The bad news is that criminal defendants can't get a lawyer in Georgia.
A lawsuit filed Tuesday ... in Elbert County Superior Court, says hundreds of defendants unable to afford their own lawyers are not being provided representation as required under law. If lawyers for the defendants are not provided, their cases should be dismissed, the suit says.
This situation isn't entirely remedied even if the defendants eventually obtain legal representation.
James E. Coleman Jr., an expert in criminal law at Duke Law School, who is not involved in the suit, said the absence of a defense lawyer for any period of time created an unfair advantage for prosecutors. Defense investigations should begin immediately after a suspect's arrest, Professor Coleman said, so witnesses' memories do not fade and evidence does not disappear.
The good news is that if criminal defendants get out on bail, it's easy to flee the state.
Former Sheriff's Deputy Derrick Yancey is charged with murdering his wife and a Guatemalan day laborer, 20-year-old Marcial Cax Puluc, in DeKalb County, Georgia. Yancey was under house arrest with an ankle monitor awaiting trial, but when he removed the monitor and fled, it took more than 12 hours for the Sheriff's Department to find out that he was on the run.
With this kind of head-start, Mr. Yancey could have driven the 600 miles from Atlanta to Detroit and crossed the Canadian border before anyone knew he was missing.
Like all other public services in Georgia, both the DeKalb County Sheriff's Department and the system to monitor house arrest are seriously underfunded, but the ridiculous inadequacy of all aspects of criminal "justice" in Georgia isn't usually on display with high-profile defendants like Yancey.
It's also worth mentioning that if the Elbert County defendants who have remained unrepresented for as long as eight months somehow managed to escape to a blue state (Go north, boys!), they are already provided with an affirmative defense against charges of flight to avoid prosecution, as well as a basis for resisting extradition, since Elbert County is manifestly unable to offer them a fair trial.
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