ATLANTA - - Whoever said "crime doesn't pay" wasn't a taxpayer because the price of defending poor suspects is about to get ratcheted up another notch.

Taxpayers already pay the police, judges, prosecutors and public defenders assigned to defendants too poor to hire their own lawyers. Now, there is a movement to require taxpayers to also begin supplying lawyers for appeals.

The Georgia Supreme Court ruled 2008 that everyone convicted had a right to appeal on the grounds that the trial attorney was ineffective.

Last week, a Fulton County Superior Court Judge Jerry Baxter validated the class-action status of a group of inmates who argue that the government is required to promptly provide them with an attorney for their appeal who will argue the trial attorney was indeed ineffective. And if the original attorney came from a public defenders' office, the appeal attorney would have to be a private lawyer who didn't have the inherent conflict of interest by working in the same office as a public defender.

"For one, an indigent defendant cannot be penalized for exercising the right to conflict-free counsel," Baxter wrote in his ruling. "Memories fade, and witnesses move away. An indigent defendant would be placed at a material disadvantage if he were forced to wait months or years before an appellate lawyer could begin investigating the grounds for the indigent defendant's motion for new trial or appeal."

When the Southern Center for Human Rights filed the suit, nearly 200 people were waiting for a new lawyer to file their appeals. One of the named plaintiffs had been waiting almost a year.

These new round of appeals are a predictable consequence of years of the state underfunding public defenders when these people were originally tried, according to Gerry Weber, senior attorney for the Southern Center and a former veteran with the American Civil Liberties Union.

"It's sad that the state's own lawyers saw this 'crises' years ago, and no one has stepped up to the plate to fix it," he said.

However, funding to poor defendants has roughly doubled in 10 years, from $54 million to $111 million, when state and local funds are included. The state has been paying a growing share, from less than 10 percent in 2000 to 37 percent this year.

The Legislative Overnight Committee that scrutinized the operations of the Georgia Public Defenders Standards Council minced no words in its annual report issued Wednesday, the day of Baxter's order.

"Recent court developments and State Bar of Georgia actions likely have destroyed Georgia's ability to provide and fund a comprehensive public defenders' system," said the report.

It blamed "ideological crusaders who consistently work to hijack and manipulate the system" with trying to break the bank.

"Without any regard to the costs to the state," it continued, "advocates have used litigation against the state and positional power within the State Bar of Georgia to seek judicial orders that usurp and disregard the policies of the elected legislature in favor of compelling the state to adopt expensive and unattainable goals that exceed the requirements of the Georgia Constitution."

The lawyers blame the state's get-tough stance with such severe, mandatory penalties for even non-violent crimes that defendants feel compelled to use every means to fight for their freedom rather than taking their lumps with a form of punishment that doesn't include imprisonment.

Those accused of violent crimes are also filing appeals.

A growing type of complaint is conflicts of interest for public defenders.

The Georgia Supreme Court is considering the case of two homeless men accused of the beating death of another homeless man in Glynn County. The men haven't gone to trial yet, but they argue that the public defender assigned to them and two co-defendants had a conflict of interest because the other two were accusing the two on appeal.

One lawyer can't defend two people who are telling him candid details about the others. That would be like the prosecutor also trying to defend them. The outcome would be certain conviction every time.

It took 10 months for the men on appeal to get assigned private attorneys.

The State Bar of Georgia is in the process of approving an advisory opinion - - essentially a rule for all lawyers - - that would make it unethical for public defenders working in the same office to defend conflicted cases. Traditionally, public defenders have established what lawyers call a Chinese Wall between them so that no information about conflicted cases passes between them, but that opinion would say that would no longer suffice.

With only so many public defender offices, the result of the opinion is a rise in private attorney hired at greater costs.

In the 10 weeks before the opinion was proposed, 182 conflict cases were declared by public defenders in the four judicial circuits with the most conflict cases. In the 10 weeks after the opinion was proposed, the number in those circuits soared to 585.

Last week, the director of the Public Defenders Standards Council, Mack Crawford, told legislative budget writers to prepare for more expense beyond what's currently allocated.

"I expect if the State Bar opinion holds, you're going to see a tremendous (amount) more than $4 million having to be spent," he said. "I don't know of any system we could put in place to do away with the $4 million."

Legislators are fuming. As they are cutting education, furloughing troopers and reducing funds for welfare programs, they're unhappy about being asked to spend more on lawyers.

"This bar opinion will be coming from the same people who don't think we're adequately funding enough to move cases through the system so that we come forward with an opinion that will lend folks appeal rights that I can't afford as a private citizen," said Rep. Chuck Martin, R-Alpharetta. He's not a lawyer, but he is chairman of the Public Safety Subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee that sets the budget for indigent defense.

What about any government attorney advising a defendant to file for ineffective assistance against another government attorney? "Do we have to pay them?" Martin asked.

And if the original lawyer was proven to be no good, can taxpayers get a refund? "Why would we have to pay somebody for ineffective counsel?" he asked.