How best to reduce county indigent defense spending

Like many others, the Victoria County Commissioners Court recently passed a resolution asking the Texas Legislature to begin paying indigent defense costs which historically have been the responsibility of counties. Right now, "Victoria County receives a formula-based reimbursement from Texas for indigent criminal legal defense costs that annually covers about 10 percent of Victoria County's costs," reported the Victoria Advocate.

County Judge Ben Zeller said he supported indigent defense but blamed the state for "passing the cost onto counties." That's a highly politicized interpretation. Historically, indigent defense in Texas has been solely a county responsibility and the state only began contributing a small portion following the passage of the Fair Defense Act in 2001. Now, Zeller and other county officials want to shift ever more of that expense to the state budget so they don't have to raise local taxes.

If the state were to take over county indigent defense, it would run north of nine figures. So, particularly in a tight budget year with many other competing priorities, that's not a likely scenario.

If the Lege did want to help counties with indigent defense costs - without assuming additional liabilities for which local government has historically been responsible - the smartest way to do it would be to reclassify certain low-level offenses to reduce indigent defense costs.

About 70k people per year are arrested statewide on marijuana charges, for example, and charged with a B misdemeanor. If the Lege would reduce that penalty category to a C misdemeanor, the maximum punishment would only be a fine and therefore counties would no longer have to pay indigent defense costs on those cases. Similarly, reducing low-level possession cases for heroin and cocaine from a state jail felony to a Class A misdemeanor would reduce indigent defense costs, since attorneys are paid less for misdemeanors than felonies.

Such policies would have the added benefit to taxpayers of reducing incarceration costs for Texas jails and prisons by locking up fewer low-risk, nonviolent offenders.

That's the best way for the Texas Legislature to provide relief to counties for local indigent defense costs without setting a precedent that they'll absorb those expenditures into the state budget

Victoria jail ignores nutritionist limits on serving cold food

No longer do Victoria County Jail inmates receive "three hots and a cot," as the saying goes. The Sheriff switched to cold food only in the jail, eliminating all hot meals after inmates on a kitchen work detail were caught making jailhouse hooch. Reported Jessica Priest of the Victoria Advocate (July 27):

Inmates at the Victoria County Jail are eating sandwiches for lunch and dinner after several inmates were caught making alcohol in the kitchen.

But some inmates and their families have complained hunger is causing even more problems behind bars.

Amanda Garcia, who is in the jail on suspicion of violating the terms of her probation for a July 2015 theft between $500 and $1,500 case, is one of those hungry inmates complaining.

"We've been eating like this for three weeks. There's a lot of people in here mad about it. It's not right," Garcia, 23, said Tuesday.

As it happens, Jail Commission Standards require jail menus to be approved by a nutritionist. She "wrote on the menu that it 'meets the minimum daily requirements for macronutrients,' but 'should be used for less than two weeks, with the hopes of only one week usage.'" At three weeks and counting, they're already ignoring the limit recommended by the nutritionist. She approved the menu as a short-term fix, not ad infinitum.

Apparently, it's a lot cheaper not to cook food. "In July, the sheriff's office spent about $18,000 to feed inmates at the jail. It has budgeted $485,000 annually to feed inmates at the jail, according to the regular department payment register from the July 14 Victoria County Commissioner's Court meeting." So they're radically underspending this month compared to what's budgeted.

Here's a decent primer on when concerns with jail and prison food rise to constitutional levels. It takes a lot. On this particular topic:

Denying prisoners "hot" meals is not a violation of prisoners' rights, if the cold meals provided are adequate nutritionally, and all needed sanitary procedures are followed in the preparation and serving of the meals. Cosby v. Purkett, 782 F.Supp. 1324 (E.D.Mo., 1992).  See also, Amos v. Simmons, 82 P.3d 859 (Kan. App. 2004) (Serving a prisoner a sack lunch rather than a hot meal did not violate his rights when the food provided was nutritionally adequate and met his medical and religious needs.). 

In this case, though, cold meals are being served for longer than the nutritionist recommended and her recommendation to go back to regular meals after a week or two is being ignored. So that sounds to Grits like it may well rise to the level of a constitutional violation.

The jail submitted a four-phase plan to the commission to "restore discipline," replace male trusty staff, and to begin serving hot meals again. Notably, "Phase II begins with the acceptance of the emergency meal schedule by the general inmate population."  Their "acceptance" is an odd goal for a short-term change. Grits has no direct knowledge of the situation, but there's a whiff here of mass punishment for the offenses of a few. The plan envisions cold food being served to inmates for fourteen days under the "emergency meal menu," after which they would switch back. According to the Advocate, this has already been going on three weeks, with no end in sight.

The Victoria Jail's incarceration rate is 3.7 per thousand residents, compared to an average of 2.16 statewide. As of July 1st according to the Commission on Jail Standards, 56 percent of incarcerated inmates being held pretrial, having not yet been convicted of a crime.

Related: From the Marshall Project.

Victoria paper examines jail suicides

The Victoria Advocate yesterday published an informative item ("Victoria County Jail takes steps to stop suicides by inmates," May 7) on Texas jail suicides which opened:

At a time when suicides are the leading cause of death in county jails, Texas jails are following tougher standards to bring down those numbers.

Authorities agree the application of the state's suicide prevention program at the Victoria County Jail helps keep the number of suicides and inmate uprisings to a minimum.

Of the five deaths in the county jail since the Texas Commission on Jail Standards began regulating them in 2009, two were suicides. The other three were listed as natural causes.

Texas once led the nation in jail suicides, but a state suicide prevention program has helped the state shake that stigma.

The statewide rate dropped from 31 in 1986 to 17 in 1994, according to an article by Graham Baker in Texas County Magazine.

The Texas Commission on Jail Standards reported 19 county jail inmate suicides last year.

See the rest of the story for details of strategies being pursued in Victoria in the wake of two recent jail suicides. It should be mentioned there have been some questions about undercounting suicides, but not enough to mitigate the downward trend described in the story compared to the '80s. In any event, as the leading cause of inmate deaths the issue has to remain a central focus of risk management at county jails.