UNINDICTED INMATES ADD TO CROWDING

More than 80 Muscogee County Jail inmates have been held without indictment
for more than three months, with some unindicted more than nine months after
being jailed.

"What if they picked you or me up tomorrow and took us down there and we
didn't do it?" asked Tillman Wells Sr., whose son was locked up nine months
ago today, but hasn't been indicted.

"If it was me, I'd be pitching a fit," said Wells.

Georgia law says a person who is jailed for more than 90 days without
indictment has a right to a reasonable bond.

Wells said he doesn't know whether his son did what he's charged with -- two
counts each of selling marijuana and cocaine, and charges of possessing
cocaine and marijuana with intent to distribute. But he shouldn't have to
sit in jail indefinitely with no bond on the drug sale charges and without
seeing a lawyer or a judge, he said.

"There's been a tragedy imposed when a person spends nine months in jail
without an indictment," said Muscogee Superior Court Judge John Allen, to
whom Wells' case is assigned.

"There has obviously been a breakdown in the system," Allen said.

Moments after a reporter showed Allen a report indicating he had been
assigned cases of 24 jail inmates unindicted after 90 days -- including 14
held for more than 160 days -- Allen ordered his secretary to schedule a
12:15 p.m. Monday meeting with all prosecutors involved in those cases. He
said he will expect an explanation for the failure to indict each case.

A report is routinely forwarded each month to Chattahoochee Circuit Chief
Judge Kenneth Followill as a result of a Georgia Supreme Court rule change
in 1985. The change made judges, instead of the district attorney's office,
responsible for ensuring cases proceeded to indictment without unreasonable
delay.

A delay in indicting a case not only causes a person who is presumed to be
innocent to spend more time in jail, it adds to jail overcrowding by
delaying the transfer to state prisons of those eventually indicted,
convicted and sentenced to prison.

On Oct. 23, there were 927 inmates in the Muscogee County Jail, which was
built to accommodate 575.

Although it's the district attorney's responsibility to present criminal
cases to the grand jury for indictment, Allen said the judge is ultimately
responsible for moving cases assigned to him.

Muscogee County District Attorney Gray Conger said a combination of problems
have caused some cases to be delayed in reaching the grand jury.

"Every case should be indicted by the 90-day period," said Conger.
"Obviously, some are not.

"The biggest problem we've been having lately is that Georgia's crime
laboratory is somewhat overloaded," said Conger. "Sometimes it can take four
to five months to get a lab report.

"You don't want to indict somebody without a lab report. You don't want to
charge somebody with having drugs and then get a report saying they weren't
drugs."

Sometimes, a second analysis is required in a case, and if it requires a DNA
test, that science takes even longer, he said.

"We have always stressed getting cases to the grand jury quickly," said
Conger. "We're surely going to stress it even more. We're giving more
priority to jail cases than to non-jail cases."

The prosecutor also said inmates are occasionally held on state charges,
although the United States Attorney's office plans to indict them in federal
court.

A federal speedy trial provision requires a case to be tried within 120
days, but there is no such provision in Georgia law. If not indicted within
90 days, Georgia law says a person must be granted a reasonable bond. Only
after indictment can the accused file a demand for trial in state courts,
with a trial then required during that term or the following term of court.

Followill, who receives a monthly report of all jail cases that have gone
more than 90 days without indictment, said he has raised the issue of the
unindicted cases with prosecutors in his court.

"Some reasons have been satisfactory. Some have not," he said.

Superior Court Judge Bill Smith said he also gets a monthly report showing
the progress of cases assigned to his court.

"Any time they get over 90 days, my secretary calls the DA's office and
wants to know why it hasn't moved," he said. "We do a little more than just
monitoring."

Allen said he hasn't been getting such reports, but will in the future.

In many cases, such as Wells', a person who cannot make bond or afford an
attorney must rely on a court-appointed attorney. But that creates a
Catch-22 situation. After a preliminary hearing, an inmate is not likely to
see another attorney until after he is indicted -- and if he's not indicted
for months, he has no attorney to force the issue or request a bond
reduction.

Muscogee Public Defender Richard O. Smith said his lawyers are handling
250-300 cases each, when ideally they should have no more than 150 or so.
The result is they're not able to spend time reaching indigent inmates
charged and jailed but not yet indicted, he said.

"The problem is everyone has more cases than they can handle. Something can
get lost in the shuffle," said Smith.

Superior Court Judge Robert Johnston, who had 10 cases unindicted after more
than 90 days, said it's important for the district attorney and public
defender staffs to work together. It's the only way the system can work as
intended, he said.

Attorney Bill Wright, who is assigned many indigent defendants' cases in
Judge Smith's court, said there's little an attorney can do about the
unindicted case when there are so many demanding attention who have already
been through indictment.

"I know we have some who have been in jail so long, they're willing to plead
guilty just to get out," he said.

Checked-by: Don Beck