The Cost of Indigent Defense in Bell County

How does Bell County stack up to other counties when it comes to Indigent Defense?  These charts explore some of the many facets of that question.  Bell County is compared to several counties with similar populations.  Bell County is also compared to each of the counties surrounding Bell County.  Finally, the total expenditures for the entire State of Texas are shown, as well.

Bell County Felony Cases

Bell County Misdemeanor Cases

Bell County Juvenile Cases

Subtotal Showing Expenditures and Grants

Grand Totals

* Has a Public Defender’s Office.

This data was obtained from the Task Force On Indigent Defense Public Access Website. The data is available on each county’s “County Data Sheet.”

Indigent Defense: The Government’s Fulfillment of a Fundamental Promise

The original Constitution, as proposed in 1787, contained almost no individual rights guarantees.  Rather, the Constitution was focused primarily on setting up a governmental system which would prove more effective than the one provided for by the flawed Articles of Confederation. 

During the ratification process, however, many of the states were opposed to the new Constitution specifically because it failed to guarantee certain fundamental individual rights.  The Federalists (who were in favor of the Constitution) argued that the Constitution protected individual rights by establishing a limited government.  The Anti-Federalists (who were opposed to the Constitution) argued that if the delegates to the Constitutional Convention had truly cared about protecting individual rights, then they would have spelled out such protections in the Constitution itself.  The Anti-Federalist feared among other things that the new Constitution would create a government which might eventually have too much power and influence over citizens’ lives.

In an effort to gain acceptance and ratification of the new constitution, the First Congress had to promise to make changes which would protect the rights of the citizens.  In 1789, James Madison made good on that promise when he proposed twelve amendments to the Constitution, ten of which were ratified by the end of 1791.  Those ten amendments are known collectively as the United States Bill of Rights.

Among those first ten amendments was a promise by the government to the people that anytime that the power of the government was used to prosecute someone for an alleged crime, the government would treat the accused person fairly. 

Specifically, the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides:

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district where in the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.

While this served to protect the citizens against an overly aggressive or out-of-control federal government, there was a question as to whether state governments were also limited by the Sixth Amendment.  Since the majority of criminal prosecutions are brought by state governments, this was a big question.

Finally, in 1963, the United States Supreme Court explained that when the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution says that a person accused of a crime shall enjoy the right to have the assistance of counsel for his defense, that means that all persons accused of a crime must be provided the assistance of an attorney—whether that person can afford to hire an attorney themselves or not—and regardless of whether the case was brought by the federal government or by a state government.  Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335, 83 S.Ct. 792 (1963).

In other words, any time the government spends money to prosecute someone for an alleged crime, the government must also be prepared to spend money to guarantee that the accused individual is treated fairly.  That is the fulfillment of a fundamental promise made to us by our Founding Fathers.

Before anyone complains about the cost of indigent defense, perhaps that person should contemplate what type of government we would have without the Sixth Amendment.

Welcome to the Bell County Justice Center

The Bell County misdemeanor courts and associated departments are now fully moved into their new building at what the County is calling the Bell County Justice Center.  While it is too early to tell if adding the county departments to the building will mean that justice finally makes an appearance in the Justice Center, it will be welcome news for many now that both the felony and misdemeanor courts are in the same building for the first time in quite a few years.

Instead of the “temporary” courthouse annex on Second Avenue, all of the misdemeanor courts are now next to the district courts.  The physical address for all of the criminal courts is now 1201 Huey Road, Belton, Texas 76513. Here is a Google Map of the entrance from Loop 121 onto Huey Road.  You can click on the link labeled “Directions” to get detailed driving instructions from your location to the new complex:

Once you arrive at the intersection above, you can see the complex over to your left.  The turn onto Huey Road looks like this:

As you can see, the street sign indicates it is the 1200 block of Huey Road (even though Google thinks it is Huey Drive).  It intersects with the 2200 block of Loop 121.

Once you enter onto Huey Road, you’ll drive just a short bit to get to the entrance to the complex. 

The complex now consists of the county and district courts, the county and district prosecutors, the county and district clerks, the Indigent Defense department, the Pretrial Services department, the Bell County Jail, adult probation, and the Justice of the Peace for Precinct One.

There is only one public entrance for the entire building, and there are deputies on duty manning the metal detectors.  Therefore, please leave all of your guns, knives and bombs at home.

I cannot imagine what a nightmare the Justice Complex is going to be on Monday mornings when the parking lot is full of potential jurors, defendants, lawyers and the rest of the public trying to fit through the bottleneck that will undoubtedly occur.  I suppose the lesson is, “be early.”

If you are going to the Bell County Jail, you’ll turn to your right and just keep driving as far as you can.  Eventually you’ll run into the jail.  The entrance is in the corner, and you’ll have to walk a

bit across a little foot bridge to get there.  They have a beautiful round entrance area which you’ll see on your right as you walk by it with the summer sun beating down on you from above, but someone decided to put flag poles right in the middle of the driving surface and then on top of that someone roped off the entrance anyway.  A beautiful and convenient drop-off location blocked off with $3 worth of cheap rope.  That’s classy!

Regardless, the new courthouse complex is fantastic and it looks like a million dollars (though I suppose I should say it looks more like almost $100 million dollars)!  Even though the voters repeatedly voted it down, and even though the public may scream about the expense, I (for one) realize how badly the county needed this expansion.  Also, as a criminal defense attorney I previously spent a good chunk of my day driving back-and-forth between the district and county buildings.  At long last, I have one-stop shopping since the county’s “Justice Complex” is now open for business.  Let’s just hope that not all of that complex justice is out-of-stock.

See you at the new courthouse!

Court Appointed vs. Retained Attorneys in Bell County Felony Cases (1993-2009)

I created the following table with data provided by the Texas Office of Court Administration.  This table shows the total number of felony cases resolved during the last 17 years in Bell County, Texas.  It then shows how many cases out of each total had a defendant represented by retained counsel and how many were represented by court-appointed counsel.  It then shows the percentage of court-appointed cases for that year.

Interesting.  In 2009 – even with the country in a major recession and presumably more Bell County citizens out of work than any of the other years for which data is available – the percentage of defendants with court-appointed attorneys dropped from 82% in 2008 to 55% last year. 

Here’s a bar graph showing the changes:

What’s the reason for the change?  Perhaps you’ll recall an earlier post of mine (“Why high bail amounts cost taxpayers money”).  In that posting I argued that the high preset bail bond amounts imposed by Bell County magistrates result in criminal defendants qualifying for court-appointed attorneys because they’ve spent all of their money on bonding out of jail.

Well, since that post, the new Pretrial Services Office in Bell County has been bonding out more and more criminal defendants on PR Bonds.  So, even though the preset bail bond amounts have not lowered like they should have, it does not matter since PR Bond is getting more and more people out of jail and back to being productive members of society.

With more criminal defendants able to return to work, there have been more retained attorneys.  It’s nice to be vindicated by data.

Types of Criminal Cases Handled by Bell County District Courts in 2009