Dallas Morning News

March 22, 2002

Texas counties are making dramatic improvements in the quality of legal representation provided for the poor, according to a new report by two legal advocacy groups, the Equal Justice Center and Texas Appleseed.

The report is to be discussed Friday at a meeting of the state Task Force on Indigent Defense, which develops statewide policies and administers state grants for indigent defense.

The report lauded district and county courts in Tarrant and Collin County as among the best, and singled out county courts in Denton County for praise.

But the Dallas County system was listed as still needing improvement.

The report examined 80 of the state's 254 counties, encompassing almost 90 percent of the state population. The report says about a third of the plans are good or very good, a third are good but still have areas that need to be addressed, and a third fall "substantially short" of the act's requirements.

Dallas showed some "very positive improvements," said Bill Beardall, executive director of the Equal Justice Center. He noted improvements in its attorney selection process, but the Dallas plan does not specify how quickly a defendant gets an appointed attorney or include standards for determining indigence.

Prompt appointment of counsel has been one of the most significant areas of improvement across the state, Mr. Beardall said.

"Prior to the statute, it was not uncommon for defendants in some counties to wait six or nine months or longer before a lawyer was appointed," he said. "Now these plans indicate that nearly all counties have changes in their procedures to ensure that counsel is appointed within a few days."

The failure of Dallas County to address the timely appointment issue was probably an oversight, Mr. Beardall said.

The extent of the reforms across the state, which were called for by the Legislature last year, is a "significant accomplishment," said Mr. Beardall. "If you had asked us two years ago whether it would be possible to have achieved this much progress, in this many counties, in so short a time, it would have seemed like an impossible dream."

Others who have pushed for improvements in indigent defense for years also are impressed by the changes. Catherine Greene Burnett, chairman of the state bar association's committee on legal services for the poor said she was "extraordinarily pleased."

Bob Dawson, law professor at the University of Texas, said he was "very pleasantly surprised ... It's going to dramatically improve the quality of justice in Texas."

In recent years, Texas' system of providing legal representation for criminal defendants who cannot afford an attorney has been widely criticized. With no standardization, representation was inconsistent and inadequate in the way attorneys were selected, the quality of those attorneys and the pay they received.

In response to the outcry, the Legislature passed the Fair Defense Act last year and formed the Task Force to implement reforms.

The report is the first to study the county plans, which were required to be filed with the Office of Court Administration in January, and to address issues such as the timely and fair appointment of counsel.

Dallas was not alone in its failure to address the issue of how to determine if a defendant is indigent and therefore entitled to a court-appointed attorney. About half of the plans had difficulty implementing the requirement, the report said.

Neither Judge Keith Dean, who chaired the committee to improve the Dallas system nor Dallas County Judge Lee Jackson could be reached for comment.

Defense attorney David Schulman, who has been an advocate of improved indigent defense, said he, too, is impressed by the efforts made by county officials but said he worries there may be a difference between the plans on paper and actual practices.

"The plans look good – if they're carried out," he said.

But overall, he said he was optimistic because public officials show a "change in attitude. And perceptions are half the battle."

Despite the report's positive assessment, Mr. Beardall and others stressed that indigent defense in Texas still faces many challenges, such as funding.

The Task Force was allotted about $20 million over two years for administrative costs and grants to counties. More money will be needed, he said.

Local officials accepted the challenge to improve the system, "It's now incumbent on the state to support the counties by providing a more appropriate level of state support, financial support."