Harris County - Judicial Misconduct

PEOPLE’S SIXTH AMENDMENT RIGHTS ARE BEING VIOLATED IN HARRIS COUNTY EVERY DAY

This article was posted by Restoring Justice and is available at https://www.restoringjustice.org/caseload-limits-harris-county :

For decades, Harris County has not limited the caseloads for court-appointed attorneys, overloading attorneys with hundreds of cases, made worse by campaign contributions in a "pay campaign contributions in a "pay for play system." The result is extremely low quality of defense - no visits, no investigation, no research, no plan, no hope. Now, we have a chance to limit the caseloads of each court-appointed attorney.

Under the Sixth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, you are guaranteed an attorney, even if you cannot afford one. But merely having a lawyer assigned to your case isn’t enough. To ensure your constitutional rights are protected and that you aren’t railroaded by the system, you need a skilled and compassionate lawyer - one who will meet with you and spend time on your case. A lawyer who will fight for you. It's time to limit the number of cases court-appointed attorneys receive.

We sent a petition and a majority of Commissioners Court agreed they would vote to impose them, and their lawyer approved their legal authority to do so - all in open public court. Click here to hear the audio of their voiced support from that meeting on Oct. 27th. However, we still wait for any change or action to be taken on it - it’s been months. And while we wait, anywhere from 1,500 to 2,000 people/month are being harmed by being assigned an inadequate, overloaded attorney. Every moment is vital while we wait for action to be taken to restore the Sixth Amendment in Harris County.

THE PROBLEM:

Harris County felony judges are operating a corrupt system that oppresses people merely because they are too poor to afford an attorney. The judges accept campaign contributions and in turn appoint individual attorneys an excessive indigent defense caseload, rendering them useless to provide our disadvantaged people any real voice or defense.

The most recent available data (2019) shows that 81% of people charged with crimes in Texas are indigent, meaning that they’re too poor to afford an attorney, so they receive either a public defender or a court-appointed attorney. In Harris County, the public defender's office provides zealous, holistic representation, but handles only 5% of these cases. You can check out this data reporting dashboard for information on which judges rarely appoint the public defender’s office to cases.

Most judges appoint private court-appointed attorneys instead of the public defender’s office, giving those private attorneys excessive caseloads. This results in over 70% of felony indigent defendants receiving court-appointed attorneys who exceed recommended caseload limits.

Ultimately, the quality of representation that indigent defendants receive is pathetic. Many of these overloaded court-appointed attorneys rarely visit their clients and do little work to investigate or litigate each case. They run up their payment vouchers simply by showing up to court and entering guilty pleas for their clients and helping the court quickly run through its docket. All while collecting hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars in income each year. Think about it: Would you want the attorney assigned to your criminal case to be handling 705 other cases that year? Or would you want them handling 128 other cases that year? The choice is obvious.

This corrupt system occurs at the expense of every taxpayer and wrongfully oppresses people for being poor, allowing their Constitutional rights to be sold out.

Every day, we get letters from people in jail in the greater Houston area begging for us to help them because their court-appointed attorneys are handling too many cases. We were founded to address this problem because it’s what matters most to people stuck in jail. Letters like this:

THE SOLUTION:

It’s time for us to demand change NOW.

Opportunities now exist to fix this problem immediately. The Harris County Commissioners Court has the authority to regulate the contracts between the Harris County judges and the court-appointed attorneys. They are waiting to take action unnecessarily. We have already provided them all of the reports, research, complaints, articles, statutes, ethical rules, data, and law necessary to act.

The Commissioners Court should veto and reject all court-appointed attorney assignment contracts until and unless the attorneys adhere to well-researched quality and caseload maximum standards. A lot of groups in power have already failed to act (Texas Indigent Defense Commission, newly elected felony judges, Texas State Bar). So it’s important for all of us to unite and make our voices heard to the Harris County Commissioners Court so that indigent defendants receive good legal representation.

Join Restoring Justice, Texas Civil Rights Project, Texas Fair Defense Project, Community Empowerment Solutions of Texas, Pure Justice, Texas Jail Project, Texas Criminal Justice Coalition, BLMHTX, Texas Advocates for Justice, and the Harris County Public Defender's Office in demanding change.

Providing those accused of crimes (legally innocent) with good, not overloaded counsel improves the effectiveness of the entire criminal justice system. It better ensures equality for the accused, justice for the victims, police accountability, and public safety. We won't stop with Harris County - we are continuing this effort to the legislative session of Texas. See the caseload limit bill here! Please join us and build the movement for change now!

https://www.restoringjustice.org/caseload-limits-harris-county