May 10 LOUISIANA: Indigent defense reform is costly No politician is going to get many votes in Louisiana by promising to stick up for criminal defendants. So when tax money is doled out in Louisiana, at either the local or state level, money to hire lawyers for defendants who can't afford one is a low priority. The result has been numerous court rulings that indigent defense in Louisiana is so underfunded and poorly organized as to provide unconstitutional representation. It's time to fix the system and advance the cause of justice, Louisiana Supreme Court Chief Justice Pascal Calogero recently told a joint session of the Louisiana Legislature. "I admonish you, simply, to do the right thing," Calogero told lawmakers. Calogero's frank speech at the State Capitol should underscore the urgency for reform. A couple of bills in the Legislature propose reorganizing the state's indigent defense system to encourage more uniform standards for how indigent defense is provided. As things now stand, indigent defense programs can vary considerably among Louisiana's 41 local public defenders' offices. The state now budgets $9.7 million for indigent defense. But Louisiana, alone in the nation, depends on local governments to pay most of the cost for indigent defense. Funding -- and quality -- differ sharply from place to place. Not everyone is in favor of more centralized state control of indigent defense services. But while opinions regarding the ideal management model for indigent defense vary, it's apparent that fixing the system is going to take a lot of money. A range of experts has put the price tag at $50 million, which includes the expense of adding new public defenders to the ranks and giving them better training. 8 of every 10 criminal defendants in Louisiana are represented by state-provided lawyers. Not surprisingly, there doesn't seem to be much interest at the Capitol in footing the bill for indigent defense reform, either from existing revenue or new taxes and fees. "It is never a popular political position to spend money on what some people see as a social program for criminals," said Calogero. Legislators have an understandable reluctance to touch this issue. One can imagine the prospective political attack ads painting any lawmaker who advocates more resources for indigent defense as being "soft on crime." It's likely that any substantive progress in reform will have to begin with educating the public about what's at stake. Self-proclaimed champions of law and order should recognize that order is weakened when law is unjustly applied, diminishing public confidence in the courts. It stands to reason that when defendants lack the resources for a proper defense, the prospect of wrongful convictions is bound to increase. Wrongful convictions have their own obvious costs, both for those who are wrongfully convicted and for society at large. Since 1989, 18 people in Louisiana have been exonerated after convictions that carried either a life sentence or the death penalty. DNA technology has made it easier, in cases when DNA evidence exists, for the wrongfully convicted to prove their innocence. But DNA evidence does not exist in most cases, so it cannot be relied upon too heavily as an arbiter of justice. The best method of determining guilt or innocence is the one conceived under constitutional law: a court trial, with a defendant properly and adequately represented by counsel. Beyond the human tragedy of those who lose freedom -- and possibly their lives -- when they are wrongfully convicted, the public also pays. For one thing, when the wrong person is convicted of a crime, then the person really responsible for the crime has not been prosecuted. The culprit could still be out on the street, committing more crime. And when the wrongfully convicted are exonerated and seek compensation for their suffering, taxpayers may have to pay the cost. A bill introduced in the current session of the Legislature proposes to create a fund to pay the wrongfully convicted $25,000 for each year they spent in prison. The measure also would pay for job training and counseling expenses, which could be significant costs. Many lawmakers -- and many members of the public they serve -- will balk at the cost of fixing Louisiana's indigent defense system. Even so, we can't afford not to fix it. (source: The Advocate) GEORGIA: Police Reopen Atlanta Child-Killing Cases A police chief has reopened an investigation into 4 of the child slayings that terrorized the Atlanta area more than 2 decades ago, saying he believes the man suspected in most of the killings is innocent. Altogether, 29 people -- all of them black, most of them boys -- were killed in the Atlanta area between 1979 and 1981. Wayne Williams, 47, is serving a life sentence for the murders of 2 young men. After his conviction, authorities blamed him for 22 of the other slayings but never charged him. Dekalb County Police Chief Louis Graham said he plans to take another look at the slayings of four boys between February and May 1981. Graham, who became chief last year, said he took an interest in revisiting the cases after looking through some old news clippings. ''After Wayne Williams was arrested, there was this decision by some people to close the cases, and I have never been one to espouse that kind of investigation or paint that kind of broad brush," Graham told The Associated Press. ''I have never believed that he did anything." The main evidence against Williams was tiny fibers found on the bodies and matched to rugs and other fabrics in the home and cars of Williams' parents. The state Supreme Court upheld his conviction in 1984 and later rejected an appeal for a new trial. "There's no question this is a significant development, and we look forward to learning all of the facts concerning re-examination of these murders," said one of Williams' attorneys, Michael Jackson of Buffalo, N.Y. Williams, who is black, has said that he was framed and that Atlanta officials covered up evidence of a Ku Klux Klan role in the killings to avoid a race war in the city. The man who prosecuted Williams at trial, Joseph Drolet, said he welcomed the DeKalb police investigation but stood by Williams' convictions. He said that when Williams was arrested, "the murders stopped and there has been nothing since." (source: Associated Press) *************************** Death penalty process to begin----Trailer park slaying 2 men accused of murdering a 67-year-old southeast Athens man will start the long court process this week that could bring them the death penalty for their crimes. The process rarely is used in Athens-Clarke County, where the last death penalty case ended in an acquittal in 2000. When the death penalty isn't an option, murder cases typically go directly from a grand jury indictment to arraignment to trial. Under the state's Unified Appeals Procedure, however, defendants George Lee Haynes Jr. and Phillip Randy Staples - charged with burglary and murder in the January death of George Bennett - will appear Friday before Clarke County Superior Court Judge David Sweat for a pre-arraignment hearing called a first proceeding. At their first proceeding, Haynes and Staples will hear a reading of prosecutors' intention to seek the death penalty, according to Chris Adams, director of the Office of the Georgia Capital Defenders. Then, the defendants' attorneys will show they are certified to try capital cases, Adams said, and can announce whether they will challenge the make-up of the grand jury and trial juries, if they believe the panels aren't representative of the community. "This is something that is almost always done," he said of the jury challenge. The extensive rules and safeguards of capital murder cases keep them in the courts for at least twice as long as a standard murder trial; most take nearly two years to come before a jury. The process, from dozens of pre-trial motions to painstaking, deliberate jury selection, is taxing for both sides, but is designed to keep defendants from being wrongly put to death. "Every time a prosecutor declares his intention to seek the death penalty, he knows they just made 10 times as much work for everyone in the system," Adams said. In other trials, only a conviction can be appealed, but in death penalty cases, each time a judge rules on an objection or motion, attorneys can appeal the decision to the Georgia Supreme Court. "It's a protective step that's built in to try to keep the trial as clean as possible," Adams said. Because death penalty cases take twice as long as non-capital cases to try, they cost about three times more than other trials, according to David Fowler, deputy executive director of the Prosecuting Attorneys' Council. Five years ago, prosecutors estimated a death penalty case could cost as much as $100,000 to try, and that cost has skyrocketed to between $70,000 and $350,000, Fowler said. The expenses include fixed costs, such as the prosecutor's and judge's salaries and, if needed, the services of the Office of the Georgia Capital Defenders, which represents indigent defendants. There are other costs, Fowler said, including bailiffs, juror reimbursements and jury sequestration, not to mention appeals. In a court filing, Ken Mauldin, district attorney for the Western Judicial Circuit, said he's seeking the death penalty for Haynes and Staples because they killed Bennett while committing 2 other felonies, burglary and armed robbery; because the murder was committed for the purpose of receiving money or other valuables; and because the murder "was outrageously and wantonly vile, horrible and inhuman in that it involved torture, depravity of mind or an aggravated battery." This will be the first death penalty case of Mauldin's administration. The previous DA, Harry Gordon, handled several death penalty cases in his 28-year administration, including 15 during his last seven years in office. In those cases, no one was sentenced to death. The last time a defendant in Clarke County received the ultimate penalty was 41 years ago, and that sentence was later overturned on appeal. (source: Athens Banner-Herald, May 7)
