Two-thirds of Public Defenders Office clients back in community
The Public Defender’s Office has only been in operation in Hays County for one year with the mission of providing legal defense for low-income people accused of crimes. The Hays County Commissioners Court heard a presentation by Neighborhood Defenders Service Texas Hays County Criminal Defense Team on the Public Defender’s Office progress and “positive impact” on the community at the regularly scheduled meeting Tuesday.
Meenu Walters, NDS Texas managing director, said the PDO has closed about half of the cases that have been assigned to date. Of those closed cases, 33% have received community based outcomes, 35% have received confinement and 32% received time served (sentence satisfied by time awaiting sentencing in custody). The PDO has received approximately 1,200 cases in its first year.
Walters said that the data shows an expected trend that more serious cases have more carceral outcomes. Of closed felony cases, 63% received confinement, 32% received time served and 5% received community based outcomes. Of closed misdemeanor cases, 61% received time served, 33% received community based outcomes and 6% received confinement.
“Very few of our cases, only 6%, have resulted in carceral outcomes, and everybody else is part of the community,” Walters said. “This is why having a good support system at the misdemeanor level matters. I think that what you’re going to end up with is a team like this helping disentangle people from the criminal justice system before they escalate into felonies.”
Walters said that of the closed mental health cases, 25% received community based outcomes, 32% received time served, 25% received confinement and 18% went to mental health court.
“I think this is telling about Hays County and the joint support and effort there is to not use the prison system as a mental health facility by all of the stakeholders here,” Walters said. “We have worked hard together with you and other stakeholders in this county to make sure that there is enough support so that we do not have a mental illness to prison pipeline as strongly as it might exist in other areas.”
Jeff Hohl, NDS Texas Hays County supervising attorney, said that there are two teams of attorneys in the office “made up of staff attorneys and supervising attorneys overseeing each team.”
Hohl showed a visual representation of the steps of the case assignment process. The steps that occur before getting to the Public Defender’s Office are the arrest, magistrate court, request for attorney, order of appointment, 16.22 evaluation ordered if necessary (early identification of individuals suspected of having a mental illness or intellectual disability) and assignment made by the Indigent Defense Coordinator. The steps that occur after getting to the PDO are the beginning of holistic representation, open internal case file, contact client via letter, assign NDS attorney, attorney meets client and attorney and team support client and build case.
“Before we’ve ever talked to a client, we’ve looked at the materials that we’ve gotten in the assignment process and flagged certain things. We’ve made sure that we alert team members that need to be alerted,” Hohl said. “We get very little information upon appointment, but once we can talk with the client and then start getting discovery, we’re able to continue digging into that case.”
Walters said the wraparound services start when the attorney meets with the client.
“They identify what the client’s needs are. They find out about the charges themselves but also what their needs are around those charges if there are mental health complexities,” Walters said. “You’ll see that when we look at all of our cases as a whole … between getting time served, which is a conviction on your record but then no additional services or time, and then people who are getting community based outcomes like probation, you’ll see that about two-thirds of the people we’ve represented are back in our community. That’s the reason that having this holistic structure is really important.”
Hohl showed various partnerships made with the PDO and other entities throughout the county across various client needs: educational, employment, medical, social services and mental health. For medical partnerships, there is Hill Country, Cenikor Foundation, Ascension Seton Hays, Scheib Mental Health Clinic, Evoke Wellness and Communicate Health Center. For education and employment partnerships, there is Texas State University, San Marcos Public Library and Workforce Solutions of Hays County. For social service partnerships, there are Southside Community Center, Hays County Food Bank, Goodwill of Central Texas, St. Vincent de Paul Society, Community Action Hays and The Salvation Army.
“We’re not just looking at what’s happening in the courtroom. But when they’re done with the case, we want them to be successful in the community,” Hohl said. “So referring them, connecting them [and] guiding them is part of that process.”
