FULTON COUNTY, Ga. — Criminal defense attorney Joshua Schiffer is 'frightened' about the future of his Fulton County cases because a cybersecurity incident is making it difficult things done in a court that's already the busiest in the state.
"Holding back on disposition of a few cases now and a few cases tomorrow, that creates bigger calendars in the future, calendars in the future that were already big," he said. "We can't do our jobs. Neither can the courts... when we slow down a system as large as ours, the effects just reverberate through the rest of the system."
He said he is concerned there weren't more redundancies in place to begin with.
"We are stuck in quicksand because of our immense reliance on the automated paperless system that's been developed, ostensibly to increase systemwide efficiencies," he said. "When we can't represent our clients by making requests, the state can't respond to them. That grinds our entire system to a halt."
He said his clients are worried, too. They're struggling to look up cases and information online.
"Clients are terrified and scared. The criminal justice system is already deeply intimidating, and now they're being told by everyone [that] it's a little bit more broken and slower than normal," Schiffer said. "That's a really frightening thing when you're talking about someone locked up in Fulton County Jail — a jail that has a troubled history of working in the best of times."
Attorney Rebecca McLaws said she almost missed a statutory deadline this week in a case that's been going on for eight years.
"Originally, we were turned away. We were told they were accepting no filings. That's a problem for us," she said, adding that a judge issued a last-minute order to help them. "Without that order, my client would have lost her ability to appeal at this juncture."
She said it's extremely 'concerning and frustrating' how they handled her case. Her filing was placed in a numbered envelope; they told her they'd email it to her once it was filed but weren't sure when that would be.
"I remember the day when you would go to file something and they actually had a stamp. A physical, real stamp. I honestly don't know why they can't dust that off and just start stamping things," McLaws said. "I think it's important for them to communicate, to attorneys, to the public at large and answer questions, particularly, how they intend on resolving these things."
On Monday, Fulton County Commission Chairman Robb Pitts said the county is working around the clock to restore essential services. He did not have a timeline for when the court filing system could function as normal.