More than eight in 10 of nearly 126,000 cases heard in the state's general sessions courts last year involved defendants unable to afford a lawyer, according to the S.C. Administrative Office of the Courts.

In some rural counties, the percentage of defendants represented by public defenders is as high as 95 percent, said Patton Adams, executive director of the S.C. Commission on Indigent Defense.

Indigent defense is important because each person charged with a crime has the constitutional right to adequate representation.

A system of 39 nonprofit agencies previously provided representation to indigent defendants in South Carolina's 46 counties. But critics say that system had become broken.

Its main problem was a lack of accountability. The nonprofits provided part-time public defenders and had no obligation to report back to the state on how effectively they used taxpayer money.

"When you have poor defense, judgments get overturned, and innocent people get convicted," said Jim Brown, immediate past president of the S.C. Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.

The revision of the 30-year-old indigent defense law did away with the nonprofits, creating public defender positions in each judicial circuit. The new jobs are on par in pay and benefits with prosecutors, and the new defense lawyers -- like prosecutors -- are state employees.

The new system is designed to provide accountability both for money and the quality of representation that defendants get, to help get crowded trial schedules moving and to improve recruitment and retention of public defenders. It is being rolled out over a two-year period.

Private attorneys representing indigent defendants will be paid $50 an hour -- $10 more than they received under the old system. The commission also will contract directly with those attorneys, Adams said, so those most qualified and interested in the cases are assigned.

Already, nine attorneys -- many former public defenders with the nonprofits -- have been appointed to fill most of the 16 new circuit public defender positions. An additional seven will be sworn in by July 1.

Doug Strickler is the Fifth Circuit public defender for Richland and Kershaw counties. The public defender for the 11th circuit, which includes Lexington County, has not been confirmed.

The Legislature has paid $2 million of the $3.8 million needed to enact the first phase of the public defender system.

A total of $3.8 million in one-time funding -- the amount needed to complete the program's rollout this summer -- is included in the Senate version of the 2008-2009 state budget.

The Indigent Defense Act modeled the system of public defenders for each circuit after the state's 16 judicial circuits.

Unlike the solicitors in those circuits, however, the public defenders will not be elected.

Public defenders will be selected by a group of lawyers in their district and are answerable to the Indigent Defense Commission. They will serve four-year terms and will make salaries identical to solicitors -- roughly $128,400 a year.

South Carolina has lagged behind neighboring North Carolina and Georgia, which already have overhauled their state indigent defense systems, said Bob Spangenberg, president of Spangenberg Group, a consultant to justice systems across the country.

South Carolina's new system, he said, "really puts you in the mainstream of the movement that's been going on for the past 10 years."

Brown, of the criminal defense lawyers group, said he is "cautiously optimistic" about the changes to the system.

"We're glad that South Carolina has tried to organize indigent defense and bring it into the 21st century," he said. "Sometimes, it's not politically wise to say, 'Let's give more money to the guy defending the guy accused of doing bad things.'"

But Brown still worries about whether the new system will be funded and managed properly. He points to Georgia, where the system faltered when money didn't come in as originally planned.