Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
Here's an astonishing story out of Georgia, where a man accused of murder has sat in prison for four years without a trial because the state can't afford to pay for his legal defense.
An accused killer from Pike County has sat in jail for nearly four years without a trial -- not because of any problems with the evidence but because the state is seeking the death penalty and cannot pay for the man's defense.The case, argued Tuesday before the Georgia Supreme Court, could determine whether Georgia can afford the death penalty.
Here are some of the details on this case:
Jamie Ryan Weis, charged with killing a Pike County woman during a 2006 house burglary, did not have lawyers to defend him for more than two years because of money woes plaguing the state public defender system.The accused killer's pre-trial appeal contends that the charges against him should be dismissed or the state should not be allowed to seek the death penalty because Weis was denied his right to a speedy trial.
A trial set by Pike County Superior Court Judge Johnnie Caldwell for Weis in August would have been a sham, Stephen Bright, an Atlanta lawyer, told the court's justices on Tuesday. At that time, Weis had been deprived "the most fundamental right a defendant has" -- the right to counsel -- for two and a half years, Bright said.
"The judge, Bright told the justices, "might as well have said, 'Show up in August and see if you can get nine people together and play the New York Yankees.' It would have been just as fair. ... "That's no adversary system. That's a joke."
Pike County Assistant District Attorney Robert Smith asked the justices to deny the motion and send the case back for a death-penalty trial.
And this is not an isolated problem in Georgia. Here's what makes it happen:
Georgia court rules call for a capital defendant to be represented by two experienced attorneys. But because of overwhelming case loads, the capital defender office has been able to provide only one lawyer each for Charman Sinkfield and Jquante Crews, two of three men charged with Forrest's murder.The cases cannot move forward until each defendant has two lawyers, Jerry Word, acting head of the capital defender office, said Tuesday. The defender office also has been able to provide only one lawyer to two capital defendants in Walton County and another in Richmond County, he said.
Jay Bookman has an idea for how to fix the Weis situation, but he's being naive. He says:
In any other kind of case, I'd say the court should force Weis' release. Four years without a trial is ridiculous, and Weis' court-ordered release might finally send legislators a message about the basic responsibilities of their office. But given that the charge is murder, release isn't practical -- you don't want to endanger innocent lives to send a message. But ordering the case to be tried without the death penalty option seems eminently reasonable.
But all that would do is lower the standard of the kind of representation the state will have to provide for Weis. Instead of two experienced attorneys, he'll get one inexperienced, overworked and underfunded attorney. Public defender systems are a scandal almost everywhere, but far worse in Georgia than in most states. They're even worse there than in Michigan, where the notion of getting a fair trial and a competent defense with a public defender on the case is nearly impossible.
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But given that the charge is murder, release isn't practical -- you don't want to endanger innocent lives to send a message.
To the contrary, if the state cannot properly fulfill its role in policing, and then trying suspects, release is entirely appropriate.
This way, voters come to understand that electing unqualified, lazy boobs to office, who then waste the public's money on BS and perks instead of spending it wisely on essential, core government functions comes with consequences.
Let the people's elected representatives come before the voters and say,
"Well, our police detectives did a great job, and we had a pretty good suspect for this crime, but we just sort of forgot to set up a budget to operate the court system. Sorry about that."
Posted by: threetorches | November 18, 2009 9:52 AM
Wouldn't the solution be for the Supreme Court to order the state to fund its public defender system properly? It seems a fairly elemental part of due process.
Posted by: Ginger Yellow | November 18, 2009 9:53 AM
The supposed justice system in this country is a fucking joke - as a victim of it thanks to perjury by the cops against me & a 'defense' lawyer with political & financial ties to the scum that framed me I have zero trust in the system.
Posted by: Rob Jase | November 18, 2009 10:07 AM
Threetorches,
As a Georgian, I'm telling you that the problem is not spending money on perks and such. Its Georgia trying to do everything without having to pay for it. Our Republican controlled government is just determined to cut money out of the budget and lower taxes at every turn because they are just sure that there is huge sums of waste in there somewhere. This becomes one of the results.
Posted by: Scott Reese | November 18, 2009 10:30 AM
What about the presumed innocent (until proven otherwise) life of the accused?
Posted by: Dunc | November 18, 2009 10:35 AM
They should let him go.
It was OJ being acquitted that provided an incentive to clean up the LAPD. If OJ hadn't gone free that never would have happened.
The judicial system doesn't have the authority to spend the state's money. Funding has to go through the legislature. If the legislature doesn't authorize sufficient funding to meet the legal standards of a fair trial to find people guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, all the judicial system can do is find people not guilty.
Posted by: daedalus2u | November 18, 2009 10:41 AM
Yargh... what a mess.
On a purely apolitical level, I just want to say I really hope the guy actually did it... If he didn't, then this would be a real human tragedy in addition to a legal travesty.
Posted by: James Sweet | November 18, 2009 10:58 AM
This actually points the way to some enormous cost savings for Georgia.
They can cut the budget of the prosecutors' office, the public defenders, and the courts all at once. Just accuse criminals with capital offenses, let them rot in jail awaiting trial for an appropriate time, and then drop the charges.
Posted by: Yagotta B. Kidding | November 18, 2009 11:03 AM
If you think the judicial branch can't make the state spend money, I'd like to refer you to NJ - check out Abbot districts.
Posted by: BionicHips | November 18, 2009 11:04 AM
I wonder what would happen if the Court ordered the State to assign all funds necessary for appropriate Public Defenders out of the drug-enforcement budget? I haven't noticed that one having any funding issues.
Posted by: D. C. Sessions | November 18, 2009 11:05 AM
This all goes back to the courtroom shooter in Atlanta. The defense tried to make a deal to avoid the death penalty and the high trial costs, but the prosecution wouldn't take it. Due to the high profile nature of the case it has been really expensive for the state. The legislature got mad that the public defenders office was spending so much money defending a murdered, that they cut/killed the budget of the public defenders. Thus the entire criminal justice system has been stalled for years.
The DA in Columbus, GA understands the problems that the state has caused, and has actually stopped seeking the death penalty. She won't get reelected, but her convictions won't be overturned.
Posted by: Reed A. Cartwright | November 18, 2009 11:09 AM
Huh. If they can't afford the death penalty, then they just shouldn't try for the death penalty. It looks like they aim to hold the guy in jail for life anyway, so they should at least have a trial to make sure that they guy is guilty.
Posted by: Chiroptera | November 18, 2009 11:10 AM
Of course they should let him go. And make it clear that it's the result of Republican soft-on-crime governance.
Posted by: william e emba | November 18, 2009 11:11 AM
Oh, that's easy. Supreme Court justices in Georgia are elected, not appointed. Any justice who failed to dissent with that ruling would find him or herself the target of some rather nasty campaign ads the next time he or she was up for re-election.
"Judge So-and-so wants to stymie drug enforcement and let our children get easy access to crack. And where did this money go? To protect violent criminals and murderers on death row. That's right, Judge So-and-so wants to take away money that was previously spent keeping dangerous drugs out of the hands of your children, and give the money to dangerous criminals, murders, and pedophiles.
This November, vote Judge Other Guy!"
Seriously.
Posted by: James Sweet | November 18, 2009 11:11 AM
This is blatantly unconstitutional. What part of the Sixth Amendment does Georgia not understand?
Posted by: Nemo | November 18, 2009 11:29 AM
I don't understand this. How can they not release him? Can't they be compelled to? Is it legal for the State of Georgia to hold someone indefinitely without giving him a trial? Lack of funds is irrelevant. If that's a valid excuse than I should be able to rob a bank with impunity.
Posted by: Taz | November 18, 2009 11:34 AM
Hell no. The last thing we need is even more politicians who claim to be tougher on crime than the other guy. It's time to expose the "tough on crime" political slogan as the disastrous policy that got Georgia and many other states into this mess in the first place. It's a hard sell, no doubt, but it's got to start somewhere.
Posted by: tacitus | November 18, 2009 12:28 PM
Because they were so insistent on giving this man the death penalty, he might end up going completely free. Way to prioritize.
Posted by: catgirl | November 18, 2009 12:51 PM
The fellow Georgians got it right: the state can afford public defenders, they just refuse to pay for them. As to the question about what part of the Sixth Amendment they don't understand, well, that's easy - they don't understand any part of the Constitution. The courts wouldn't allow them to use poll taxes to keep "undesirables" from voting, so they use state-issued IDs to do it.
Sometimes it's just embarrassing to be from Georgia. Thank dog for Alabama.
Posted by: Mark P | November 18, 2009 1:12 PM
I'm going to agree with Chiroptera: if it's too expensive to try go for the death penalty, then just go for life and bloody well try him already! I can't imagine that life in a Georgia prison is all that great. Unless the prosecutors made a public promise to go for the death penalty, there isn't any risk to them to not change the terms to life. Unless everyone in the justice system in Georgia is elected, in which case you get what you pay for.
Posted by: JustaTech | November 18, 2009 2:19 PM
I believe that is the case, yes.
It is my understanding that the US is one of like three countries in the world that elects judges, and the other two are places you REALLY don't want to live. (I might be wrong in the particulars... my source was reliable [the NYT] but my memory of what I read -- not so much. heh...) It's so infuriating...
Posted by: James Sweet | November 18, 2009 2:44 PM
Appointing judges has also become way too politicized in the US. Britain recently instituted an independent commission responsible for the selection of new judges, removing it from the political process (though I don't recall there ever being much fuss over the appointment of British High Court judges).
Sadly it would likely take state and federal Constitutional amendments to overhaul the system in the same way in the US. So like the whole election process (not just of judges) the odds of getting political partisanship out of it are slim to none.
Posted by: tacitus | November 18, 2009 3:44 PM
I wish more states appointed judges like my home, Iowa. An independent panel comes up with a short list of possible judges, and the governor picks one. They have retention elections, but don't run against anyone. Even with the recent ruling in favor of gay marriage, we've had basically no politicization of the judiciary.
Posted by: Ace of Sevens | November 18, 2009 5:37 PM
If he could get a lawyer they could take this to federal court and get him released for violation of his 14th amendment rights.
Posted by: Tom | November 18, 2009 5:38 PM
Jeese--remind me to drive around Georgia next time.
Posted by: Monado | November 18, 2009 7:29 PM
It is my understanding that the US is one of like three countries in the world that elects judges, and the other two are places you REALLY don't want to live.
I've long believed that this--and only this--is the singular fact that makes so much of American life seem such a horror compared to other 1st world nations. If the entire American court system were run this way, I truly suspect the country would collapse in rather short order. As it stands, the separation of judicial powers creates a situation where critical cases are handled by the appointed Federal court system while the day-to-day affairs of ordinary people are in many places thrown to the mercies of a brutally corrupt state system. Thus the paradox of 3rd-world conditions prevailing in so much of a wealthy and technologically sophisticated nation.
Posted by: Pixbuf | November 18, 2009 8:35 PM
I'm sorry to say this is not that surprising. This kind of crap has been going on here for a long time. Of course, many people are blaming this on the expense of the Brian Nichols case(see Ed's link.)
Yes, that case was very expensive, but I can say as a Georgia tax-payer "It was worth every penny." So many people around here complained about the expense and say we should just "put him in the chair" (even though we use lethal injection here now).
They think I'm crazy when I say it's great. Realistically, it's pretty likely that Brian Nichols did this, but you can't kill someone without proving it in court. If you can, how do you decide who?
It's pretty likely that Brian Nichols did it. Many people thought it was pretty likely that Cameron Todd Willingham killed his children in Texas. Now it's pretty clear that he didn't.
I'm so tired of people who just want to punish somebody for a crime - even if it's not the person who committed the crime. I'm all for harsh punishment - as long as it's the right person.
Don't lose hope for Georgia, we're not all crazy.
Posted by: blurdo | November 19, 2009 1:29 AM
Your government cannot afford to govern.
Posted by: Richard Eis | November 19, 2009 8:28 AM
The Supreme Court in GA is actually not elected, although they are supposed to be. The tradition among the justices is that they retire before their 6-year term is up, so a governor can appoint their successor. That successor then goes to the next election as the incumbant, which the voters nearly always reelect/confirm. A few years ago, Leah Sears was challenged by a religious righter in a well publicized campaign. The conservatives pumped a lot of money to unseat her. She still won with over 60% of the vote.
Posted by: Reed A. Cartwright | November 19, 2009 11:09 AM
All attorneys are currently busy. Please wait until your extra-judicial punishment is completed, then hang up and try again.
Posted by: MPL | November 22, 2009 3:56 AM