Communication problems between Public Defender’s Office and District Attorney as hundreds of criminal cases dismissed
EL PASO, Texas -- An El Paso County Jail Magistrate is concerned about the lack of communication between the District Attorney's Office and the Public Defender's Office as hundreds of criminal cases are up for dismissal.
Jail Magistrate Humberto Acosta spoke to both sides during a hearing in referral court on Tuesday night just before the group went through a 37-page docket full of criminal cases up for dismissal.
The DA office started the conversation by mentioning that at least 53 of the cases on the docket were already declined or dismissed, and that the motions by the lead Public Defender were "frivolous."
Kelli Childress, the lead Public Defender, told the magistrate that she receives no communication from the DA's office whenever they decline a case. Childress claims the DA office will email 16 different entities whenever they file a decline for the case, but the Public Defender's office is not on that email list.
Childress says this is concerning because she never knows when to close out cases in her office and notify her clients that their case has been dropped and they are no longer under bond restrictions.
Magistrate Acosta asked the chief of the intake department in the DA office, Douglas Tiemann, why the DA office would not give any notice to the Public Defender's office. Tiemann said his office had never done that in the previous administration.
Childress explained that she had sent four emails to the DA office in the past two months about this issue but never received a response.
Magistrate Acosta asked Tiemann to provide a legal argument why he would not respond to Childress's emails, and Tiemann could give an answer. Tiemann did say they would start providing notice to the Public Defender's office going forward.
Tiemann told ABC-7 after the hearing, "I am looking forward to more communication with the public defender's office. That's all I've asked for from the beginning."
The group discussed 240 cases on the docket, resulting in 123 dismissals and 117 indicted or filed.
