Orr Joins SCOTUS Amicus Brief

Wyc Orr, who has worked for some twenty-five years as an advocate for indigent defense in Georgia, and is a charter member of the Board of Directors of the Georgia Public Defender Standards Council, which governs the public defender system in Georgia, is one of seven “friends of the court” who filed an amici curiae brief in the Supreme Court of the United States in the Jamie Weis case. Weis has been held in jail for almost four and one-half years without a trial, and for much of that time without a lawyer. Orr was joined by former Supreme Court of Georgia Chief Justice Norman Fletcher, Charles Morgan, former general counsel for BellSouth and who chaired the Georgia Supreme Court Chief Justice blue ribbon commission which in 2002 made the recommendations that led to the establishment of the public defender system, two former chairs of the GPDSC, and other members and former members of the Council in filing the brief in the nation’s highest court. Orr says that he is truly honored to be included among such a distinguished group of Georgia lawyers in filing the brief to attempt to have the nation’s Supreme Court rectify the injustice of holding an accused for so long without a trial and without access to the lawyers who represented him but were removed from his representation by a trial judge who did so on the motion of the prosecution, depriving him of the lawyers with whom he had developed a relationship of trust.  To read a copy of the brief, click here.