2019's Big Stories Shaping Austin's Path Into a New Decade

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Aug. 29: State Approves Travis County Proposal for a Public Defender's Office

Members of the county's indigent legal services working group (Photo by David Brendan Hall)

There were moments when it seemed the entire project would collapse in a collision of good intentions. (That was the fate reserved for an earlier proposal to merge the District Attorney's Office with that of the County Attorney.) But after considerable back-and-forth among the Commis­sioners Court, prosecutors, advocacy groups, and the local defense bar, sufficient consensus was generated to draft a proposal, get buy-in from the judges, tweak the overall numbers, and send it along to the Texas Indigent Defense Com­mis­sion ... for approval. Presuming the project gets staffed early next year, Austin will no longer be the largest city in the country without an agency whose primary purpose is to provide legal counsel for indigent defendants. Currently, low-income people accused of crimes rely on court-assigned defense counsel, provided primarily by the Capital Area Private Defend­ers Service. Those lawyers were skeptical of the county proposal, not least because the majority of defendants would still be represented by CAPDS attorneys – who therefore fought for greater resources in the plan if the county was to expect support from the defense bar. A final complication was the 86th Legislature's decision to install its 3.5% revenue cap on annual property taxes received by local jurisdictions. That prospect spooked budget-conscious commissioners, but after the judges weighed in to support the proposal (including more funding for CAPDS), the court voted 4-1 (Gerald Daugh­erty dissenting) to forward the request to the TIDC for ratification. It means a four-year infusion of state matching funds to better provide constitutionally mandated legal counsel, as well as a training agency to raise local standards of indigent defense. If it works, it should make things a little easier – and fairer – for poor people caught up in the justice system. – Michael King