For the most recent year, for instance, Marion County designated $70,193.31 to support the appointment of attorneys in criminal cases and $33,181.14 to support the appointment of attorneys in Child Protective Services (CPS) cases.
“This used to be paid for — 100 percent — by the state of Texas,” LaFleur said of both expenses.Grits can't speak to the CPS funding, but the comment about the State of Texas previously paying 100 percent of indigent-defense costs is a bold-faced lie. IRL, counties paid ALL indigent defense costs before the Fair Defense Act was passed in 2001. After that, the state paid a small and growing portion, but more than it ever had before.
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| Source: Waco Tribune Herald |
Throughout living memory, there has been an unspoken split in Texas regarding how law enforcement is funded. Cities pay for cops, municipal courts, and city jails. Counties pay for jails, sheriffs, constables, and courts, including prosecutors and, with the advent of indigent defense requirements in the 1960s, attorneys for indigent clients. The state paid for punishments - what happens after sentencing - including prisons, probation, and parole - and for the highway patrol.
There has never been some idyllic time when the Texas Legislature fully funded indigent defense before shunting the duty aside to the counties, as the TAC narrative would have it. Rather, according to a 2013 feature from the Texas Bar Journal, from the beginning, "with no state funding, Texas counties bore the full cost of indigent defense." The Legislature has required indigent defendants be appointed counsel in all cases where incarceration was possible since 1965 (seven years before a federal court case would have engendered the obligation). The Legislature didn't contribute a dime to this line item until after the turn of the century, and then mostly in grants, in relatively small amounts.
Debates about state-county funding responsibilities historically centered around the middle ground between jurisdictions: Who pays for parolees housed in the county jail on "blue warrants" until the parole board can decide whether to revoke them? Or how long must counties house people after they've been convicted before the Texas Department of Criminal Justice picks them up for their prison sentence?
Lately, though, counties have tried to tack on indigent-defense costs to the very real examples that make up the rest of their unfunded-mandates portfolio. It's time to stop pretending, as Judge LaFleur does, that in some past-life fantasy, state government paid 100% of indigent defense costs. It's not true. And TAC spreading misinformation to county officials to regurgitate in their local newspapers won't make their falsehoods any more true. Last year, they were telling county officials the state owed them money! No matter how much they whine, history will not change to suit TAC's present-day interests.
Grits doesn't disagree the state should fund indigent defense more. But with state funds come state restrictions. And I'd bet dollars to donuts that, if the state did boost indigent-defense funding substantially, these same county voices will then begin whining about the red-tape and rules that come with it.
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7 comments:
I'm wondering... If the responsibility of the county to pay for indigent costs impacts how many arrests are made? In other words, are moremarrests made without due diligence because there is money from another source paying the bill? Is there anywhere to see the rates of arrest before the 2001 change and how does that compare to now?
Didn’t think about that. Cool question!
Grits, the fundamental flaw in your argument is in the paragraph. You are citing historical precedent for a context that is completely different than the system that exists today. Throughout living memory the State supported local community governance, gave a larger percentage of state funding to local entities — including schools, cities and counties — and didn’t try to strip entities of the ability to pay for the mandates that State has pushed down to local entities. Given the State’s change in these policies it is absolutely fair game for counties to complain about taking on a disproportionate share of the funding of indigent defense. Last I checked we don’t run the State on “living memory” or unspoken agreements. We have written policies and laws from the Legislature that are passed every two years, and when those laws change every entity, public and private, had better react to those changes in the context of today not 1960.
“Throughout living memory, there has been an unspoken split in Texas regarding how law enforcement is funded. Cities pay for cops, municipal courts, and city jails. Counties pay for jails, sheriffs, constables, and courts, including prosecutors and, with the advent of indigent defense requirements in the 1960s, attorneys for indigent clients. The state paid for punishments - what happens after sentencing - including prisons, probation, and parole - and for the highway patrol.”
As an addendum to the above comments that I wrote. I should add that as a black person historical arguments like that usually offend me on their face. I get nervous when anyone starts talking about taking policies back to the1960’s and I have a bunch of reasons why that’s not a time machine that I want to get into.
Two points:
1.) indigent defense is an unfunded mandate, but it has good company. The Constitution is one giant unfunded mandate. The right to due process, a fair trial (or a trial at all), to confront witnesses, to vote, etc. are all unfunded mandates.
2.) another takeaway from the graph you include is that since the State started contributing more for indigent defense costs after the fair defense act was passed, overall costs have risen, but with the exception of a couple abberational years, the percentage of these costs borne by the state has remained fairly static, 9%-15%
@10:50, is my argument "flawed"? Simply acknowledging reality instead of pretending policies of the '60s were better than they were (e.g., correcting the false claim by the county judge that, back then, the Lege paid 100% of indigent defense costs) seems like fact checking, not really much of an "argument" at all. My argument is that the county judge misstated facts. And he did. That's true whether you're black or white.
And yes, 2:20, all of these are unfunded mandates from the US Constitution, if you want to view it that way. But it's hardly a new one.
Can you imagine how different the choices would be in some of these counties if the county that chose to prosecute the offender had to foot the bill for punishment?
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