Responsibility for handling financial struggles of the state's public defender system shifted from the General Assembly to the Supreme Court of Georgia for 40 minutes on Monday.

Although a justice warned a lawyer not to engage in a policy debate, the oral argument often reflected a familiar dilemma faced by budget writers: Who is responsible-the state or the counties-for paying attorneys for indigent criminal defendants? The case before the high court dealt with matters that were going on before the January 2005 launch of the statewide public defender system that was to relieve counties of the burden of paying for indigent defense.

The court on Monday also heard two tort cases that have drawn the attention of trial lawyer and chiropractor groups, plus a fourth case that could impact real estate investment in the state.

The public defender funding case stems from the trial and murder conviction of Willie Palmer, who received a death sentence in Burke County in 2007. Palmer had been tried, convicted and sentenced to death a decade before, but a habeas court in March 2005 ordered a new trial, in part on the grounds that Palmer's lawyer in his 1997 trial had been ineffective.

The appeal heard Monday is not about whether Palmer's new conviction should be overturned or whether he should have had free lawyers at all. Instead, it's a fight between the public defender council and Palmer's lawyers on retrial about who should pay those lawyers.

Both sides of the dispute say that in 2006, Mike Mears, then the director of the Georgia Public Defender Standards Council, hired Augusta lawyers Michael C. Garrett and Randolph Frails to represent Palmer.

But the next year, the council informed Garrett and Frails that the council would not pay them for their work.

Judson H. Turner, a former executive counsel to Gov. Sonny Perdue who's now in private practice in Griffin, argued for the public defender council on Monday. He said the crux of the issue was whether Palmer's retrial is "truly a new prosecution" that occurred after the council's 2005 launch and would require that the public defender council pay for Palmer's defense.

Justice George H. Carley jumped in right away: After a conviction is overturned, it's a brand new case, isn't it?

No, Turner responded. The 1995 notice that prosecutors would seek the death penalty was never re-issued, he explained. And while the indigent defense statute said specific cases that had previously been handled by the Multi-County Public Defender Office would be assumed by the public defender council's Capital Defender Office, Turner said, Palmer's case wasn't one of those cases.

Turner added that there's nothing in the record to suggest Burke County can't pay the defense lawyers. He suggested that if the justices were worried about the precedent that would be set by their decision, it would be "much safer" to have financial liability rest with the counties in these days of budget-tightening.

That position led Presiding Justice Carol W. Hunstein to wonder aloud whether Turner was suggesting the counties are in better financial shape than the state.

No, acknowledged Turner, but it would be easier for a county to assume responsibility for one case than for all of them to fall to the state.

Turner also argued that by engaging counsel to handle the case, Mears had acted beyond the areas of authority enumerated by the law at the time and that the state was not responsible to pay for that mistake.

Augusta lawyer John B. Long argued on behalf of Garrett and Frails, emphasizing that no statute limits the public defender council's responsibility to cases indicted after Jan. 1, 2005. Moreover, he noted, the district attorney could have decided not to seek the death penalty on retrial. "It was for all practical purposes a new case," argued Long.

He said the public defender council's purpose already had been placed in jeopardy when it was moved from the judicial branch into the executive branch last year. And he made reference to a bill pending at the Legislature that would dissolve the current board that oversees indigent defense and strip it of its authority to independently set policy and spending guidelines.

Long yielded some of his argument time to Atlanta lawyer Emmet J. Bondurant, a former chair of the public defender council who filed an amicus brief in the case on behalf of himself, former council member Edward Hine and current council member E. Wycliffe Orr.

Bondurant's argument appeared to play well with Carley, who suggested that the issue can be taken care of by a state statute allowing Superior Court judges to appoint defense counsel at the public defender council's expense when the Capital Defender Office is unable to defend someone.

But Bondurant hit a wall with Justice Harold D. Melton. After detailing several instances when the nascent council had cooperated with the counties to work things out even when the council didn't have specific statutory authority, Bondurant sought to lay blame for the public defender system's financial woes at the feet of the Legislature. Echoing a long-standing complaint of council members, Bondurant referred to the legislature's policy of moving the fees and courtroom filing add-ons created to fund the system into the state's general fund.

Melton quickly stopped him: "That's not earmarked money, is it?"

Not in a constitutional sense, Bondurant replied.

Melton, also a former counsel to Perdue, suggested that Bondurant would be wise to reserve that issue for a later discussion.

On rebuttal, Turner told the justices they had heard a lot of "extraneous stuff," assuring them he wasn't there to question anyone's motive or the reasonableness of fees. "I appreciated Justice Melton's caution," said Turner.

Tuner said in his brief that while it's unknown how many convictions with death notices predating Jan. 1, 2005, might be overturned on habeas and thereby be affected by the court's ruling in the case, they could cripple the public defender council if it had to assume responsibility for them.

But a lawyer in one of the two tort cases heard Monday morning reminded the justices that their rulings in cases like his are important to the public, too.

Decatur lawyer A. Thomas Stubbs noted that it was rare for the justices to take up slip-and-fall cases, the sort of case where he was appearing for the plaintiffs Monday morning. "When you speak on these issues," he told the justices, "it is of great moment to the people of this state."

In that case, where Stubbs received help from Atlanta attorney Craig T. Jones on behalf of the Georgia Trial Lawyers Association, a panel of the state Court of Appeals ruled that a jury should decide whether a woman who tripped over a fallen wet floor sign at an AMC movie theater can recover for her injuries.

"I stand before you today in defense of the common wet floor sign," Atlanta lawyer Christopher M. Ziegler, who represents the movie theater chain, told the justices. He argued that the ruling discourages businesses from using the signs.

Stubbs argued that the case was different because the theater workers knew that a large crowd was about to come out of a movie showing. He said the chain now uses a more stable wet floor cone-which he brought to court to demonstrate-and could place rope barriers around the sign to protect it from falling.

In another tort case the high court considered Monday, the full Court of Appeals divided 7-5 to find that chiropractors have a duty to inform patients about the risks of procedures.

Joined by colleague Milton B. "Burt" Satcher III and Georgia Chiropractic Association general counsel Aubrey T. Villines Jr., Atlanta lawyer H. Andrew Owen said the rules regarding informed consent are defined by the Legislature, which by statute required informed consent for certain medical procedures.

But Atlanta lawyer Lyle G. Warshauer, who represents a man who says he experienced disc problems caused by a neck adjustment performed by the defendant chiropractor, says there's an evolving common law of informed consent that the legislature merely supplemented. "We are not stuck in time," she said. "It changes based on things that make sense."

The other case heard Monday morning asks whether Georgia law allows a party to litigation in another state to file Georgia court notice about that litigation when the litigation involves Georgia real estate.