The Planning and Resource Management Team at the Bexar County Budget Division recently performed an analysis (which I obtained with an open records request) of court caseloads and costs by judge titled the "Bexar County Judicial Management Report." About 35% of misdemeanor court costs and 40% of felony district court costs stem from paying for indigent defense.
The document is not online, but I derived this chart about dispositions, court-appointed attorney expenses and jail bed day per district judge from data presented in the report:
Misdemeanor courts racked up another $2.8 million in indigent defense costs; the number of bed days associated with each misdemeanor judge, disappointingly, was not reported.
Judge Mary Roman's low expenses per case on indigent defense particularly stand out. But I finished reading this document wondering if the folks managing the Bexar court system are looking at the right metrics and outcome measures. There's a lot more to a judge's duties than those documented in this minimalist caseload analysis and more context needed to understand whether or why the numbers reported are meaningful.
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11 comments:
I'd like to see this data separated by how many of the dispositions went to trial and how many were the result of a plea deal.
That is just a start. We all know the courts are underfunded so meaningful statistica are going to be hard to come by. It is very difficult to have faith in our judicial system without and evidence!
Rangel has only been on the bench since Jan 2009. His stats look like he may be playing catch up for the past judge.
Where can we go to see the whole report?
Roman is known as a fee slasher. She examines every pay claim and reduces it. Lawyers appointed to cases in her court work for 40% less, and therefore expend far less effort. Clients see unprepared lawyers and are more willing to plea to deals. Prosecutors know defense lawyers aren't paid, and use that knowledge to their advantage. The entire system is "infected" in that court. Google "Mary Roman" capital infected.
Remarks as Prepared for Delivery by Attorney General Eric Holder at the 2009 ABA Convention
CHICAGO, ILL
Monday, August 3, 2009
"I have also called upon the Department to focus on another part of the criminal justice system: the very difficult issue of indigent defense. Putting politics aside, we must address the fact that there is a crisis within our nation’s system of indigent defense. Resources for public defender programs lag far behind other justice system programs, constituting only about 3% of all criminal justice expenditures in our nation’s largest counties. In many cases, contract attorneys and assigned lawyers receive compensation that does not even cover their overhead. Defenders in many jurisdictions carry huge caseloads that make it difficult for them to fulfill their legal and ethical responsibilities to their clients. And we often hear of lawyers who cannot interview their clients properly, file appropriate motions, conduct fact investigations, or do many of the other things an attorney should be able to do as a matter of course."
"This growing crisis is troubling not just because of the government’s constitutional duty to ensure the right to counsel. When defendants fail to receive competent legal representation, their cases are vulnerable to costly, and time-consuming, mistakes. Lawyers on both sides can spend years dealing with appeals arising from technical infractions and procedural errors. When that happens, no one wins. Addressing the American Council of Chief Defenders in June, I committed to several steps to help improve the indigent defense system, including hosting a national conference with the goal of developing a set of best practices and practical solutions."
This is black and white evidence that we have people in jail who perhaps should not be there and the taxpayers are footing the bills. Let the misdemeanors without violence OUT. We should not be the country with more people in prison than any other IN THE WORLD. What are we thinking?
We need to think rehab and other
"out of the box" solutions. This is sad and BORING that we cannot come up with creative solutions.
To 2:11, I think you are on to something with the pleas. The three judges with the lowest atty. cost/disp. also have the fewest jail days/disp. (36 days/case on avg.), suggesting they are pleaing them at higher rates. The three judges with the highest attorney cost/disposition have the most jail days/disposition (41 days/case on avg.).
So, what do y'all think is the policy recommendation from this data?
Non-sequitur comment: it is surreal to read this as I sit in the Bexar County Courthouse jury selection room waiting to go to a court. Gives me something to think about!
Bill B.
It would be interesting to see if days in jail could be reduced if the Appellate Defender office starting seeking appellate bond for their clients in every case where the client is eligible. But apparently it is their position that the client's actual freedom is nothing to do with them ...
Paying more doesnt seem to generate better results for the defendants.
If Bexar County could be plucked from the heart of Texas and relocated to Central or maybe South America, all would benefit. It is a Banana Republic, always has been, probably always will be.
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