GAINESVILLE - Gainesville attorney Dan Summer recently received the 2014 Indigent Defense Award from the Georgia Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (GACDL). <br />
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The prestigious award, which was announced at the GACDL Winter Seminar, annually recognizes a lawyer in Georgia who has made significant contributions to the furtherance of representation of indigent clients. <br />
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The award was based upon a career of representing people and causes whose voices society does not hear and whose dignity society will not honor; for bravely challenging racism and inequality in the law and in society; for being a steadfast advocate for indigent defense and the indigent defense delivery system, including local systems, GIDC (Georgia Indigent Defense Council, the precursor to the statewide public defender system, and GPDSC (Georgia Public Defender Standards Council) ; for creatively representing many and varied clients; for being a pro-active community and Bar leader; and, through his warm and friendly personality, for mentoring, encouraging and inspiring young lawyers to do likewise. <br />
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During the presentation, a video of a CBS-TV interview with Summer about one of his most notable cases, that of convicted killer Stephen Anthony Mobley, was played for the audience. (See link below.) Mobley, who was executed for his crime in 2005, received the death sentence for the murder of an Oakwood pizza delivery store manager, John Collins, 14 years earlier. Prosecutors said Mobley committed six additional armed robberies at restaurants and dry cleaners in and around Atlanta over a three-week period.<br />
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"There are individuals who are destined to become criminals" from the moment of their conception, Summer said in the interview in describing a part of Mobley's defense which focused on his genetic makeup. <br />
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Harvard researchers at the time seemed to agree as did a study released in 2011 by the British Journal of Psychiatry.<br />
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But, Lydia Sartain, who was Hall County District Attorney at the time Mobley was convicted, downplayed the part of Mobley's defense based on his genetic makeup.<br />
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"I believe," Sartain said in the same CBS piece, "that he is an evil person who is a predator who chose to murder a man and now should pay accordingly."<br />
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Summer, with his wife Chandelle, is founder of the Gainesville law firm of Summer & Summer, and has practiced law in Gainesville and northeast Georgia since his admittance to the state bar in 1985. <br />
