. And I go, "Not for right now. I'm on 8 vacation." 9 And I think that gave us an idea. And like 10 I said, that was the year that my whole budget -- 11 and this is office equipment, malpractice 12 insurance, everything -- was just a little over 13 $500,000. 14 And so they spent -- that was for a whole 15 year, and so far because cases are still out there 16 and they're still streaming in, but so far they 17 have spent somewhere around $300,000 for about two 18 and a half months. 19 MR. MOBLEY: I know from the old system to 20 the new system, I think the cost per case has gone 21 up maybe $200 or $300 per case, and that's almost 22 nothing. 23 It's hard, you know, to convince the County 24 Commission. I know we're only spending $150 per 25 case now instead of $450. Why in the world would KING COURT REPORTING SERVICE 52 1 I ever do that? But certainly the quality of 2 representation is the difference, and I think 3 that's what the county commissions have to see. 4 That's how they came to the point where they 5 realized we do have to come off some money. Now 6 again, I think it's just in the mindsets that 7 we've gotten by with spending so little on 8 indigent defense. It's an uphill battle. 9 MS. HOLMEN: How is Magistrate Court handled 10 in your county? 11 MR. MOBLEY: I'm not exactly sure. 12 MS. EVERETT: In my county we have an 13 attorney that does bad checks basically. I mean, 14 there is a few shopliftings that could be out in 15 the county, but our court has got wall-to-wall 16 seats so there is nothing handled other than bad 17 checks that was given up by the state courts 18 before the legislature said that the Magistrate is 19 going to handle this with some type of agreement. 20 We have preliminary hearings twice a month. 21 They're basically set. The present judge will not 22 let them have a preliminary hearing if they're out 23 on bond. The prior one basically did, but 24 basically everybody sort of dragged in for that 25 particular time and we usually have about from 10 KING COURT REPORTING SERVICE 53 1 to 20 people still left for the two week period 2 and we do that, but they basically -- we have a 3 public defender that shows up on their check days 4 which are, I think, twice a month, and that is 5 really more of they can't pay and so could they 6 have another month to get some money for the bad 7 checks and whatever. 8 A problem, though, that has developed again, 9 and this is where I don't think the legislature 10 has seen the big picture, is with private 11 probation their costs are much more than the state 12 probation, and so some of these people are on 13 probation in other areas, and we tried to 14 negotiate with the judge. 15 Now, judge we're having a problem. We're 16 using a lot of manhours, womanhours, whatever you 17 want to call them, to go and say they need another 18 month because these other cities are milking them 19 dry or whatever. 20 But that's a problem that these cases sort 21 of linger sometimes because he's been told sort of 22 don't put them in jail because they're paying $50 23 a day to house them out of town, but we don't want 24 to let them get off scott free. And so it's sort 25 of haphazard. I mean, the judges do a good job. KING COURT REPORTING SERVICE 54 1 MS. HOLMEN: And so do you see those clients 2 in advance? 3 MS. EVERETT: Yes. 4 MS. HOLMEN: You do? 5 MS. EVERETT: We, basically, see everybody 6 in jail. We see the Magistrate, probation people. 7 Usually on those probation people we go and we 8 call the probation officer and sometimes they will 9 agree on -- and they'll call the Magistrate and 10 say just give them a report back day. 11 Sometimes we call family and say can you get 12 $20 or something, you know? And they take some 13 money and they will release them. But that's all 14 we do in Magistrate Court because, again, we have 15 the State Court and Superior Court. 16 MS. HOLMEN: So criminal stuff? 17 MS. EVERETT: But you're just assigned to 18 Superior. 19 MR. MOBLEY: Right. 20 MS. HOLMEN: And so there are lawyers in 21 that court. Magistrates are supporting it. 22 MR. KURTZ: Is there a public defense group? 23 Do you have an organization? Do you get together? 24 MS. EVERETT: We attempted one. We have 25 sort of an informal organization. KING COURT REPORTING SERVICE 55 1 MR. KURTZ: Remind me how many public 2 defenders are in the state. 3 MS. EVERETT: We have got 13 counties -- 12 4 counties. 5 MR. SHAPIRO: We have 21 counties. The City 6 of Atlanta has two offices, one for the traffic 7 side and one for the Magistrate side. 8 MS. HOLMEN: How many actual lawyers? 9 MR. SHAPIRO: There are 14 offices. 10 MS. HOLMEN: I mean, throughout the state 11 how many public defender lawyers? Does anybody 12 have that number? 13 MR. SHAPIRO: Probably about 100. 14 MS. SARAH SMITH: 135. 15 MR. KURTZ: That includes Athens? 16 MS. SARAH SMITH: Yes, that includes all of 17 Athens, too. 18 MR. KURTZ: And you tried it and you were 19 too busy during that time? 20 MS. EVERETT: Well, part of the problem is 21 this is a big state. And I don't know what time 22 John got up this morning, but I have to get up a 23 little extra early because you don't know what 24 they've blown up between here and Macon as far as 25 the road goes, you know. KING COURT REPORTING SERVICE 56 1 We have very different offices. John and I 2 probably have offices as close as anybody, but you 3 just got different strokes, different folks, 4 different ways that cases are handled. This is 5 something that we struggled with a whole lot in 6 the caseload guidelines, and the judges probably 7 talked to you about this before, that nobody keep 8 cases the same way because some counties we know 9 can't be doing as much as us and they're saying 10 we're handling 50,000 files a year and I'm going 11 like I don't think this is happening. 12 But from Brunswick up to the mountain 13 circuit is a long way to go. We had tried several 14 times to meet at the GACDAO seminars. The problem 15 again is the people from Brunswick go to St. 16 Simons and don't really come up to Union Point. 17 Funding is a real problem. I was one of the 18 main complainers, and I thought it would work, and 19 I was wrong because I kept saying we need to get 20 together because when I first became public 21 defender I called the president and said give me 22 some public defender names. I've never been a 23 public defender before. I need some help here. 24 As you people had come on, I mean, John knew 25 me from before and he was a contract attorney and KING COURT REPORTING SERVICE 57 1 said you got any questions? And we sort of 2 gravitate sometimes, but you need to get a leave 3 of court to come. 4 I had to move some cases from today to 5 tomorrow because I had to come and talk to you, 6 but it's hard to get 14 offices together. Crystal 7 and I don't have the same problems at all. 8 MS. GAINES: No, we don't. 9 MS. EVERETT: By any stretch of the 10 imagination, and I will call Crystal and I will 11 e-mail Crystal and say what are you doing about 12 this? 13 And Crystal came and did some internship 14 with us in Houston County. The offices are 15 different as far as very urban and we're sort of a 16 quasi -- Houston County isn't sure what it is, you 17 know. We still want to be like a little country 18 town, but we have over 100,000 people there 19 because of the base and so we sort of have this 20 artificial population. 21 MR. MOBLEY: I think it's important. I 22 think we should have an organization. We should 23 try to get together as often and discuss the 24 common problems. I know that the DAs do, and they 25 have common problems. But as she said, each KING COURT REPORTING SERVICE 58 1 office seems to be run so differently. We're 2 different from the same county in our same 3 judicial circuit. It's totally different than the 4 world, and so it's sometimes hard to get together 5 and talk about this similar issue and we may have 6 the same problems. 7 MS. EVERETT: And we recognize that that 8 would be a problem in regard to the state-wide, 9 but I think that there is probably tiers of 10 offices. If there was more of us it would be 11 easier to call somebody that was your size. 12 When John Yancy was in Brunswick, basically 13 he and I talked a whole lot. Tim Barton and I 14 just don't talk much. I don't have no problems 15 with him, but we just don't seem to talk. 16 When Jill was in Douglas County she and I 17 talked a lot, and I know Monica and like Monica, 18 but for some reason we don't talk as much. And so 19 it, I think, changes around probably who you talk 20 to, but it is probably an unfortunate thing 21 because sometimes I know in regard to Cheryl, I 22 know she went to various offices and, basically, 23 had sort of a platform to build their office on. 24 Jill and I went down to Americus when they 25 were having their problems and they wanted to talk KING COURT REPORTING SERVICE 59 1 to us and, you know, how your offices work, and 2 she and I were handling, I think, pretty close to 3 the same number of cases. We had pretty much 4 close to the same population. 5 Her budget was a lot larger than mine, but 6 we went down there and we talked to them and we, 7 basically, were ready to say we can give you a 8 contract and you can set us up a public defender's 9 office there. 10 And I said we're just talking. The judge is 11 letting me come for a half a day, but I think that 12 is a problem when you go from beginning to a 13 full-blown situation. 14 Bibb County, which is an adjoining county to 15 me, continually toys with this. I'm forever 16 getting stuff together. They admit that they have 17 a problem, but it's a large, out-of-pocket cost, 18 and I think it's difficult for them to see that 19 there are some things that are hard to just say 20 qualitatively you have saved $100,000 because we 21 saw people sooner. We -- 22 MR. KURTZ: Indeed the money making -- as 23 John suggested, the economics work actually the 24 other way. You're not going to save money, at 25 least at the beginning. Undoubtedly, you're going KING COURT REPORTING SERVICE 60 1 to send more money. 2 MS. EVERETT: And you may want to talk to 3 some support groups here. I know the sheriff, and 4 especially the chief detention officer went to bat 5 for me at budget hearings and basically saying, 6 you know, these two and a half months that the 7 private bar was there we've got no problems with 8 them and they've just got other things. 9 And we know when feeding times are. We know 10 when nurse call is. We know when all of that is. 11 We have no problems. You know, if a lockdown is 12 going on I back off and the private attorneys are 13 going I've got to see my person now, and he's 14 going we're doing a shakedown, and we're going how 15 long is this going to take? 16 And you go over there and they're looking 17 for cigarettes and sometimes they are looking for 18 something bigger and they say, you'd getter go 19 back to your office. This is going to take 20 awhile, but that's hard to say how much does the 21 county save by the fact that I go to the jail 22 everyday and see people? 23 It's hard to say. Sometimes I see people on 24 probation violations. They say I have not paid. 25 Why didn't you pay? Well, because I didn't have KING COURT REPORTING SERVICE 61 1 all the money. And I'm saying a little bit helps. 2 It goes a long way. 3 And we'll just simply call and say he's got 4 $100 here. If you let him out today before he 5 spends it at a store. Call, we'll spend it. 6 They take the money. The jail monies to me 7 saves me a problem because we're not opening a 8 file. It saves the DAs a problem because they're 9 not getting it ready, and the judge can do 10 whatever he wants to do because we're not here in 11 the jail, but how do I say how much is this, 12 David? 13 If the judge had a big lockdown going on, if 14 he is hearing a divorce case he's probably saying 15 I would rather be listening to those probation 16 revocation hearings or whatever, but I think 17 that's a problem. 18 We're talking about people's lives and I 19 think when we're speaking in the medical sense if 20 they say, you know, how much will it cost to save 21 this person? And you know we're going to spare no 22 pence whether, you know, they have money or not. 23 Now, they may not go to the best hospital or 24 whatever, but once they finally get in there we 25 don't just let them die but we let that happen in KING COURT REPORTING SERVICE 62 1 the criminal justice system. If they don't have 2 money sometimes they rot in jail. 3 MR. MOBLEY: And it is a problem of mostly 4 coming from spending almost next to nothing, far 5 below what should be spent really up to what 6 really should be spent is not an exorbitant 7 amount, average, in part to something that should 8 have been spent years ago. 9 MR. KURTZ: I understand. 10 MS. HOLMEN: Do y'all take advantage of 11 training at GIDC? 12 MS. EVERETT: As much as possible. He has 13 to charge us for it now. It could have been in my 14 budget because I have to drive for it. We do as 15 much as possible. 16 MS. HOLMEN: Is that money and time? 17 MS. EVERETT: That is very good because we 18 can't afford the GACDAO things for everybody to 19 go. This is a promise. We get bigger and bigger. 20 We used to go to two GACDAO things a year, and now 21 they can go to whichever one they want to. 22 We could get a year's worth of CLE for $50 23 or $75 plus mileage, I guess. 24 MR. SHAPIRO: We'll bring it to you if we 25 get enough people. KING COURT REPORTING SERVICE 63 1 MS. EVERETT: If I get enough people you'll 2 bring it to me? Work on the computer thing, and 3 it's geared to us? 4 Part of when we go to the CLE things that 5 UGA or whoever, I've never exactly figured out who 6 is in charge of that. 7 MR. KURTZ: ICJE. 8 MS. EVERETT: ICJE, and I negotiated a 30 9 percent discount with them as well, but they have 10 certain things geared in like how to collect your 11 fee and I'm going, a fee? Maybe I'm in the wrong 12 business here. 13 And for a while we were trying to do some 14 little things -- at the GACDAO meeting where they 15 were talking about, you know, how to launder your 16 client's drug money or things like this, we were 17 having little meetings of basically saying I'm 18 having this budget problem, you know? How about 19 you? 20 But, again, we weren't all there to talk 21 about it, but Mike should be sitting here between 22 John and me because my office wouldn't be there if 23 it were not for Mike. 24 I mean, I called him from home and said, 25 hey, I'm sort of stuck at home, my child is on an KING COURT REPORTING SERVICE 64 1 I.V. Can you fax some stuff to Jay Walker and 2 tell him that I said it's from me and he needs to 3 read that stuff? 4 He got together case amounts, he got 5 together cost per case and faxed it. He is a very 6 good clearinghouse for us because if I have a 7 problem he sometimes knows if somebody else is 8 having a problem in another county that's similar, 9 and he may say call John, you know. He was just 10 talking to me about this before. And so I can't 11 say enough good things about him and, hopefully, 12 he'll get more money as a result of this. 13 MR. MOBLEY: Mike is a swell guy. He's good 14 looking, too. 15 MR. KURTZ: In your budgets do you build in 16 some funds for investigation and expert witnesses 17 and things like that, or do you have to go to the 18 judge on a case-by-case basis? 19 MS. EVERETT: I have to go to the judge on a 20 case-by-case basis. My budget starts running out 21 at the end of the year and I come back and say 22 remember you said that we could talk when I 23 started running out? 24 I have an investigator, but that's an 25 investigator for both offices. I only had an KING COURT REPORTING SERVICE 65 1 investigator for about four years, and the only 2 reason that I have an investigator is because they 3 were closing down the state prison system, the 4 prison farm over there, and he was a county 5 employee, and they had no place to put him. 6 He was actually the assistant warden, and 7 this took a little bit of education and 8 everything, but he recognized my clients, you 9 know, and so that is a good thing if we need some 10 special investigation. 11 Last week we had to go and ask for some 12 money for DNA testing. We had to go to the judge, 13 and there is a difference between the two judges 14 regarding how willing they are to come. 15 I'm sure the judge knows people, Judge 16 Hopson. He knows Judge Nunn. He used to be head 17 of the Superior Court judges and he's pretty 18 cognizant of this is money. And he goes, how many 19 places did you look? And I go 45, and there is a 20 five cents difference, or whatever, and he will 21 eventually give me the money. 22 Judge Luke, probably because he has been the 23 prosecutor in the past and used to spending money 24 and everything, and I don't ask him for something 25 unless I need it, but if I ask him for something I KING COURT REPORTING SERVICE 66 1 pretty much get it from him without a lot of 2 question, but with Judge Nunn I have to make my 3 case and he thinks about it and he goes back and 4 forth on that. 5 MR. MOBLEY: That's sort of the same way. I 6 have a small fund for minor things, but we have to 7 ask the judge, and the DA's office learned that 8 I'm not afraid to ask for an expert and the judge 9 does too, and so a lot of things we work out cases 10 with the threat of me asking for money and so 11 sometimes that's a good way to do it. 12 CHAIRMAN MORGAN: How do you think if your 13 counties had a contract system instead of a public 14 defender system like we have now, how would that 15 change some of the dynamics and some of the 16 issues? 17 MR. MOBLEY: Obviously, if we went, I guess, 18 with the person back to the beginning of the whole 19 run, they're in jail a little bit longer and so, 20 obviously, I believe a full-time system is the 21 only way to go, or actually the best way to go. 22 I know each county is different, like we 23 said, but just from me having been able to see the 24 panel, the contracting and now a full-time office, 25 it's just worlds a part. KING COURT REPORTING SERVICE 67 1 MS. EVERETT: I think I would pretty much 2 dispute the way we see them now. The judge 3 expects us to have about 10 cases ready for two 4 weeks trial term. We have two weeks of court a 5 month and he expects us to have 10 cases ready. 6 He gives us a final list, and this is really 7 ready, and sort of ready, and I didn't think we 8 were going to get this far but the private bar has 9 legitimate problems because they come in and they 10 say, well, judge, I'm sorry, but I've got another 11 criminal jury trial and it has a much older filing 12 date than this one, and however they figure out 13 how conflicts are. 14 And so it's not unusual at all that we will 15 think that we've got a private attorney in front 16 of us for trial week and that, basically, just 17 falls by the wayside. 18 Sometimes they go on vacation and forget to 19 tell anybody that they're going on vacation, and, 20 you know, if we did that we would not want to come 21 back from vacation because the judge knows we're 22 there and we're supposed to be ready. He didn't 23 unduly burden us with cases, but, again, he 24 expects us to be ready. He expects cases to go. 25 I dealt with the DA already and it shouldn't KING COURT REPORTING SERVICE 68 1 be any of this we're still waiting on discovery or 2 things of that nature. I think there is a problem 3 sometimes with scheduling discovery and things 4 like that from the private bar. 5 I mean, I'll call and say can I come over 6 and see a file? And they go, can you come back 7 after lunch? And I go no problem. And if I was 8 in private practice I would say well that's a 9 problem because I've got an appointment scheduled, 10 or I've got to be in court or whatever. But, 11 again, because we're always there and we're 12 supposed to always be ready. 13 MR. MOBLEY: I think Troup has taken a 14 credit. There was a huge backlog of cases and I 15 think the judge has now been able to add trial 16 weeks that he wasn't able to add before because 17 they weren't available. They can't be there for 18 trial, but with us he has been able to add trials, 19 and move cases, and plea cases, and try cases that 20 should have been taken care of months ago. 21 MS. EVERETT: There seems to be some notice 22 problems sometimes with the private bar, too. I 23 don't know if it's that way in Troup County, but I 24 know sometimes the private bar will say we didn't 25 get the trial calendar, or we didn't get whatever KING COURT REPORTING SERVICE 69 1 in this case. The clerk's office puts it in her 2 box and so I think that that's a problem for them, 3 too. 4 I mean, they may not be there, too. But 5 there is a lot of calling around to see why 6 somebody is isn't there when they're supposed to 7 be there. 8 MS. HOLMEN: Can you say what percentage of 9 the criminal caseload that you have? 10 MR. MOBLEY: Oh, gosh. It's probably a 11 large majority of the cases. 12 MS. HOLMEN: More than half? 13 MR. MOBLEY: Oh, yeah. Definitely. 14 MS. EVERETT: For our county the last time 15 we counted it was like 75 or 78 percent. We, 16 basically, took their numbers and our numbers, and 17 I think that was pretty much standard. 18 Occasionally there are drug busts and people get 19 charged and we get them and something of that 20 nature, but generally we handle about three 21 quarters of the caseload. 22 Probably in State Court maybe half the 23 caseload as far as people because, again, the 24 private bar is a little more active there because 25 of things of that nature. KING COURT REPORTING SERVICE 70 1 MR. MOBLEY: And I think we've seen just a 2 little, actually a general decrease in the number 3 of people who actually hire attorneys. I'd like 4 to think that we've got a fairly good reputation 5 and we've got a lot of good feedback from the 6 clients and the clients' families, and so I've 7 noticed a sharp drop in number of people who go 8 out and hire people out on bond. 9 CHAIRMAN MORGAN: Do you see a distinction 10 between the degree of independence a defense 11 counsel will have under a contract system versus 12 public defender, particularly for both of you, but 13 particularly John. You've been both, I 14 understand. Your sense of independence. 15 MS. EVERETT: I have a large sense of 16 independence, as you can probably tell. 17 CHAIRMAN MORGAN: We sort of gathered that. 18 MS. EVERETT: I would have a large sense of 19 independence if I was a contract attorney, but I 20 think probably as a public defender I have to be a 21 little more cognizant of, like, smoothing feathers 22 down because I'm not in and out. 23 You know, sometimes the jail people want to 24 yell at me and they know it's not my fault and I 25 take it just to let them get it out of their KING COURT REPORTING SERVICE 71 1 system or whatever. 2 But I think there would probably be a little 3 more independence because I think that sometimes 4 when you have a public defender's office there the 5 judge gets used to having you there and you've 6 always been there and they sort of forget the job 7 that you do. 8 That's what the judges told me when we did 9 that farm-out for the two and a half months, you 10 know. They were sort of singing us praises and we 11 actually got our bonds and things that we asked 12 for. 13 But I think that either way it probably 14 depends on the judge a good bit or on the County 15 Commission. I mean, that's the real problem that 16 you get into is who is supposed to have the power 17 here, because there is always going to be somebody 18 who wants to cut you short, whether it's on 19 purpose or not. 20 We have, I think, two of the best judges in 21 the State of Georgia. They, basically, are good 22 judges. They listen to both sides. They agonize 23 over decisions. They're just great judges in 24 Superior Court. 25 And we have had some judges come from other KING COURT REPORTING SERVICE 72 1 counties which made me appreciate our judges a 2 whole lot more, but I think still that judges, 3 because they're judges, they have a lot of 4 pressure on them. They want things to move along. 5 They wants things to happen, you know, and 6 sometimes I've said, you know, time out judge, and 7 the judge will later on say I'm sorry, you know, 8 it should have been a time out or whatever. 9 And so I think the same may be with the DA's 10 office, is if you're used to dealing with the same 11 players everybody sort of know everybody's 12 temperament and that sort of thing. 13 But either way there needs to be some, I 14 think, space between a public defender or a 15 contract defender and the immediate people that 16 they're dealing with because the county is saying 17 you spent a lot of money, or if you're a contract 18 person. Say I did it for $20,000 last year and I 19 did it for $30,000, and they're going like well 20 tell us why, or things of that nature. 21 But you have to be, basically, as I tell my 22 people, I don't court contempt, but I think you 23 have to be willing to say I'm going to jail for 24 that, if I have to go to jail for that. And 25 that's a scary thing to some people. KING COURT REPORTING SERVICE 73 1 I've spent a lot of time in jail and I'm 2 thinking in the whole scheme of things that I'm 3 probably spending the night there, that I'm not 4 doing now sometimes on Sundays, but I think -- I 5 think it's hard sometimes. 6 MR. MOBLEY: It is because I guess you're 7 caught between your client's long-term interest 8 and the interest of maintaining a good 9 relationship to make sometimes a caseload. 10 I know when I took this job I came from a 11 private practice and I wanted to sort of run this 12 office like a private law office and I really 13 don't answer to anybody except for the tripartite 14 committee, and