Travis backs public defender's office

An effort to improve indigent defense in Travis County appeared to be dead two months ago over a bitter rift between members of the working group tasked with the job.

But in a surprising change of course, the county has reached an agreement to create a public defender's office to represent adult criminal defendants who cannot afford a lawyer.

The green light came Thursday when the county's criminal court judges approved a proposal for a state grant that could bring up to $27 million to enhance the quality of legal representation for indigent defendants in Travis County. Most of that money would offset startup costs in the first four years of the public defender's office.

"This is a major step forward for Travis County," state District Judge Karen Sage said.

Hesitant to support past proposals they deemed half-baked, the judges came around over the past week under the condition that the grant also covers increased funding for the Capital Area Private Defender Service — the county's current program for assigning criminal cases to private defense lawyers, which will continue to operate alongside the public defender's office in a diminished capacity.

The plan is for the public defender to handle 15% of indigent cases and the private defender service the remaining 85% during the new office's first year. The public defender would take 30% of the cases starting on year two.

The judges signed off on the approval with nine of them in favor and six against or abstaining from the vote, according to state District Judge Brenda Kennedy, who said she'll withhold excitement about the plan until she finds out whether the state will agree to also provide more funding for the private defender service.

"I don't know if it's a big step forward or not," Kennedy said.

The judges' approval came after the Commissioners Court voted 4-1 for the proposal Tuesday, with Commissioner Gerald Dougherty dissenting.

The state agency that orchestrates the grant program, the Texas Indigent Defense Commission, still has to review the proposal and put it to a vote, likely in early June. Geoff Burkhart, the commission's executive director, said roughly a dozen counties also will pursue an indigent defense grant and Travis County's request won't be rubber-stamped without thorough vetting.

If approved, the county says it will hire a chief public defender by mid-November and the new office will begin accepting cases no later than Feb. 1.

"We are making tremendous strides forward in Travis County that will result in better outcomes and a lower demand for criminal defense," County Judge Sarah Eckhardt said.

Eckhardt, the county's top lawmaker, has been the driving force behind creation of the public defender's office since she reviewed a study last spring that showed defendants who were charged with a state jail felony for drug possession and had an attorney appointed to their cases were more likely to go to jail than defendants who had paid for their attorney. According to the study, 88% of defendants with a court-appointed attorney received jail sentences while 58% of defendants who hired their lawyer did not.

In an effort to chase the grant, Eckhardt and the Commissioners Court in October tasked 14 people with various legal backgrounds to put their heads together and draft a proposal. Chaos ensued: Defense lawyers clashed with reform advocates and withdrew from the group, saying they felt disrespected by suggestions that the current quality of representation for indigent defendants is inadequate. The reform advocates say they also felt disrespected, believing their opinions carried little weight with lawyers who work within the system.

After the Austin Criminal Defense Lawyers Association pulled out of the group in late January, the association's director, Andy Casey, said the chances of the group meeting a March 11 deadline to submit a letter of intent for the state grant were "zero."

But things slowly began to shift back in favor of Eckhardt's plan.

First, the Texas Indigent Defense Commission agreed March 7 to waive the requirement for counties to submit the letter of intent ahead of the proposal. With the additional time, Eckhardt encouraged members of the group to form smaller groups of people with whom they get along and continue discussions.

The discussions resulted in a plan the judges approved after they tweaked the 14-page proposal to add language that would increase the private defenders service budget and, through the public defender's office, provide around-the-clock representation and bond advocacy during magistration for everyone arrested and booked in the county jail.

Other areas of the public defender's office still need to be addressed, such as identifying a location for office space, coming up with about $27 million in county funding to match the grant and creating an oversight board with seven or more people.

"It took until these final days to bring all of that good work into a single document, and now I think it is in a single document that we can all be proud of," Eckhardt said.