Ga. Supreme Court rules for Duke defense Tara Grinstead case (Source: WALB) By Dave Miller | March 15, 2021 at 9:26 AM EDT - Updated March 15 at 3:17 PM
ATLANTA (WALB) - The Supreme Court of Georgia has reversed an Irwin County court’s ruling that the
Georgia Indigent Defense Act provides no means for pro bono counsel representing Ryan Alexander Duke to obtain state funds for defense experts and an investigator.
“Contrary to the trial court’s conclusion, the Indigent Defense Act allows an indigent defendant to obtain such ancillary defense services through a contract between pro bono counsel and either the Georgia Public Defender Council or the appropriate circuit public defender,” Chief Justice Harold Melton writes for the majority in Monday’s 8-1 decision.
GBI officials say suspect Ryan Alexander Duke, 33, was a student at Irwin High School, where Tara Grinstead taught history.
Grinstead, a high school teacher and winner of a South Georgia beauty pageant, was missing for more than a decade before Duke was arrested in connection with her murder in 2017, shortly after a friend helped him burn Grinsteadâs body in a pine orchard then came clean to investigators.
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