Texas' Task Force for Indigent Defense had a full agenda for its Wednesday meeting.
Besty Blaney files, "Texas panel approves funding for defenders office," for AP. It's via the Houston Chronicle.
Members of the Task Force for Indigent Defense agreed Wednesday, voting in Austin to approve a modest expansion of the program while putting off larger increases because of state budget concerns, said Lubbock County Courts Coordinator David Slayton.
The panel approved a one-year, $2.2 million grant that will expand the program by 55 counties. The office in Lubbock opened 2 1/2 years ago with 85 counties in West Texas. The additional counties are in far West Texas and south Texas.
Slayton said the task force held off on a more ambitious $27.7 million plan, deciding instead to phase in 100 more counties over the next three years because of concerns over a state budget shortfall that could reach $18 billion.
The 140 counties now eligible under the plan are not liable for the cost to defend those facing lethal injection. Even if fully implemented, the program is available only to counties with populations of less than 300,000.
Together, the 70 counties of the 85 now participating in the West Texas pilot program saved $637,000 in the first two years, officials said.
"It's been a tremendous savings for counties that have had cases," said Jack Stoffregen, the chief public defender for the West Texas program, which has offices in Midland, Amarillo and Lubbock. "I think it's been a great success."
A statewide system would have 88 staffers in 10 offices, including the three now operating. It would be centrally managed from Lubbock.
Judge Sharon Keller, presiding judge of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals and chairwoman of the Task Force on Indigent Defense, said she was impressed with what the West Texas office has done.
"I appreciate the willingness to try to make this work statewide," she said.
And:
Under the proposal, state funding to the office would gradually decrease over six years, and counties' contributions would increase commensurately. Each county would contribute using a formula based on population and a 10-year average of capital cases.
Once counties fully fund the office, the cost per county will range from $1,000 to $350,000. Conservation estimates place the cost of trying one death penalty case at $250,000.
The Lubbock Avalanche-Journal has, "Area defense office covers wider region," written by Logan Carver.
The Texas Task Force on Indigent Defense on Wednesday approved funding that will expand a Lubbock-based capital defense office to represent counties throughout West and South Texas.
The task force approved a $2.2 million grant for fiscal year 2011 that will allow the West Texas Regional Public Defender for Capital Cases to cover the 4th, 5th and 6th administrative judicial districts. That will be in addition to the 7th and 9th districts already represented under a current grant and county funds.
The 15-person office currently represents indigent defendants in death penalty cases in an 85-county region.
The new coverage area of the office, headed by Lubbock attorney Jack Stoffregen, will comprise 140 counties in West Texas and along the border from South Texas to El Paso, said David Slayton, a Lubbock County court official who worked to get the grant approved.
"This is really just step two now of our long-term planning and goal to expand to the state," Stoffregen said. "It was a really good outcome today, I'm real pleased with it."
Stoffregen said Slayton, Lubbock County and the other people working for the grant decided to ask for one year of funding at a time and build the office over three years, as opposed to doing it all in a year and a half.
"It would have been extremely difficult to locate the number of qualified attorneys, mitigators and investigators to get it all done as quickly as, you know, we would have liked to have done," Stoffregen said.
Slayton said the task force was only approving one fiscal year at a time because of uncertainties about what the legislature will fund next year.
The end goal is to fund indigent capital defense for 240 of Texas' 254 counties - every county with a population of less than 300,000.
The Task Force also examined a proposal to begin a public defender office in Harris County, the state's largest. "Harris County's request for public defender grant in trouble," is the Houston Chronicle report by Chris Moran.
Harris County risks losing out on $4.4 million in state money to launch a public defender office unless it can in the next month improve its plan to roll out the office in October.
Judges currently appoint defense counsel to the indigent, making Harris the largest county in the nation without a public defender office. Its application for a state grant envisions a hybrid system in which a public defender office would gradually take on more cases.
The application is flawed, according to ministers, legal defense advocates and, most importantly, the state board that awards the grants.
The Task Force on Indigent Defense, created by the Texas Legislature in 2001, has asked the county to spend some of its own money on the office, expand its scope and create an independent oversight board.
If the revisions adequately address what James Bethke, the task force's director, calls requests for “clarification,” the county would be well-positioned for a grant. If the revisions do not pass muster at the task force's August board meeting, Bethke said, the county would have to wait a year for another shot.
“We respect local control,” Bethke said of Harris County's plan, but “certain principles … do need to be met.”
On Wednesday a task force committee gave the county until July 12 to fix its plan.
The county's current plan has the state covering the entire cost of the office's first year of operation. Bethke said the task force is looking for the county to cover some of the administrative costs so state dollars can go directly to legal services. The task force also suggests:
• An independent oversight board to insulate the public defender from Commissioners Court and judges;
• A case load limit to avoid overloading defense attorneys so much that they cannot do their jobs effectively;
• An office that takes felony cases, not just misdemeanors and felony appeals as currently envisioned.
Local ministers pushed for those revisions at Commissioners Court on Tuesday.
The Rev. William Lawson advised the court to vastly expand the office's scope.
“That proposal is not strong enough to help the thousands who need legal assistance,” Lawson said.
Earlier coverage of the capital and Harris County proposals at the links. Related posts are in the indigent defense and Task Force on Indigent Defense category indexes.
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