Free Legal Counsel at Magistration Fizzles Out: County pulls the plug on pilot program thwarted by staffing crises – News

Even with the emphatic support of the Travis County Com­mis­sioners Court, Sheriff’s Office, district and county attorneys, and Public Defender’s Office, a pilot program providing free legal assistance to poor people at the Travis County Jail has collapsed. The program, known as “counsel at first appearance,” or CAFA, began operating on April 8 but was paused 9 days later because of a staffing crisis at the jail. Months of meetings aimed at resurrecting the program did not work; on July 19, the Commissioners Court voted to end it.

The vote disappointed Bradley Hargis, who leads the Capital Area Private Defender Service, a group of attorneys that would have received a $500,000 grant to provide the legal representation. “The real heartbreaking part was having the grant canceled after so much effort has been put into trying to make it happen,” Hargis said. “This has been actively discussed for three years; it’s been the subject of conversation for at least five.”

Hargis had worked to pair the grant, provided by the Arnold Ventures foundation, with a yearlong study developed by researchers at Texas A&M. The study would have paid CAPDS attorneys to represent half of the indigent people appearing before judges after being booked into the jail, an appearance known as magistration. The other 50% would not have received the free attorneys. At the end of the year, the researchers would have compared outcomes for the two groups.

Those able to afford attorneys can better dispute the charges against them during magistration and argue for more lenient bond conditions, allowing them to return to their jobs and continue providing for their loved ones. For those without an attorney, the dialogue with the judge is often one-sided, Hargis said, resulting in higher bond amounts and stricter bond conditions that keep them in jail at disproportionate rates. Austin is the only large Texas city that does not provide some form of CAFA to indigent people, which is why it’s been pursued as an important step forward in addressing wealth-based disparities in local criminal justice.

Hargis said the CAFA program was working as intended before Sheriff Sally Hernandez pulled her cooperation – that move followed the resignations of correctional officers tasked with maintaining security in the meetings between arrestees and attorneys. During weeks of talks aimed at restarting the program, Hernandez lost even more staff. The sheriff wound up offering to facilitate CAFA for only 2% of indigent arrestees – two eight-hour shifts per month out of a total of 90 – instead of the program’s original 50%.

“It would be one thing if we started with two shifts for two months, and then we went to 10 shifts, then we went to 20 – you know, if there was a plan to rapidly ramp up,” Hargis said. “But that’s where we are now – what resources would be needed, and what kind of time frame would that take, to get to 100% representation at magistration? And one of the challenges in Texas is that the state provides relatively few resources for indigent defense, so the majority of the money would have to come from county tax dollars. So the commissioners would have to balance other priorities and other expenditures in other places.”