Brad Morris, a veteran Gainesville defense attorney, was named Public Defender for the Northeastern Judicial Circuit, which is made up of Hall and Dawson counties, earlier this year.
Morris says his office will have a staff of 25, including eleven attorneys.
He says, however, he will use a "hybrid" system of public defense, meaning he will still be able to use, as needed, a panel of attorneys who have been serving in a court-appointed capacity under the current system .
"The hybrid system keeps our panel involved to an extent and then the public defender's office will be taking the cases," Morris said, during a taping of Sunday's Northeast Georgia This Week which will be broadcast at 8:05 a.m. on WDUN NEWS TALK 550. "And, as the numbers (of indigent cases) get higher, , then those cases will be kicked over to the local lawyers who will continue to work as a panel as they have in the past."
Morris says it was somewhat difficult to give up his private practice, which he began in 1976 in Gainesville.
"(But), what I've always done, what I've enjoyed doing the most , has been indigent defense and that's where (these) cases were going to be. I feel like (the) height of legal representation is defending those people (who) are less fortunate."
Morris says "80-85 percent" of the people charged with felonies in Hall and Dawson counties probably qualify for public defenders.
Part of the cost of the new office is being picked up by the state, the rest by the two counties. The office was formed July 1 after funding was approved by the state legislature earlier this year after. The legislature had already voted to mandate public defender systems statewide in each of Georgia's 49 judicial circuits.
Morris says until now, some counties, unusually the more populous ones, such as Fulton and DeKalb, had public defender systems. Others, like Hall, used court-appointed attorneys and the rest contracted with attorneys for indigent defense.
http://accesswdun.com/article/2004/12/144442