Discussion On Public Defender’s Office To Continue In Special Meeting Friday

By Terra Rivers, Managing Editor

On Tuesday, May 7, the Hays County Commissioners Court discussed the possible submission of the Indigent Defense Improvement (IDI) Grant application to the Texas Indigent Defense Commission (TIDC).

Several residents came forward to speak in favor of the establishment of a Public Defenders office in Hays County.

Speakers shared stories about personal experiences regarding the county’s criminal justice system.

Faylita Hicks said she spent 45 days in jail because she did not have enough money in her checking account.

“Being poor in a county, which it is flourishing here, and being punished for it repeatedly,” Hicks said. “I have a master’s degree, and I can’t get a job in this county because I have a record, because I was too poor to keep money in my account. I wrote a check for groceries, and I spent 45 days in jail for it.”

Hicks said maybe a public defender’s office isn’t going to happen today, but the court needed to understand that the community needs adequate representation.

“I shouldn’t have to wait 45 days to talk to anyone who could help me,” Hicks said. “I sat in that day and asked for a library and was told one wasn’t available to me…the first-time that I actually saw a lawyer; they didn’t give me advice about what I could do, they didn’t actually say ‘What’s your case? Tell me the facts. What are some things we could look at? What are some options?’ No, they said here’s what you’re going to do; here’s what it’s going to cost. ‘You’re going to sign this; you’re going to get out today.’”

Hicks said she took the deal and now has a permanent record, which has kept her from finding a job; she isn’t the worst case in Hays County, but she keeps asking for help.

Alex Villalobos, chief of staff, said the primary objectives of the Public Defender’s office would be to:

• Reduce the total Hays County Jail Population while maintaining community safety, thereby reducing the county’s reliance on the use of outsourcing.
• Increase the proportion of personal recognizance bonds for certain defendants, such as mentally ill persons who deemed proper by the Mental Health (MH) public defender, accompanying social workers, judges before which they appear, and prosecution.
• Ensure noncitizen defendants receive constitutionally required Padilla Advisals in a timely manner.
• Ensure defendants have counsel advocating on their behalf regarding the reasonableness of bonds at magistration.

Villalobos said the Hays County Judge’s office has spoken with “judges of all levels within our county” multiple times.

“That is the reason we have taken a narrow vision on what items would be acceptable by the judges in our county to address a very specialized area of our criminal justice,” he said. “In the fiscal year 2018, Hays County paid $4.3 million to outsource inmates to other counties due to overcrowding in Hays County—a number that is up 6,895 percent from 2014. Hays County is expending an average of approximately $10,000 to $15,000 a day to outsource inmates, which is a very conservative estimate.”

Villalobos said if the county were to place in training materials, over time, and the current bond, it would average about “$167 per inmate per day.”

Hays County outsources inmates to several counties including Walker, McLennan, Limestone, Burnet, Bell, and Caldwell counties.

Currently, McLennan is the closest county with Hays County indigent inmates who do not have the means to pay for private counsel, according to Villalobos.

In 2017, Hays County assigned council to 22 percent of misdemeanor cases and 57 percent of felony cases. According to the agenda, the state average for court-appointed counsel in misdemeanor cases is 46 percent and 75 percent in felony cases.

Villalobos also discussed the Mental Health and Padilla Adivsals (Immigration Law) aspect of the issue.

According to the county’s research, 10 to 20 percent of all defendants in Texas county jails suffer from some sort of mental health illness.

The TIDC Hays County Data Sheet for 2018 shows 934 indigent felony cases and 956 indigent misdemeanor cases were paid in Hays County, which means “an estimated 93-186 felony defendants and 95-190 misdemeanor defendants were living with some sort of mental illness.”

According to the Texas Commission on Jail Standards report, on immigrant detainers, for the first 11 months of 2017, Hays County had 407 noncitizen immigrants detained in the county jail for a total of 10,501 bed days; of the $720,519.36 spent to hold those inmates, the county only received $41,386.00 from the U.S. Department of Justice through their Office of Justice Programs for their State Criminal Alien Assistance Program (SCAAP) for the same year.

Villalobos said looking at the budget, with the grant, the county looks at an 80-20 match in funding for creating the office.

“The total amount that we projected is $443,537.25 in the first year with the county expending $88,707.45 and with the state matching $354.829.80,” Villalobos said.

The judge’s office projects a reducing rate of 60-40, 40-60, 20-80, over the first five years.

Villalobos said the county is only obligated for the grant for the first year; the overall expense for four years for the county would be $709,837.01. The expense for four years for TIDC would be $1,064,311.99.

According to TIDC’s website, Indigent Defense Improvement is awarded to assist counties in developing new, innovative programs or processes to improve the delivery of indigent defense services.

Commissioner Walt Smith said he had a lot of concerns including over the documentation that was provided on the item.

“I have a lot of concern on getting over 400 pages of documentation most of which it appears when we talk about hard research isn’t specific to what we’re asking for or what we’re looking for in our grant application,” Smith said, “Dropped on us on a Friday. Since you were elected since I was elected, one of the things we’ve tried to strive for and we’ve discussed openly is trying to be transparent in what we’re trying to do and giving additional lead time…I think this kind of flies in the face of that today.”

Smith said he wanted to see more outreach done to those who are “most directly impacted” by this including the local bar association; while several individual attorneys had been reached out to, no one had gotten the “buy-in” from the bar association, which up to this point have been “truly stepping up, sometimes pro-bono to represent these clients.”

Judge Tacie Zelhart, County Court-at-Law #3, said she was the judge to originally signed the intent to apply for a grant.

“I was very naïve to think when I first signed that intent to submit a grant that everybody would be brought to the table or had been brought to the table, especially those people in the trenches,” Zelhart said. “Personally, I signed it in a limited scope; during this process, it has changed dramatically…I did withdraw my name as the program manager because I felt I couldn’t manage a program that I felt I didn’t have any control over.”

Zelhart said she would manage any program if she felt it was done right and everybody was brought to the table, and everybody had a say in it.

“Commissioner Ingalsbe, you asked a specific question earlier on whether or not we’d be willing to sign off on this document supporting it,” Judge Chris Johnson, County Court-at-Law #2 said. “I’ve never seen it, so I can’t say I’d sign off and agree to it. I don’t know what it says. I strongly suspect based on my conversations with the other judges that they feel the same way. This may be a great idea, but right now it’s unclear what it means. You all are asking me as an elected official, as the repository of the trust of the voters, to sign off on something saying it’s a good idea when I do not know exactly what the idea is.”

No action was taken on the item regarding the establishment of a Public Defender’s office in Hays County. The deadline for the grant application submission is May 10 at 5 PM.

Hays County Judge Ruben Becerra called a special meeting for Friday, May 10, at 2 PM.

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