Problems found with county indigent defense system

The way that El Paso county appoints attorneys for defendants that can’t afford them has serious issues. That’s according to a report by the Texas Indigent Defense Commission after commissioners asked for a review of the system.

This report is the result of an 8 month process involving the review of every step of the indigent defense system in the county. It found a variety of problems with how the poor receive legal representation, including the time it takes to be assigned an attorney and large number of cases being assigned to only a few of them.

The report shows that for some types of cases, only 10 percent of the attorney pool was handling nearly half of the clients, as was the case for misdemeanors in 2013. That means just 19 attorneys were handling 2,557 of those cases.

County commissioner Vince Perez said that can cause serious issues as a result. In some cases, defendants who requested attorneys were never assigned one, and ultimately waived the right to an attorney to be able to proceed with the trial.

“So that’s something that is very concerning,” Perez said. “We want to ensure that everyone that does request counsel is qualified, and that the judge rules on that promptly, and that the attorney that is appointed there is done at random, or in a fair process that everyone agrees upon. And that the time frame, that the attorney goes to visit the client as quickly as possible.”

The Council of Judges Administration, which over sees the appointment of attorneys for the indigent defense program in the county, sent us this statement on the report: “The Council of Judges created an Indigent Defense Plan Committee last year in order to create an Indigent Defense Plan that complied with the Fair Defense Act. The new Indigent Defense Plan was approved by TIDC and took effect on September 1, 2014. The audit focused on cases from fiscal year 2013 which were under the old Indigent Defense Plan mandated by a federal court order. The Council of Judges looks forward to working with TIDC, Commissioners Court, and other County Departments in order to address the issues expressed in the TIDC audit and to provide the best indigent defense to our citizens of El Paso County.”

District Attorney Jaime Esparza says those changes, along with this report, are positive indicators of progress made, and the start of important steps still to come.

“The acknowledgement that these cases need to be dealt with really in a responsible way,” Esparza said. “And I think the fact that the commission came down, the fact that the commission looked at what we were doing, was a good idea. It’s unfortunate that we have some concerns, but I also think the judges have been responsible, and made some corrective action.”

Esparza also said he supports the move towards a county pre-trial office, which could streamline the process and eliminate any remaining problems in the system. He also doesn’t think there are any likely legal problems for the county because of the report.

You can see it for yourself – we have the full report here.