Harris County Commissioners Court in 2009 voted to start a Public Defender’s Office that will provide legal representation for indigent defendants.
Here are the recent developments on the Public Defender’s Office:
On Aug. 25, 2010, the Office of the Texas Task Force on Indigent Defense awarded Harris County a $4,150,545 grant to start the Public Defender Pilot Program, which will develop into a system that will handle juvenile, adult felony and mental health cases in participating district and county criminal courts. The Public Defender’s Office also will represent indigent clients in appellant courts.
The county plans to re-apply for the grant every year during the four years the funds are available. After that, the Public Defender’s Office likely will request funding from Commissioners Court.
After receiving notification that Harris County had been awarded the grant, county officials in September 2010 established a 15-member Public Defense Board, which was responsible for selecting the Chief Public Defender.
In November 2010, Commissioners Court voted to hire Alex Bunin, the former federal public defender for the Northern District of New York, as the county’s chief public defender who is in charge of hiring the staff.
The multi-year public defender pilot in the long run is expected to develop into an indigent defense system that will enhance effective legal representation by licensed attorneys to various classes of indigent defendants in a fiscally predictable manner. Currently, criminal judges appoint attorneys to represent indigent defendants, a system that costs the county about $34 million annually. The county will use a hybrid of the existing system and the Public Defender’s Office.
Program Objectives
The public defender pilot program will have the following initial objectives:
- Provide trial and appellate defense counsel and support service in most of the criminal district courts and in most of the district courts trying juvenile cases
- Provide trial counsel and support service to indigent defendants with significant mental illness or who are mentally challenged in the 15 county criminal courts at law
- Provide appellate representation for all indigent defendants in the county criminal courts at law
- Reduce the mentally ill/mentally challenged/dual diagnosis population and length of days in jail for the county criminal court target population
Timeline for Establishing Office
The County anticipates the Public Defender’s Office will be fully operational by the end of the second grant year. The juvenile trial and felony adult trial components will be added during the second year. Projected implementation of the public defender’s felony trial division is Nov. 1, 2011, and the juvenile trial division is Feb. 1, 2012. Also, the county has approved the creation of a felony mental health court, which will use the Public Defender’s Office to represent indigent defendants appearing in that court.
