"I intend to defend the hell out of this man"

The quote is from Hinds County MS public defender Tom Fortner, who is leaving Mississippi in a better state than he found it:

Public defender Fortner leaving - Legal champion for area's indigent moving to Arizona with family

Fortner is praised in legal circles for ensuring poor defendants receive fair trials throughout his 25-year career... "He knows more about public defense in Mississippi than anyone," said Andre de Gruy, director of the state Office of Capital Defense and former assistant attorney in Fortner's office. "He's the person that we've all been following for so long." Fortner lasted in a legal specialty that sees high turnover. Public defenders usually face the public's ire for representing their clients, who often are sent to prison.

Always looking to the ones who last; maybe they could give CLE's on how they do it.

Damn shame

In a step backwards, Yazoo County, Mississippi is closing its public defender office, and returning to the time-honored system of judges picking a lawyer to represent a defendant instead of assigning the defendant to the public defender's office.

That will cut down on inefficiency, corruption and favoritism for darn sure.

Supervisor Herman Leach said he led an effort to eliminate the public defender's office because he has gotten five letters and numerous complaints throughout almost two years from defendants, their families and potential witnesses.

Five? In two years?

In some complaints, defendants claimed they waited months in jail without seeing their public defender, Leach said. And nearly all have said they were advised to take plea bargains rather than go to trial to try to get a not-guilty verdict.

Well, then, the solution is to have no public defender's office, of course.


"I don't know if they did the crime or not, but there are people serving seven or eight years in prison on plea deals who say they're innocent," Leach said.


The supervisor surely is on the hunt for the real killers as we speak. I'd love to know the real reason why they're shutting it down, as would our colleague, deposed p.d. Peyton Taylor.

She was hard done by, and never notified of the grievances, she said:

"I've asked myself why they were so adamant about eliminating the system," she said. "It made me wonder if it's political."


(Bonus link: free legal download of "Damn Shame" by Jay Farrar)