Stories featuring news about county indigent defense programs and the Texas Indigent Defense Commission (formerly Task Force on Indigent Defense)
- Texas Indigent Defense Commission: Helping Counties Implement What Works for System-Wide Cost Savings, by Texas Criminal Justice Coalition (January 2013)
- Kaufman County '08 Best Practices Award Video for Creation of Public Defender Office
- Texas Association of Counties feature on West Texas Regional Capital Defender Office
- Doing them justice: indigent defense - Abilene reporter news feature on Taylor County's indigent defense system, March 27, 2010
- Price of Justice, a three part series by the McAllen Monitor, December 2009
- Texas Association of Counties' COUNTY Magazine
- A Top-Notch Defense (March/April 2013) article about Burnet County and Gideon Recognition
- Making Gideon Proud (article about Wichita County and Gideon Recognition award) January/February 2013
- Spending Sanely (article about Travis County Mental Health Public Defender Office) November/December 2012
- Making a Case for Itself November/December 2011
- Indigent Defense Symposium November/December 2011
- Lining Up the Science Behind Eyewitness Identifications November/December 2009
- Murder Insurance September/October 2008
- Awaiting a Supreme Decision May/June 2008
- How Much Does a White Lie Cost? January/February 2008
- Public Defenders Make Their Case March/April 2007
- One Expensive Trumpet November/December 2005
- State Bar of Texas LegalFront
- Texas Bar Journal article: Rich or Poor: The Right to a Fair Trial Requires a Good Lawyer written by James D. Bethke, Director of the Task Force
- Municipal Court Reporter article (three part series -- Part One Two Three): The Fair Defense Act: Whose Job Is It Anyway? By: James D. Bethke, Director, Task Force on Indigent Defense, Dottie Carmichael, Ph.D., Public Policy Research Institute
- Texas County Progress
- Texas Fair Defense Act: State, Counties Address Increased Costs of Indigent Defense April 2005
- Indigent Defense Task Force Sets 07 Budget, Works with Counties to Improve Services October 2006
- Mental Health Courts and Their Essential Elements April 2008
- Tarrant County Criminal Justice Coordinating Committee November 2008
- Fort Bend County to Establish Mental Health Public Defender Office August 2009
- Wrongful Conviction September 2009
- Task Force Changes Plan Submission Process October 2009
- Director of Task Force response to theTexas State Legislature letter regarding April 14, 2009 Constitution Project’s National Right to Counsel Committee report, Justice Denied: America’s Continuing Neglect of our Constitutional Right to Counsel. The report details the endemic and systemic challenges of the indigent defense system and recommends twenty-two specific reforms. The full report and other relevant materials are available online here.
- Giving Timbre to Gideon's Trumpet: Evaluating the Administration and Effectiveness of Legal Representation for Texas' Indigent Criminal Defendants by Michael K. Moore and Allan K. Butcher, May 2007 and Executive Summary
- Examining the Impact of Criminal Defense Reform in Texas: Has the Fair Defense Been Effective? Michael K. Moore, Allan K. Butcher, Catherine Greene Burnett (March 2005)
- House Research Organization report on the Fair Defense Act, October 16, 2002
- AG Opinion JC-0549 regarding the constitutionality of SB7
- What Policymakers Need to Know To Improve Public Defense Systems By Tony Fabelo, Public Defense Paper for the Executive Session on Public Defense, December 2001
- What Juvenile Boards Must Do to Implement Senate Bill 7 - Prepared by: Robert O. Dawson [ PDF | WORD ]
- The Fair Defense Report: Findings and Recommendations on Indigent Defense Practices in Texas By Texas Appleseed Fair Defense Project, December 2000
- Criminal Defense--County Expenditure Survey 1999
- Sustaining and Improving Public Defense with Data (August 2012 by Marea Beeman, JMI on behalf of ABA SCLAID)
- Travis County Mental Health Public Defender Office - Cost Benefit Analysis (May 2011)
- Bexar County Indigent Defense Task Force Report (May 2011)
- The Challenge: Evaluating Indigent Defense Conference Report The North Carolina Office of Indigent Defense Services (IDS) report from the one-day conference, The Challenge: Evaluating Indigent Defense, held on March 18, 2005, in Chapel Hill. The national conference provided an opportunity for indigent defense practitioners and criminal justice social scientists from around the country to discuss strategies and approaches for evaluating indigent defense. The conference report contains a summary of the conference proceedings as well as in-depth information about the IDS Systems Evaluation Project.
- National Indigent Defense Reform: The Solution is Multifaceted - 2012, American Bar Association, Standing Committee on Legal Aid and Indigent Defendants (SCLAID) - related ABA Journal article (1/8/12): Would Decriminalizing Minor Offenses Help Indigent Defense Crisis? ABA Committee Weighs In
- National Inventory of the Collateral Consequences of Conviction -- http://www.abacollateralconsequences.org/
The collateral consequences of a criminal conviction—legal sanctions and restrictions imposed upon people because of their criminal record—are hard to find and harder to understand. Now it will be easier to do both. Congress directed the National Institute of Justice to collect and study collateral consequences in all U.S. jurisdictions, and NIJ selected the ABA Criminal Justice Section to perform the necessary research and analysis. The results are now being made available through this interactive tool. - Juvenile Collateral Consequences Project -- http://beforeyouplead.com/
The Juvenile Collateral Consequences Project is an endeavor undertaken by the American Bar Association to document and analyze the significant hardships experienced by youth who have come in contact with the juvenile justice system. These hardships, known as collateral consequences affect youth who have successfully completed a sentence imposed by the court. The hardships include barriers to education, employment, and public benefits. - On May 9, 2012, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued a report assessing the ways in which the federal government has provided funding and other federal support to the states for indigent defense for the last seven years. The report can be found at http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-12-569.
- Community-Oriented Defense: Start Now (7/20/12, by Thomas Giovanni, Brennan Center for Justice)
- NIJ/NLADA - The Implementation and Impact of Indigent Defense Standards, 2003, authors: Scott Wallace and David Carroll
- NLADA Assigned Counsel Preliminary Report
- U.S. Department of Justice/National Institute of Corrections paper Evidence-Based Practices and Criminal Defense: Opportunities, Challenges, and Practical Considerations
- Laurence Tribe, Senior Counselor, Access to Justice, Calls for More Research Relevant to Indigent Defense, National Institute of Justice Conference 2010, June 14-16
- State and County Expenditures for Indigent Defense Services Fiscal Year 2008 prepared for the American Bar Association, prepared by The Spangenberg Project, The Center for Justice, Law and Society at George Mason University, March 2010
- U.S. Department of Justice National Symposium on Indigent Defense at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C. on February 19, 2010 - see all presentations including Jim Bethke, Director of the Task Force Attorney General Holder and the United States DOJ, with the support of the Office of Justice Programs, the Bureau of Justice Assistance and the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention sponsored the symposium. Here are two links in the news on this conference: NPR about the event and AG Holder’s remarks.
- American Council of Chief Defenders meeting in Washington, D.C, June 24, 2009: link to Attorney General Eric Holder’s remarks at that gathering.
- Director of Task Force response to theTexas State Legislature letter regarding April 14, 2009 Constitution Project’s National Right to Counsel Committee report, Justice Denied: America’s Continuing Neglect of our Constitutional Right to Counsel. The report details the endemic and systemic challenges of the indigent defense system and recommends twenty-two specific reforms. The full report and other relevant materials are available online here.
- BJA's National Training and Technical Assistance Center BJA is pleased to announce the availability of training and technical assistance through its new National Training and Technical Assistance Center (NTTAC). Assistance is available to criminal justice agencies and organizations to improve their capacity to address the myriad of challenges they face. Eligible recipients include law enforcement, courts, corrections, providers of substance abuse and mental health services to individuals involved in the criminal justice system, justice information sharing professionals, and crime prevention specialists. BJA's training and technical assistance program is not a grant or funding program. Rather, it is aimed at imparting skills, knowledge, and information that target specific needs and issues of the criminal justice community. To obtain additional information about the services that are available or to request technical assistance or training, contact the NTTAC at bja.ntta@fvtc.edu, via fax at 202–347–5614, or by calling 202–347–5610 or 1–888–347–5610 (Monday through Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Eastern Time).
- Bench Guide on Immigration Issues Available for State Court Judges. As part of its efforts through SJI’s Strategic Initiatives Grants program, the Center for Public Policy Studies has finalized a Bench Guide for state trial court judges on immigration issues. The Bench Guide is intended to help judges identify circumstances before them in which a state criminal conviction or sentence may have collateral immigration consequences. It is important that judges are aware of these issues when taking a guilty plea or determining an appropriate sentence.
- National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers- Minor Crimes, Massive Waste: The Terrible Toll of America’s Broken Misdemeanor Court http://www.nacdl.org/misdemeanor
- National Criminal Justice Reference Service (NCJRS)
- Sample Standards
- The National Juvenile Defender Center has released “National Juvenile Defense Standards.” The standards provide comprehensive information about the role and duties of the juvenile defenders in the modern juvenile court system and provide a framework for representation anchored in law, science, and professional codes of responsibility.
- Evaluating Court Processes for Determining Indigency (University of Nebraska, Lincoln, 2007)
- Quick Guide to National Standards for Indigent Defense - National Legal Aid & Defender Association (March 2011)
- State Bar of Texas Guidelines and Standards for Texas Non-Capital Counsel adopted by the State Bar Board of Directors on January 28, 2011
- State Bar of Texas Guidelines and Standards for Texas Capital Counsel adopted by the State Bar Board of Directors on April 21, 2006
- 2012 federal poverty guidelines issued by the US Department of Health and Human Services--Many jurisdictions use these to determine eligibility for services, such as appointed counsel in criminal cases
- Eligible for Justice: Guidelines for Appointing Defense Counsel, The Brennan Center, September 2008 - The study recommends a set of practical guidelines to help states and counties with the task of determining eligibility. It is a quick read and provides practical guidance and insight into the process of determining eligibility for court appointed counsel.
- ABA Eight Guidelines of Public Defense Related to Excessive Workloads
- Criminal Justice Debt: A Barrier to Reentry published by Brennan Center for Justice (Bannon, Nagrecha, Diller), 2010
- In For a Penny: The Rise of America's New Debtors' Prisons published by ACLU, 2010
- 2012 federal poverty guidelines issued by the US Department of Health and Human Services--Many jurisdictions use these to determine eligibility for services, such as appointed counsel in criminal cases
- Eligible for Justice: Guidelines for Appointing Defense Counsel, The Brennan Center, September 2008 - The study recommends a set of practical guidelines to help states and counties with the task of determining eligibility. It is a quick read and provides practical guidance and insight into the process of determining eligibility for court appointed counsel.
- Predicting and Preventing Wrongful Convictions, National Institute of Justice (March 2013)
Why are innocent people wrongfully convicted in certain cases yet acquitted in others? Research is starting to uncover what happens. A new study, "Predicting Erroneous Convictions: A Social Science Approach to Miscarriages of Justice" compared cases where innocent defendants were wrongfully convicted to "near misses" - cases in which an innocent defendant was acquitted or had charges dismissed before trial. They found 10 significant facts that could lead to a wrongful conviction:- A younger defendant
- A defendant with a criminal history
- A weak prosecution case
- Prosecution withheld evidence
- Lying by a non-eyewitness
- Unintentional witness misidentification
- Misinterpreting forensic evidence at trial
- A weak defense
- Defendant offered a family witness
- A "punitive" state culture
Read the full study (434 pages)
Watch a video interview with lead researcher Dr. Jon Gould
- The National Juvenile Defender Center has released “National Juvenile Defense Standards.” The standards provide comprehensive information about the role and duties of the juvenile defenders in the modern juvenile court system and provide a framework for representation anchored in law, science, and professional codes of responsibility.
- Juvenile Collateral Consequences Project -- http://beforeyouplead.com/
The Juvenile Collateral Consequences Project is an endeavor undertaken by the American Bar Association to document and analyze the significant hardships experienced by youth who have come in contact with the juvenile justice system. These hardships, known as collateral consequences affect youth who have successfully completed a sentence imposed by the court. The hardships include barriers to education, employment, and public benefits. - The Cost of Justice: How Low-Income Youth Continue To Pay the Price of Failing Indigent Defense Systems, from the Georgetown Journal on Poverty Law & Policy, Volume XVI, Apr 7, 2010, Katayoon Majd and Patricia Puritz
- Access to Counsel, (NCJ 204063) June 2004, OJJDP Juvenile Justice Practice Series, Bulletin, 34 pages, Jones, J.B., Examines access to legal counsel in the juvenile justice system
- What Juvenile Boards Must Do to Implement Senate Bill 7 - Prepared by: Robert O. Dawson [ PDF | WORD ]
- American Bar Association’s Standing Committee on Legal Aid and Indigent Defendants
- National Legal Aid and Defender Association’s Defender Legal Services Division
- State Bar of Texas’ Legal Services to the Poor in Criminal Matters Standing Committee
- Texas Criminal Defense Lawyers Association
- Texas Fair Defense Project
- CriminalJustice.com information for current and prospective students who are thinking about entering the criminal justice field
- Documentary video: Clarence Earl Gideon - Constitutional Hero (Right to Counsel), produced by Robe Imbriano, The Documentary Group
- Toward Gideon’s Orchestra: The Fair Defense Act, Rothgery and Their Application in Tarrant County Presented to the Mexican American Bar Association March 26, 2009, Fort Worth, by Don Hase
- Video of University of Houston Indigent Defense Symposium: Achieving Quality in Indigent Defense–Proposals, Prototypes, and Policymaking (September 5, 2008)
- The Challenge: Evaluating Indigent Defense Conference Report The North Carolina Office of Indigent Defense Services (IDS) report from the one-day conference, The Challenge: Evaluating Indigent Defense, held on March 18, 2005, in Chapel Hill. The national conference provided an opportunity for indigent defense practitioners and criminal justice social scientists from around the country to discuss strategies and approaches for evaluating indigent defense. The conference report contains a summary of the conference proceedings as well as in-depth information about the IDS Systems Evaluation Project.
- This is from the State Bar committee’s website: The committee has also recently (March 2012) developed a brochure (pdf) (Spanish pdf) for distribution statewide, to provide information to defendants considering representing themselves in misdemeanor criminal cases.
- BJS Census of Public Defender Offices, 2007 111909
- BJA Contracting for Indigent Defense Services 2000
- Securing Reasonable Caseloads: Ethics and Law in Public Defense, Norman Lefstein, American Bar Association Standing Committee on Legal Aid and Indigent Defendants (November 2011)
- ABA Eight Guidelines of Public Defense Related to Excessive Workloads
- ABA’s opinion issued in May (#06-441) concerning the ethical obligations of lawyers who represent indigent criminal defendants
- Texas Criminal Justice Integrity Unit (TCJIU) 2008 Report (February 23, 2009) - This report covers TCJIU activities for June 2008 through January 2009.
- Ensuring a Reliable and Effective Criminal Justice System
Report on a workshop for teams from eight states by Barry Mahoney, July 2005, The Justice Management Institute
To view or print PDF files you must have the Adobe Acrobat® reader. This software may be obtained without charge from Adobe. Download the reader from the Adobe Web site.
Updated: 08-May-2013
