Britt v. State

• Citation: 653 S.E.2d 713
• Decision Date: 21 November 2007
• Docket Number: No. S07A1023.,No. S07A1024.,No. S07A0912.,S07A0912.,S07A1023.,S07A1024.
• Parties: BRITT v. The STATE. Georgia Public Defender Standards Council v. Sanders. Ramseur v. The State.
• Court: Supreme Court of Georgia

653 S.E.2d 713

BRITT v. The STATE.

Georgia Public Defender Standards Council v. Sanders.

Ramseur v. The State.

No. S07A0912.

No. S07A1023.

No. S07A1024.

Supreme Court of Georgia.

November 21, 2007.

Reconsideration Denied December 13, 2007.

Christine Anne Koehler, Koehler & Riddick, LLC., Lawrenceville, for Walter Michael Britt.

Walter Michael Britt, pro se.

Daniel J. Porter, Dist. Atty., Jeanette Fitzpatrick Shaw, Asst. Dist. Atty., for The State.

Robert B. Remar, Thomas Joseph Mew IV, Rogers & Hardin LLP, Gary Parker, Public Defender Standards Council, Atlanta.

Daniel J. Porter, Dist. Atty., Richard Allen Vandever, Lawrenceville.

Robert L. McGlasson, Decatur.

Henderson Hill, Jacob H. Sussman, Ferguson Stein Chambers Gresham & Sumter, Charlotte, NC.

Walter Michael Britt, Chandler, Britt, Jay & Beck, LLC, Buford.

Brian Steel, The Steel Law Firm, P.C., Atlanta, for Ramseur.

MELTON, Justice.

Pursuant to a contract with the Office of the Georgia Capital Defender ("Capital Defender"), Walt M. Britt acts as lead counsel for criminal defendant Donald Steven Sanders in a case in which the State is seeking the death penalty. Douglas A. Ramseur, an employee of the Capital Defender, is also counsel for Sanders. Prompted by funding concerns relating to capital cases in general and the potential for inadequate funding in their representation of Sanders in particular, Sanders' attorneys served subpoenas for production of evidence regarding Georgia's indigent capital defendant funding crisis on the Executive Director of the Georgia Public Defender Standards Council ("Council"), various other Council executives, and the Director of the Capital Defender. The Council moved to quash the subpoenas, but the motion was denied in an order dated February 13, 2007.

The funding concerns also prompted Sanders' attorneys to file a motion challenging the constitutionality of "The Funding Scheme For Capital Indigent Defense Mandated By OCGA § 17-12-120 Through OCGA § 17-12-128," and a "Motion for Payment of Adequate Compensation to Counsel." However, because (1) Ramseur is an employee of the Capital Defender, (2) Britt's compensation as a contracted attorney is controlled by the Capital Defender, (3) the trial court had subpoenaed the Capital Defender's Executive Director and the Council's Director as witnesses who would testify at any hearing on issues relating to the funding for indigent capital defense, and (4) the Council had moved to quash the subpoenas relating to the funding for indigent defense, Sanders' attorneys argued that they had been placed in an adversarial position with respect to their employers (the Council and the Capital Defender), and that this conflict of interest could adversely affect their representation of Sanders. In connection with this argument, at a February 6, 2007 motions hearing, Sanders' attorneys informed the trial court that they would not proceed with any motions in Sanders' case until conflict free counsel were appointed and the counsel advised Sanders of whether the conflict with his current attorneys could be waived. Even after the trial court expressly ordered Sanders' attorneys to proceed with the motions hearing, they still refused to do so. Accordingly, the trial court held Britt and Ramseur in direct criminal contempt and ordered each of them to serve twenty-four hours in jail and pay a $500.00 fine.

In Case No. S07A1023, the Council appeals from the denial of its motion to quash. In Case Nos. S07A0912 and S07A1024, Britt and Ramseur appeal from the trial court's order holding them in contempt. For the reasons that follow, we reverse in Case No. S07A1023 and affirm in Case Nos. S07A0912 and S07A1024.

Case No. S07A1023

1. The trial court's February 13, 2007 order states in relevant part that the Council must produce

[a]ny and all records and documents relating to the expenditure of funds by the [Council] and/or the [Capital Defender] to any outside counsel and/or contract counsel defending any indigent person accused of a capital felony for which the death penalty was or is being sought from January 1, 2005 through the present.

The order goes on to provide that, although the Council "may redact information from those records that it believes to be covered by the attorney-client privilege and work product doctrine," the Council cannot redact information on "the number of hours worked, rate of pay, total fees paid, expert's name, [and] expert's fees and rate of pay." The order also compelled the Council to "produce all [responsive] records . . . concerning Brian Nichols' case to the Court in un-redacted form."

While the Council makes several substantive arguments as to why the records referenced in the order are not subject to discovery in Sanders' case, Sanders does not respond directly to most of these substantive arguments. Sanders primarily argues in his brief that the appeal should be dismissed because the February 13, 2007 discovery order is not a final judgment that is subject to a direct appeal. See OCGA § 5-6-34. However, the discovery order here is a directly appealable because it falls squarely within the purview of the collateral order doctrine.

As this Court recently reiterated in Fulton County v. State, 282 Ga. 570, 651 S.E.2d 679 (2007), the collateral order exception is to be applied if the order being appealed "(1) resolves an issue that is `substantially separate' from the basic issues to be decided at trial, (2) would result in the loss of an important right if review had to await final judgment, and (3) completely and conclusively decides the issue on appeal such that nothing in the underlying action can affect it." The order being appealed here involves matters that are "wholly unrelated to the basic issues to be decided in [Sanders'] criminal case." Id. Further, an appeal would conclusively resolve the discovery issue here "such that nothing in the underlying action c[ould] affect it." Id. Finally, the important rights of a number of indigent capital defendants would be compromised if the Council had to await final judgment before seeking review of the discovery order. For example, by forcing the Council (1) to reveal the names and pay rates of all experts from indigent capital cases from January 2005 to the present, and (2) to produce all responsive documents in the Brian Nichols case in unredacted form, the order compels the Council to improperly expose the strategies being employed by the attorneys in scores of pending capital cases. See, e.g., Wellons v. State, 266 Ga. 77, 81(2), 463 S.E.2d 868 (1995) (trial court erred by ordering defendant "to disclose before trial the identities and reports of all experts consulted by the defense, whether or not those experts would be called to testify"). Once this information is revealed, the damage will have already been done, and an appeal after a final judgment in Sanders' case could never rectify the harm. See In re Paul, 270 Ga. 680, 513 S.E.2d 219 (1999) (order requiring non-party reporters to disclose privileged information subject to direct appeal). Because the February 13, 2007 order satisfies all elements of the collateral order exception, the ruling is properly subject to a direct appeal. Id. at 683, 513 S.E.2d 219.

With respect to the substantive merits of the Council's appeal, the Council correctly argues that the trial court erred in denying its motion to quash. Indeed, the documents requested here have no bearing on Sanders' guilt or innocence and are entirely irrelevant to Sanders' criminal case. See, e.g., Owens v. State, 248 Ga. 629, 630, 284 S.E.2d 408 (1981) (relevant evidence is that "which logically tends to prove or to disprove a material fact which is at issue in the case") (citations and punctuation omitted). Moreover, the general funding that other capital defendants may have received has nothing to do with the funding of Sanders' specific defense. The trial court erred in failing to quash the subpoena. See OCGA § 24-10-22(b)(2) (court may properly quash subpoena that is "unreasonable and oppressive").

Case Nos. S07A0912 and S07A1024

2. Britt and Ramseur contend that the trial court erred by holding them in contempt for refusing to comply with the trial court's direct order to proceed with the February 6, 2007 motions hearing. Specifically, they claim that due to their unresolved conflict of interest, they properly refused to proceed with any pending motions in Sanders' case. However, a trial court has broad power to impose summary punishment for contempt based on "[d]isobedience or resistance by any officer of the courts . . . to any lawful writ, process, order, rule, decree, or command of the courts." OCGA § 15-1-4(a)(3). Moreover, "[t]he disobedience of an unsuperseded order within the jurisdiction of a court is a contempt of court, even though the order is erroneous." Anderson v. Dowd, 268 Ga. 146, 485 S.E.2d 764 (1997); Pearson v. George, 211 Ga. 18(3), 83 S.E.2d 593 (1954) ("[I]f the court has jurisdiction to make [an] order, it must be obeyed however wrong it may be").

Here, as the trial court made clear at the February 6 hearing, Britt and Ramseur had filed one hundred six motions in Sanders' case prior to the hearing — the vast majority of which had nothing to do with any dispute over funding in indigent capital defense cases — and only "one or two" of all of the one hundred six motions had been resolved prior to the hearing. The trial court also informed the parties that they could agree among themselves the order in which the pending motions would be argued, and that the motions considered at the hearing would "not necessarily require [the presentation of] evidence . . . depending on what the counsel . . . worked out." Thus, any motions requiring the presentation of evidence connected to indigent capital defense funding, the source of Britt and Ramseur's conflict, were not required to be resolved at the February hearing. Despite this fact, and despite the fact that the...