Its Hell to be poor and need a lawyer in Harris County
Harris County in Houston, Texas is in the process of establishing a Public Defenders office. This is a great step for the county seeing that it is the only large major county left in America without some type of Public Defender System. This new system would replace the county’s current system of dealing with indigent cases where defendants who are unable to afford a lawyer must have the judges appoint the council.
So, the county has agreed to establish a Public Defender’s office through a pilot initiative that is considered to be very weak. Their proposal establishes the office but allows the judges and county commissioners to select the head Public Defender. Hummmm – hum. If the judges and county are able to select the public defender then the office will lack independence which is needed to ensure that individuals are given legal representation that focuses on the indigent person who needs counsel.
Also, the county is only proposing to address juvenile, mentally ill and low level felonies. This is a problem because the cases that really need attention are the high level felonies where individuals face long periods of jail time or could face the death penalty. The county has a proposal that does not include high level felonies. High level felonies are representative of cases that need to be covered in a county like Harris seeing that the county incarcerates so many and sentences so many to death by lethal injection.’
Even worse, officials from Harris County have said that even though the pilot program will be available for the judges to use – judges have the option to use the Public Defender or not. In fact, the county has shared that even if judges opt for using a public defender in their courts they can decide which cases they want to use it and can limit use to a certain percentage of those selected cases. The county is referring to the plan as a hybrid plan where half will use a public defender and half will not.
This is a shame that a system of injustice such as a judge appointed defense system is used in 2010. If the county does not beef up the proposal to include more details and propose better defense the could possibly miss out on a opportunity to be get a $4.4 million grant from the Texas Task Force on Indigent Defense.
99 problems and Harris County Houston, Texas will have 4.4 million more if they don’t get it together for transparency in the delivery of justice.
