Okay, Kelly, admit it, you were wrong! Well, I would if I was, but I won’t because I’m not. You may remember that in my earlier rantings about the absurdly designed indigent defense bill I complained that no one knew the cost of the proposed program. So, quoting other sources, I said it was going to cost between $50-75 million dollars a year. I have since had my head handed to me by several irate public defenders, or their supporters, contending that I overstated the budgetary needs in an effort to simply rail on against indigent defense.
First, just so there is no mistake, let me reiterate my position on indigent defense. I support it. I support indigent defense programs that provide legal representation to the poor. I support the fact that poor people have the same rights as anyone else in the criminal justice system. What I don’t support is the concept that only certain designated people can possibly care about the rights of the poor. The banner carrying intelligentsia says that only government paid lawyers, traditionally with a massive liberal bent, can possibly care about the poor. Anyone else simply doesn’t care, or so they would have you believe. Hence private lawyers, paid for with public funds, simply don’t have the well being of the poor in mind, such that they must be inherently ineffective. I dispute that notion and contend that some excellent private lawyers do a wonderful job defending indigent clients. Moving on.
The recently submitted budget request from the Indigent Defense committee set up to run this new program called for an annualized budget of $63.5 million. Whoa! Didn’t I say between $50-75 million? Isn’t $63.5 million almost exactly in the middle of that? Why, yes it is Kelly. So I was right and the attackers were wrong. Again.
A couple of points about that budget request. It doesn’t include any lower court funding, such as State Courts, Magistrate Courts, Municipal Courts, and so on. It only covers Superior Courts. So counties will be forced to pick up the rest of the tab for defending in those courts. So this isn’t as comprehensive a system as we’ve been led to believe. Which leads to my next point.
Opting out of the new program was allowed only for single county circuits. Houston County is a single county circuit. Peach County is not, they are part of the multi-county Macon Judicial Circuit. So under current law, Peach County can not opt out. But Houston County can. Why would Houston County want to opt out? You’ll have to wait for next week's column to hear the answer to that one.
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