Who Pays?

A DECISION by the Georgia Court of Appeals last week will spare the state’s cash-strapped public defender organization about $5 million annually, the group’s director said Friday.

A three-judge panel last week said that counties, and not the Georgia Public Defender Standards Council, were responsible for paying for trial transcripts needed for the council’s indigent clients to appeal their criminal convictions.

“If the counties had prevailed in this particular case, it would be a financial burden that we simply could not have survived,” said council director Mike Mears.



The ruling, said Mears, “is a ray of sunshine in an otherwise cloudy sky right now.”