Public Defender Council asks committee to restore $5.5M for conflict contractors and defend pay-parity additions

Representatives from the Georgia Public Defender Council asked the Appropriations subcommittee to restore $5.5 million the House removed for conflict contractors and to support efforts to create pay parity with prosecutors.

Council witnesses said the House removed $5.5 million from a line used to pay conflict contractors (C2/C3) but placed $2 million in another line to fund assistant public defender salaries beginning April 1. The Council asked the committee to "please approve what the governor has put on his books" or to otherwise restore funding that allows them to pay contracted conflict attorneys who handle cases when local offices have irreconcilable conflicts.

Witnesses described contractor payment structures: C2 monthly contracts typically cover 100 cases and are priced around $100,000; C3 single-case contractors historically received about $7,500 for particularly complex matters (witnesses and staff said the $7,500 payment commonly applies to murder or RICO cases). Deandre Berry, a council witness, said the system relied heavily on monthly contractors and reported that in FY 2025 those contractors were assigned 15,465 cases (FY 2024: 17,716). "For FY '25, we had 15,465 cases that were assigned to those attorneys," Berry said.

Leticia Delan, the circuit public defender in DeKalb County, told the committee her office sees average felony-case assignments of about 300 per attorney and reported a roughly 44% attrition rate last year. "Last year I had a 44 percent attrition rate," Delan said, citing pay and workload as contributors.

Council witnesses also described a parity plan worked on over the summer that would provide $4 million (January–April) to align state-paid public defenders with prosecutors on a common pay scale; they said the House did not include that governor-requested funding but the parity item was a product of inter-branch discussions. Committee members asked for additional data, including the number of $7,500 cases and the distribution of contracted attorneys by circuit, and requested statewide breakdowns of plea/trial disposition rates; witnesses agreed to provide those figures before the end of the day.

Committee members and witnesses also discussed a recent Justice Peterson ruling that may change how conflicts are determined; Council representatives said they are awaiting guidance from the Supreme Court on the rule's implementation and are preparing internal protocols in the interim.

No formal vote occurred; the committee asked for contracts and caseload breakdowns to aid final appropriations decisions.