Forgotten in jail without a lawyer: How a Texas town fails poor defendants

[douglas9]

Maverick County held man 20 months for $300 theft, no lawyer

Fernando Padron was stuck in a South Texas jail cell. Accused of stealing credit cards that he used to buy diapers, a bike and other goods for his family, he had not been brought into court or spoken to a lawyer.

He did not hear anything about his case for nine months. Finally, in March 2023, prosecutors charged him with a misdemeanor, and he was released. But his ordeal had just begun.

Over the next two years, he would be arrested repeatedly in connection with the theft. He was pressured into a seemingly improper plea deal in one court, only to be charged again in another. At one point, he was in jail for six months before officials involved in his case realized he was there.

Padron, 27, is a U.S. citizen with no prior convictions, and his offense was minor enough that elsewhere in Texas, he might not have been jailed at all. But he was in the dysfunctional Maverick County court system, where basic tenets of American justice often do not apply.

Officials here openly acknowledge that poor defendants accused of minor crimes are rarely provided lawyers. And people regularly spend months behind bars without charges filed against them, much longer than state law allows. Last year alone, at least a dozen people were held too long uncharged after arrests for minor nonviolent crimes, interviews and records reviewed by The New York Times show.

Some defendants seem to have been forgotten in jail. Two men were released after The Times asked about them, half a year after their sentences had been completed.


https://www.expressnews.com/news/texas/article/texas-bail-poverty-lawyers-20237506.php

[no_hypocrisy]

1. I understand how jailed defendants can fall through the cracks.

I was assigned a client in a NJ jail who had been there for months. (In NJ, when you're first admitted to the Bar, you have to take assigned criminal cases.) His crime was breaking a restraining order by yelling through a closed/locked door at his ex-wife.

His family scrounged up enough money to a bail bondsman for his release. But he remained in jail.

I visited my client to get his story and to get him released. I had a receipt of payment to show the court cashier, which was recognized. We went to court for a scheduled hearing for something else, but I took the opportunity to ask for his release and I'd be responsible for my client.

He was released upon my documentation of bail.

He had been in jail for months.

Later, upon research, I discovered that his "bondsman" wasn't registered with the State of New Jersey. He lacked "Letters of Accreditation".