Regional Public Defender Office To Be Created

Texas has just executed it's 400th person. Personally, I wish we would just do away with the death penalty, but that doesn't look like it's going to happen anytime soon. In the meantime, our Death Row seems to be populated with indigent inmates. The rich and middle class are able to afford good attorneys, who either get their clients off or at least get the death penalty off the table. The poor are not so lucky.

Capital cases require a lot of time, work, and special knowledge for an attorney. Too often in our state, the poor get an attorney who is either not knowledgeable in capital cases or doesn't have the time to do the case justice. There have even been cases where the attorney slept through crucial parts of the trial. The result is that the defendant winds up on Death Row, whether he deserves to be there or not.

There is now a move to set up a Regional Public Defender's Office in West Texas. This office would have five specially trained attorneys that would handle the area's capital cases. The Task Force on Indigent Defense is approving a $2.6 million grant to be paid over five years to help fund the office. This state funding would gradually decrease over the five years, and the 85 counties in the region would gradually assume more of the cost. The cost for each county would be determined by it's population and a 10-year average of it's number of capital cases.

I don't know if this is the answer, but at least the state is trying to do something to right the current wrong. Too often in rural counties such as these, there are few attorneys with experience in defending capital crimes and even fewer who can afford to donate the time neccessary for one of these cases.

At least now, the indigent defendents will get an attorney specially trained for this kind of case, and with a small enough caseload to dedicate the neccessary time to each case. That's a start. If it works out, the concept could be instituted in other areas of Texas.

The concept is not bad. Now we'll have to see if it is properly done. It's bad enough to have the death penalty. It's downright criminal to give it to a defendant who didn't have adequate representation.