In April 2024, after years of pushing Travis County to implement counsel at first appearance (CAFA) – or, provide an attorney at bail hearings to defendants who can’t afford their own – VOCAL-TX and the ACLU of Texas filed a class action lawsuit against the county for denying the constitutional right to representation. A settlement agreement was reached in December 2025, part of which involves the ACLU monitoring the county’s progress till 2032.
This month, the ACLU shared reports from a successful first seven months of the process – 99% of arrestees eligible for CAFA since January have had an attorney present during their first appearance in court.
That first appearance is crucial in determining outcomes – in it, the judge sets bail amounts and decides whether a person will stay in jail leading up to the trial. Research shows that not having representation can lead to wrongful convictions, as judges can ask questions about the alleged crimes that could jeopardize the case later. And even short jail stays lead to lost jobs, late rent, and inadequate access to healthcare. “While I was in jail, I had no treatment for my cancer. I didn’t have a lawyer at my first hearing,” Alfredo Reyes, an organizer at VOCAL-TX, said in a statement. “As a result of this settlement agreement, people like me now have access to an attorney from the very beginning, giving us a much better chance of keeping our jobs, housing, and healthcare.”
However, that 1% of cases where there wasn’t an attorney present reveals what the county still has to work on when it comes to public defense. Travis County staffs CAFA every day, but not during the overnight shift (C Shift), which starts after 11pm. There were 20 cases from April-July where someone did not receive counsel simply because of the late hour. (Data from January, February, and March didn’t specify.) And, per the settlement, the county is supposed to conduct magistration in a publicly accessible courtroom, “except under unusual circumstances … necessitated for severe or contagious illness, emergency, or safety of the arrested person or others.” Sometimes, the reason for non-public magistrations wasn’t well-documented.
In the April report, of the 2,409 arrestees eligible for CAFA, there were 236 non-public magistrations. A plurality – 75 – were due to mental health-related safety risks; another 67 refused. In 29 cases, “documentation was not immediately accessible” for why they didn’t have a public magistration. There were another 19 cell-side magistration cases in both May and June where documentation wasn’t provided. In the March report, 329 people were not eligible for CAFA under the reason marked “Other.” The categories given for non-public magistrations are sometimes vague or similar; for example, in the July report, there are categories for “hospital,” “medical reasons,” “medical/safety,” and “MH [mental health]/arrestee safety.” The March notes read: “Only 1 arrestee was not magistrated in CAFA and it was not clear why.”
The reports assure that the county is working on building out a better system with shared categories to define reasons for exceptions, “as well as provide additional reminders and training for staff related to existing documentation processes.”
All told, the vast majority of people arrested in Travis County now receive legal representation at these crucial hearings. “Providing counsel at first appearance in Travis County is a historic development that has made our judicial system more fair,” said Savannah Kumar, staff attorney at the ACLU of Texas.
If you have concerns related to counsel at magistration in Travis County, the ACLU wants you to fill out this survey.
This article appears in September 25 • 2026.