NATCHEZ, Miss. – Another attempt is being recommended by a former state Supreme Court justice for establishing an Adams County office of lawyers to defend accused criminals who can’t afford to pay for them.
Adams County supervisors agreed last year to set it up the public defenders office but later aborted it. Ethics questions arose about Adams County Circuit Judge Lillie Blackmon Sanders’ daughter and sister being among the defense lawyers working under someone appointed by Sanders.
Former justice Randy Pierce, who’s now director of the Mississippi Judicial College, presented a compromise proposal Monday to Adams County supervisors. It would have retired Adams County circuit judge Al Johnson appoint the county’s chief public defender rather than Sanders.
Supervisors said they’ll decide later on whether to adopt Pierce’s suggestion after getting feedback from Sanders and Judge Debra Blackwell, the other jurist for Adams County’s circuit court.
While Sanders and Blackwell have feuded about the appointment of public defense lawyers, Pierce expressed confidence they “will work together to work out a format in which a public defender will be appointed.”
Under current law, Sanders – Adams County’s senior circuit judge – would appoint the chief public defender who then selects the other lawyers to represent indigent defendants accused of crimes.
Sanders last year appointed state Rep. Jeffrey Harness as chief public defender. Harness then tapped the judge’s daughter Aisha Sanders and sister Lydia Blackmon to serve under him along with two other attorneys.
However, that plan got derailed amid questions about whether it’s legal for Harness – as Judge Sanders’ appointee — to hire the judge’s daughter and sister.
The compromise offered by Pierce is to avert any conflict-of-interest appearance. It has Supreme Court Chief Justice Mike Randolph appointing Johnson as a special judge to select Adams County’s chief public defender.
The creation of a public defenders office is intended to get lawyers more focused on criminal-defense practice to ensure accused criminals’ rights to effective legal representation are secured. Under the current system, local attorneys in private practice are randomly tapped by the judges to represent criminal defendants, costing the county about $300,000 or so a year.
Johnson, who retired in 2018 after 24 years as an Adams County circuit judge, served briefly as an appointed judge last December in Hancock County after a judge there retired.
Pierce served on the Mississippi Supreme Court from 2009 to 2016, when he left to take over the judicial college based at the University of Mississippi.
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