Mobile County is in the process of establishing a public defender’s office for people who can’t afford an attorney in criminal cases. It’s a change in the current way indigent defense is handled, and not everyone is on board.
Defense attorney Habib Yazdi and many other defense attorneys NBC 15 News spoke with say they’re concerned because Mobile County is in the process of switching from a system where judges appoint attorneys to cases and replacing it with a full time public defender’s office, eliminating much of the appointment work in the process. Yazdi’s built a career on indigent defense. He’s one of a handful of attorneys we found who, this year alone, the state’s paid more than six figures for legal services.
