El Paso County District Attorney’s office working through backlog of over 10,000 cases
UPDATE - El Paso County District Attorney Bill Hicks stated his officer is facing a backlog of 11,000 - 12,000 cases.
The DA's office is focused on refiling and prosecuting cases that are nearing the end of the statute of limitations, not cases that were dismissed under Article 32.01 in 2022.
So although I have the ability to mine data and the ability to go into that cloud and find those cases, We're not doing that, we're not targeting or interested in finding those cases in particular," said Hicks.
ABC-7 El Paso County Chief Public Defender Kellie Childress-Diaz spoke about what this means for clients she represents who's bond restrictions were dismissed last year.
"It's really problematic for my clients if the DA doesn't issue a summons so I'm not really sure what the purpose is to rearrest is but that's within their discretion," said Childress-Diaz.
District Attorney Hicks responded to the question about issuing summons versus new arrest warrants, "Our county, our structure..we do not have the structure, the infrastructure in place to do summons on cases where we don't know where the person is, has contact with their attorney or not."
EL PASO, Texas (KVIA) - El Paso District Attorney Bill Hicks and his office may still refile cases after more than one thousand criminal cases were dismissed last year. That was while former District Attorney Yvonne Rosales was still in office.
Hicks brought up the hundreds of cases dismissed in a recent conversation with ABC-7, "Those cases, although they were dismissed, they haven't ended up being declined by our office, there's still a possibility that they may still be filed," said Hicks.
The dismissals are known as an "Article 32.01," a statute in Texas law that is meant to help ensure the right to a speedy trial. Meaning that prosecutors must indict a person arrested within a specified time frame, about 180 days after they are put in custody.
Some of the cases that were dismissed were misdemeanor and felony cases. Several included allegations of domestic violence, assault, drug possession and DWI.
