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Another Georgia Indigent Defense Bellweather

By Steve Hall

"Court sends death-penalty case back to Gwinnett," is the title of Bill Rankin's report in today's Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The Georgia Supreme Court on Monday declined to bar Gwinnett County prosecutors from seeking the death penalty because the state had been unable to pay lawyers representing the accused.The court, in a 4-3 decision, returned the case to a Gwinnett judge, instructing him to determine whether an actual breakdown in the public defender system violated Khan Dinh Phan's right to a speedy trial.Justice David Nahmias, who joined the majority but wrote separately, warned prosecutors to move the case as quickly as possible."Time will not be on the state's side, and the trial court and the parties should be keenly aware that the difficult and close questions this case raises will need to be addressed with alacrity," Nahmias wrote...continue to full post

Full post as published by StandDown Texas Project on June 29, 2010 (boomark / email).