Teachers and parents have spent the past month helping children understand the recent events in the world. At Mitchell County Middle School, principal Barbara Coleman interrupted classes at 2 p.m. via closed-circuit television for an explanation of the importance of the day and then the Pledge of Allegiance. Back to top Indigent defense inadequate Advocates say low funding and inconsistency in indigent defense are causes of poor representation. Each of those attorneys handled about 150 indigent defense cases last year, according to Dougherty County court records. That caseload gave them two days, on average, to defend each case.
Counties kick in the rest.
Michael Shapiro, executive director of the Georgia Indigent Defense Council, estimated that the state tax money covers about 11 percent of the counties' indigent defense costs and half of the counties' prosecutorial costs. Indigent defense offices also generally attract young attorneys who are hoping to gain valuable training that will lead to better-paying positions, said John Vansant, who manages Dougherty County's indigent defense contract. With a flat-fee contract, attorneys have no incentive to take cases to trial or investigate beyond the police file, he said. Dougherty County District Attorney Ken Hodges said no one in Georgia keeps statistics on how many of those cases resulted in convictions. The quality of indigent defense here and across Georgia will be the subject of the state's first review of court-appointed attorneys in 20 years, Shapiro said.