Today's San Antonio Express-News reports, "Bexar task force to examine indigent defense." It's written by Brian Chasnoff.
Responding to a proposal by Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff, commissioners agreed Wednesday to form an independent task force to explore best practices for providing indigent defense, the costs of which have risen millions of dollars in the past decade.
“We could collectively appoint the task force,” Wolff said, noting the growth of public defender offices in other Texas counties.
Jim Bethke, director of the state's Task Force on Indigent Defense, told commissioners at the meeting that he would offer resources and guidance to the nascent county task force.
Officials recently began scrutinizing the issue after the state task force found a small number of attorneys received a large percentage of court-appointed cases last year, the result of erratic appointment methods in the courts.
A subsequent investigation by the San Antonio Express-News and WOAI-TV found appointments skewed significantly in particular courtrooms, both in the number of cases appointed to certain attorneys and the amount of money they earned.
State law requires courts to appoint lawyers neutrally from a list. But local courts for years have disregarded the list, known as “the wheel.”
Defending the practice, some judges say large numbers of defendants routinely appear in court needing appointments, forcing courts to ignore the wheel in favor of attorneys who are available.
Local courts since have returned to following the wheel.
Tim Johnson, the county's director of judicial services, told commissioners Wednesday that Pre-Trial Services, which appoints lawyers from the wheel to defendants it finds indigent, is enacting fixes to inadequacies in the current system.
“They're quick and don't cost much,” Johnson said.
And:
Bexar County's Department of Planning and Resource Management presented a report on indigent defense to the commissioners that delved into the unequal distribution of cases last year.
The report states indigent defense costs have risen from $6.2 million to $13.3 million in the past nine years.
The top-earning attorney last year was Hilda Valadez, who earned $132,245 in court-appointed cases, including $93,690 in Judge Sid Harle's court.
By contrast, 75 percent of attorneys earned less than $25,000 in court-appointed cases, the report states.
Related posts are in the indigent defense and Task Force on Indigent Defense category indexes.
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