District judge calls out County Judge Escobar in dispute over lawyer fees for indigent clients

A district judge is accusing El Paso County Judge Veronica Escobar of deliberately misleading the public.

Judge Patrick Garcia wrote a letter, apparently in response to Escobar’s complaint about the Council of Judges raising the rate paid to lawyers who take on cases for poor defendants.

Escobar has said that is forcing the County to make budget cuts.

Garcia wrote that the County has received more than a quarter million dollars in unplanned funding, and “commissioners court has deliberately misled and misinformed the public about that…”
and “commissioners court’s budgeting decisions to spend millions on unmandated items (comes) to the detriment of the commissioners court’s legal responsibility to fund indigent defense.”

Escobar has not responded to our emailed request for a response.