STANDARD DEFINITION OF A “CASE”
Standard #11

     The Georgia Indigent Defense Act requires the Standards Council to adopt a uniform definition of a “case.”  The Standards Council has adopted the following standard as the definition of a “case.”
     The definition of a case is determined as of the time the case is opened in a circuit public defender office, conflict office, Office of the Capital Defender, or the Office of the Mental Health Advocate .  A case consists of all charges against a single defendant arising out of a single event, transaction, or occurrence, or all charges against a single defendant arising out of incidents charged in a single indictment or accusation, and should be counted and reported as one case.  Probation revocations shall be clearly identified as such for statistical purposes.  When a case is closed with minimal expenditure of resources due to a discharge of counsel prior to conclusion of the case, the case shall not be counted for statistical purposes.
     Commentary:  The Standards Council may adopt a Standard for Weighting Cases under which a relative weight would be assigned to a case.

*Note – This Standard has already been approved by the Standards Council.  This revised language, if approved, will replace the present Standard Definition of a Case.