Earlier this year, it seemed as if poor people charged with crimes in a handful of Gulf Coast communities would finally have a fighting chance in court. In April, commissioners in Victoria County considered a partnership with a nonprofit law firm that provides indigent defendants in rural counties with more robust legal representation.
The proposal would have created a countywide public defender’s office in partnership with Texas RioGrande Legal Aid (TRLA), which would staff a centralized office with attorneys and a full-time investigator. Criminal justice experts said the setup would be fairer and more efficient than the current practice of assigning private attorneys to represent the indigent on an ad-hoc basis. The county would save $1.3 million in the first two years through cost sharing with the state; it would save $412,000 in every subsequent year, based on the county’s average caseload in the past three years. Officials from three other rural counties — Jackson, DeWitt and Calhoun — said they would have followed suit.
“It does have a lot of appeal to it,” Victoria County Judge Ben Zeller said at a commissioners meeting on April 15, when the plan was pitched to him and other county officials.
